What's for Dinner?

Parmesan breaded trout with a lemon-caper sauce.

Clearly, not our normal fare. There's a story here.

Mark and my favorite restaurant is the Troutdale Dining Room in Bristol, TN. It is the only five-star restaurant in the area. The original owners were a couple who moved here from the New York area, and were disappointed in the quality of local restaurants. So they set about to improve that. And improve it they did. The woman was in charge of the food, the man was in charge of PR. His name was Bruno. He had one of those thick Brooklyn accents, and he did a series of radio commercials. His tag line was "Come to the Troutdale Dining Room, where we make everyting but the buttah." And he wasn't kidding. When you arrive, your trout is swimming in a pond out back. Seriously.

Troutdale is one of those places you only go about once a year, and only on special occasions. (Unless you're obscenely rich, in which case, knock yourself out - go whenever you want to.) The food is phenomenal. Seriously. Their signature dish is the Parmesan breaded trout with a lemon-caper sauce. I honestly didn't know you could do something that wonderful to a fish. It is fantastic.

So dinner tonight was my attempt to recreate it. I did OK, but I made the classic blunder: I didn't let the oil get hot enough before dropping the fish in. It fell apart in the pan. But it was still tasty. I breaded rainbow trout in panko and grated Parmesan. The I pan-seared it in olive oil (except I botched the sear). I made the sauce with white wine and cream, then added lemon zest and capers. We ate it with lentils and baked sweet potatoes.

Troutdale's best dessert is something called Between the Sheets. It's a mousse served between two sheets of white chocolate, drizzled with raspberry sauce. We opted for Ben and Jerry's creme brulee ice cream for dessert tonight. Not the same, but tasty.

We haven't been to Troutdale in several years, and they've changed ownership since we were last there. I hear the food is just as good, and I hope we get to go again soon. Because while dinner tonight was good, it wasn't five-star good. If I'd paid thirty dollars a plate for what I made tonight, I'd be chapped.