Laurie’s Birthday Dinner!

Laurie’s birthday is in December…but she really starts celebrating it and using it for ‘gifts’ for herself as early as October.  She actively promotes her birthdays as occupying the entire time period between Thanksgiving and December 23^rd.  Who am I to disagree?!!  After all, ‘Happy wife, Happy life!”

You guessed it!  This is a ‘selfie’ of us before going out for her birthday dinner… Are we ‘hip’ or what!  I’m not telling you how old she is… Suffice it to say she married a much older man.

FYI, this is about as dressed up as I get these days.  I’ve worn a suit once and a sport jacket once since retiring…  

This is the Cru Bistro and Wine Bar in Farragut and Knoxville’s Turkey Creek Shopping Center.  We’d heard some good things about it from some friends and Laurie suggested that we give it a try for her birthday…rather than just going to one of our ‘safe’ restaurant choices.  I liked the idea as I needed some more blog material!

This is the bar side view of the interior of Cru Bistro and Wine Bar.  It has a little of that ‘loft industrial look’ mellowed out with the lighting and wood accents.

It was Laurie’s birthday so of course, alcoholic libations were in order!  Laurie really liked her dirty martinis with tw0 olives but I stuck with my usual unimaginative Miller Lite beer. 

The pricing for the drinks was right up my alley!  The cost of a dirty martini was only $5.00 and my beer was $2.00…

We both ordered Caesar Salads with our dinners.  Laurie thought that hers was pretty good but I thought that the salad was very bland.  Question: a Caesar salad with cherry tomatoes and Kalamata olives?  Also, what was the purpose of the dry tasteless bread? (…a giant crouton referred to on the menu as a crostini)

I had to request fresh ground pepper for our salads…it should have been an ‘automatic’ for the waiter.  I also noted that there wasn’t any salt and pepper on the table for general use, perhaps serving as a statement by the chef?

I ordered the Dijon Pork Tenderloin for my entrée. ($17.00) It featured slices of pork tenderloin in a Pommery Mustard Cream with Green Beans and Benton’s Bacon in Yukon Potato Hash.  The pork tenderloin was very nice and the green beans were cooked perfectly. 

The Yukon Potato Hash was OK but it wasn’t as distinctive as I might have expected with Benton’s Bacon as a distinctive and featured ingredient.  I just couldn’t pick up the flavor of the bacon in the hash… The other problem was that the waiter didn’t know what was in the hash.  He went back to the kitchen and asked but either he wasn’t told or he forgot to tell me that it contained bits of red bell pepper.  I was lucky that they had little impact on the taste of the hash.  

Laurie wasn’t very hungry and she wanted to save room for dessert, so she ordered the Chicken Quesadilla from Cru’s Small Plate selection. ($10.00)  I believe that it consisted of grilled chicken, Cheddar-Jack Cheese and Black Bean Salsa with Avocado Cilantro Sour Cream.

Laurie thought that her quesadilla was excellent!  When researching the restaurant’s website for this posting, this item seems to have been dropped from the menu and replaced with a shrimp version for $15.00. 

For dessert, I ordered something that I’d never had before.  I like peanut butter, I like chocolate and I like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups so this seemed like a sure thing… It’s the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Cream Pie. ($6.00) It was luscious, but for my taste it was way too much of a good thing!

Laurie went with one of her favorite stand-by desserts…the Crème Brulee Infused with Orange and Vanilla. ($6.00) It was very good indeed!

When I got home and took another look at my receipt, I noticed one other little problem.  Laurie’s Caesar Salad was $7.00 as it didn’t come with an entrée.  My Caesar Salad should have cost $5.00 as an accompaniment to my entrée…but I was charged $7.00.  Not a big deal…but careless on the waiter’s part.

Despite any negatives, we did enjoy dining at Cru Bistro and Wine Bar…and we will return.  There are many other items on the menu to try out…maybe even some wine!  Cru Bistro and Wine Bar is located at 11383 Parkside Drive in Knoxville Tennessee.  Phone: 865-671-6612.  Website: http://crubistroandwinebar.com/.

On the way home we stopped and Laurie took this photo of the Christmas decorations in Farragut’s Creekside Park.  It was very colorful and festive!

When we got home, we took this photo of our ‘boss’…J.D. on his new Christmas blanket.  When we had company over during the Holidays and had to move his blanket so folks could sit on the couch, he was not a happy camper!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave