Dine Around

Before I got to the conference, I registered for a dine around. This is organized by the conference and there are several restaurants and topics to choose from. I selected the topic about serving your community and the restaurant was Montrio Bistro. As the rest of the people who were there, we selected for the restaurant, more than the topic. Good choice for all of us. The company and the food were well worth pulling me out of my mood to be anti-social. I happened to talk quite a lot to very interesting people, mostly 2 smart and fun women from Wisconsin (who didn't even work together, but knew each other) and one former school media specialist, now turned asst. director for a public library in CT. There were other people at the table, but we were on one end and our conversations didn't mix too much.

For dinner, I started with an interesting cocktail - Corazon Valiente; mezcal (a smoky liquor made from the agave plant), blackberry-plum shrub, lemon and agave nectar. It was pretty strong, but once I had a few sips, really nice and refreshing.

I didn't want a full entree, plus I wasn't in the mood for meat, so I selected an absolutely wonderful salad of poached pear, warm nut? crusted goat cheese, and mixed field greens with candied pecans.

I also tried another appetizer - the baby artichoke - smoked bacon risotto with spinach and parmesan. It was very good, but I seriously enjoyed the salad the most. Of course I couldn't skip dessert, so had the Chocolate Ganache cake. This would have been a fairly standard dessert, though perfectly creamy/fudgy and not very sweet, had they not served it with a small scoop of coffee ice cream and drizzle of caramel mousse and stout caramel. Looks alone probably made this taste fabulous.