Hank's Smoked Brisket

Every couple of months, we get a hankerin' for Hank's Smoked Briskets. In the picture above, you'll find Hank with our order of sliced brisket. He smokes it all on-site and serves it with his own barbecue sauce. It is melt in your mouth, buy a sandwich to eat on the way home or you won't make it with a whole pound good. I prefer grape Faygo with my brisket, but Alexa enjoys the peach. Make sure to drink one or the other with your brisket. Hank's on Urban Spoon.
Next door to Hank's is H.O.T. (Hate on This) hair salon. He even offers specials in his restaurant inspired by the H.O.T. stylist and customers. We tried to make Addison go in to have her hair done, but she declined--even when we offered to buy her a H.O.T. stuffed baked potato with pulled pork barbecue and jalapenos.

Addison sucks down her first raw oyster

This week, we had some friends over for dinner to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. How was the corned beef and cabbage? Well...we ate that the day before (and it was pretty darned tasty). We feasted on oysters and other delicious treats with two friends that just happened to be redheads. We even ate on the back deck, enjoying the beautiful weather.

In the top picture, our friend Addison enjoys her first raw oyster. And she seemed to like it-since she ate more than one. However, she wouldn't try the cockatil sauce. Instead, Addison ate her oysters topped with both the a tradition mignonette (a red wine and vingegar sauce with garlic, lemon zest and herbs) and a Thai mignonette (with chilis, sesame oil, cilantro, lime zest and rice wine vinegar).

We tried a new-to-us type of oyster called Gold Band. Not to be confused with varieties of oysters, the name refers to the brand name. The oysters are already separated from the shell and then the whole thing is wrapped with a yellow band. Salty and sweet, the oysters were delicious.

Is that avocado in one of our meals? Well, yes, yes it is. Alexa made some avocado eggrolls that we dipped in a tamarind cashew sauce. Crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside, they were a great choice.

For the main course, Alexa broiled a flat-iron steak with a blackberry and balsamic glaze. She topped it with the shitake mushrooms we had picked up at the Bloomington Winter Farmers' Market.

I wish I had taken a picture of our dessert. Alexa made ginger creme brulee. It was perfect. Marley and Isis (our new friend who is a barbet) joined us in dessert. They like it, too.

We had a great meal with our friends.