{"id":265,"date":"2010-06-15T18:06:27","date_gmt":"2010-06-15T23:06:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=265"},"modified":"2010-06-15T18:10:42","modified_gmt":"2010-06-15T23:10:42","slug":"cerulean-revisited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/?p=265","title":{"rendered":"Cerulean Revisited"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We had dinner at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ceruleanrestaurant.com\/home\/\">Cerulean<\/a> tonight.\u00a0 It&#8217;s been a long hard spring that shows no sign of ending as we head towards July.\u00a0 We planted a bunch of trees today in standing water, mud, and relentless humidity.\u00a0 It seemed like a good day to let someone cook and clean and serve us.<\/p>\n<p>We picked Cerulean mostly because it&#8217;s such a nice space.  The decor is au courant, the servers quiet and professional, the food exceptional.<\/p>\n<p>Tonight it was all that and more.<\/p>\n<p>We ordered wines by the glass and small plates so we could sample lots of different things.\u00a0 The small plates were:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Maple Leaf Duck Breast with blueberry-green peppercorn chutney.\u00a0 OMG.\u00a0 If you&#8217;ve ever cooked duck at home you know what a terrible mess it makes and how hard it is to get it right.\u00a0 This was cooked to absolute simple perfection.\u00a0 And we didn&#8217;t have to clean the stove.<\/li>\n<li>Crispy Potatoes with pancetta, manchego,\u00a0 and roasted garlic-dill sauce.\u00a0 Think oven roasted potatoes as they would serve in heaven and you won&#8217;t be far off.<\/li>\n<li>Grilled Asparagus with pancetta, manchego cheese, and garlic oil.\u00a0 You may be thinking, &#8220;that sounds like the potatoes.&#8221;\u00a0 But the grilled asparagus is a crispy, caramelized, buttery vegetable delight.<\/li>\n<li>Sauteed Shrimp with artichoke tapenade, cherry tomato and basil cream.\u00a0 Artichoke tapenade?\u00a0\u00a0 Yep, just what it sounds like.\u00a0 Artichoke leaves with chopped olives.\u00a0 Sounds odd, but it was so tasty.<\/li>\n<li>Ceviche Sea Scallops with arugula, chive oil,\u00a0parmigiano reggiano and\u00a0 smoked  sea salt.\u00a0 &#8220;Do you know what ceviche is?&#8221; asked our server Chris.\u00a0 Yes I do, and after eating this you wonder why you&#8217;d ever cook a scallop with heat.<\/li>\n<li>and the topper of them all, House Cured Pork Belly with mascarpone polenta and fried egg.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ok.\u00a0 If pork belly isn&#8217;t ridiculously rich and decadent, let&#8217;s top it with cheesy grits and an egg!\u00a0 You&#8217;d think it would be too much, but it wasn&#8217;t.\u00a0 A slice of pork belly, swiped through the polenta and egg, was deeply and fundamentally delicious.<\/p>\n<p>Cerulean was, as always, busy.\u00a0 There was a couple in the booth across from us, and the lady had been through, or was still going through, chemotherapy.<\/p>\n<p>It was a moment that makes you think.\u00a0 Despite a late and frustrating spring, despite weather that saps you everyday, despite a failing body, despite unemployment and oil spewing into the Gulf and pick your crisis of the day, you&#8217;re here today and life is sweet and short and when you get a chance to eat pork belly with cheesy grits and egg you&#8217;d be a fool to pass that up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We had dinner at Cerulean tonight.\u00a0 It&#8217;s been a long [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-restaurants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chuckzumbrun.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}