The Marble Room

On Wednesday, a girlfriend (who as of yet does not have a character profile) and I went to The Marble Room for Restaurant Week.  I have eaten there several times already, because it is my go-to place when I want to take guests someplace for a nice meal, good drinks, live music, in an atmosphere that isn't a club or a lounge where everyone else is about 70 years our senior.  And they have really good tapas, which I love.  And the prices are reasonable (okay, for everyone who doesn't live in SoCal, you have to interpret "reasonable" here to mean "not exorbitant considering you're in a trendy area of San Diego").

And I realize that Wednesday does not equal Saturday (is there a way to type that sign in blogger?).  But Sunday I'm running the Carlsbad half marathon (there will be more on that later), and so my Saturday is going to consist of going to work (don't get me started on this), picking up my race packet and bib, and resting.  Not exactly riveting reading material.

I used to really love restaurant week because I felt like I could try out places I don't normally go.  And then Captain America started this schedule where he is at work until 10pm, and so any time we're both home at night seems like a good reason to go out and celebrate.  And I have enough friends.  I'm going to put a full stop there.  But what I really mean is that I have enough friends who like going out that I could probably suggest something new every weekend and at least one person would like to join me.  So, while the gimmick of restaurant week is losing its charm for me, dining out is not.

The Marble Room did what many restaurants do, which is they kept their regular menu for restaurant week and basically told you that you could have any appetizer, any entree, and a choice of a signature cocktail or a dessert. 

My girlfriend ordered the calamari, which was wonderful.  It is perfectly battered and fried, not too chewy and not too crispy, and it comes with three dipping sauces.  I had the Caprese salad, which I love, to begin with, and to which The Marble Room adds avocado, making it even better.  I have read that something magical happens when tomatoes and avocados are eaten together.  Somehow they compliment each other and some chemistry goes on and your body actually absorbs more nutrients than it would if you had eaten avocado and tomato at separate times in the day.  Not that I need an excuse to eat avocado. 

My girlfriend had the steak as her entree.  She ordered it medium-well, and it came out more like medium-rare.  I guess she didn't mind too much, since she didn't send it back.  She wasn't sure she'd like the sauce it came with, and our waitress told her she could have a different sauce, and so she ordered a side of all three.  One was spicy and I didn't try it.  One was a blue cheese reduction, and was very good, but was the least blue-cheesy looking sauce I have ever seen.  The third sauce was our favorite and was a brandy mushroom sauce. 

I ordered the wild mushroom ravioli, which I have also had before.  They are fantastic.  They come in almost a teriyaki sauce.  It has a little of that sweet/sour flavor but is thicker and darker.  Yum!

(These cookies are NOT whoopie pies)

For dessert, we ordered the whoopie pies and the chocolate peanut butter decadence.  The desserts were also very good, but I have to say, the more time I spend baking, the pickier I become about restaurant desserts.  I don't know if I could have made the exact same thing, and my presentation skills still leave something to be desired, but I definitely could have made something that tasted as good as the chocolate peanut butter decadence (although I couldn't have made the hazelnut gelato that accompanied it.  Which is fine because I don't like hazelnut anyway), and my whoopie pies were a little dry, although to be fair, I've never had a whoopie pie before and so maybe they were supposed to be that way.  I wanted to try them because I've been thinking about making some.  Depending on the size, they look just like the macarons we had in Switzerland, but absolutely are not.  So, I might not be making them.

The singer they had on Wednesday had a very Cheryl Crow-like sound, which was nice.

In conclusion I'd still recommend The Marble Room for tapas, dinner, drinks, and live music, but for dessert, come to my house!