Dinner at Commander's

In what has turned into a birthday tradition, Lizzie indulged me in another year of birthday gorging at the chef's table at Commander's Palace. I do love me some eatin', and boy do they feed you well at the chef's table. I had to enlarge the menu here so you could read what we ate. It was absolutely delicious. Luckily, we had our photographer, Courtney, on hand to take all the pictures.

The chef's table, if you're not aware, is a table in the kitchen at Commander's Palace. You get to see everything that goes on in the kitchen during a normal night, in addition to getting your own chef to prepare a special dinner just for you, and our own personal waiter that selects the wine pairings to go with every course that the chef creates.

As I mentioned, this has become a sort of birthday tradition, as we went last year with Shawn and Lauren. This year it was Kenny and Courtney. We got a new chef this year, Tommy, but one man remained constant between both of our dinners: Argyle! The man is a plethora of knowledge about wine. And does a pretty fantastic job with wine pairing. I'm sure has has a much more official sounding title than "waiter," and perhaps Lizzie can clear that up for me. Apologies to Argyle if he ever reads this. I do enjoy his mustache, and how could you not?

The food was fantastic, as usual for Commander's. None of it sucked, all of it was delicious. I'd taunt you with pictures of all our delicious food, but then I'd feel bad. I can say that I again failed to save nearly enough room for the dessert bomb at the end. And this year, I knew it was coming. I attribute this mostly to Lizzie not eating all of her entrees and my decision to finish them all for her. I do think I got the better end of the deal, eating all the courses rather than the dessert at the end. I would take soft shell crab, pork bellies, and redfish over pie any day. My only regret is there was no room for plum sorbet or strawberry cheesecake ice cream. I was absolutely stuffed by the end, and I do think my face here says it all.

I'm pretty sure I could have gotten by not eating another calorie all weekend long and I would have been fine. I didn't really get hungry until about 3pm on Saturday. Thank you Lizzie!