Fried Banana Love

Oh yes, I told you there were fried banana’s involved, but first lets start at the beginning of Valentine’s Day. 

A friend of mine gave me a loaf of this delicious, dense, rye bread with lots of nuts and seeds, made at her bakery.  This bread was the inspiration for a delicious Valentine’s Day Breakfast!

We picked up a package of smoked wild salmon, some fresh chive cream cheese, and red onion. 

Including our delicious Santorini Capers, we had a fabulous breakfast on our hands.  Plus it’s something we don’t have often at all!

This bread was hearty and dense and my 1 slice was plenty to fill me up and keep me full til lunch. 

We also enjoyed iced lattes with cinnamon :)

Then we headed up to Portsmouth, NH to spend the day and to have our Valentine’s Day Dinner.  Originally I was thinking about making reservations at The Oar House because that was our very first Valentine’s Day dinner together senior year of college :)  But, I quickly got over that because I wanted to try something new!

Once we arrived it was lunch time and we headed into one of my favorite little cafes downtown called Popovers!  I had a cup of tomato bisque and half of a roasted veggie sandwich! 

My soup came with a small popover…I LOVE popovers…crispy, light, eggy batter.  After our meal, we share two small cookies…1 chocolate chip and 1 oatmeal raisin. 

              

After some walking, shopping, a trip to a local brewery so Brian could fill up a Growler of beer, and driving around our old alma matter (UNH!), we headed back in Portsmouth for dinner at:

The Black Trumpet

I had checked out the website before making reservations and knew it sounded like a place we’d love, and I was right.

We were a little early, so we went upstairs to have a cocktail while waiting for our table.  I ordered the Lava Lamp: champagne, pomegranate liquor, and pomegranate molasses.  Tangy, tart, and refreshing!  They even put a few pomegranate arils in the glass.  This picture is once down at our table because it had better lighting than the bar.

 

Once at our copper covered table, we perused the menu they had “little dishes”,”medium dishes”, cheeses, salads, soups, and main courses.

 

We opted for 1 little dish, 2 cheeses, and each a main course.

Our little dish was:  Marinated White Asparagus, Crispy Ventrêche and Grapefruit in a sumac béarnaise  

Ventreche is pretty much pork belly…like little morsels of the best bacon you’ve ever tasted :)

This had so many interesting flavors and they all tasted amazing together.

Next was cheese.  I was worried about getting full off cheese, but no matter if you chose 1, 2, or 3 different types, you always get 2 oz. total. 

We chose the sheep's milk, and goats milk. 

The sheep's milk was served with a sweet onion jam which tasted like a little cup of caramelized onions!!

The goats had a truffled chestnut and date molasses.  I wasn’t wild about this goat’s cheese by itself, but with the crostini and molasses it was delicious.

I also love the slate cheese board with the name of the cheese written in chalk!

we clearly hated it…

I enjoyed a glass of Sauvignon Blanc with the cheese

Both of our entrees were specials for Valentine’s Day.  I had the:

Oven-roasted Gulf of Maine halibut with Maine shrimp fritter and black venus rice, served with fava bean puree, and spice soy aioli.

Brian had the short ribs…they were delicious.

My fish was perfectly cooked, simple, but great flavor!  The little shrimp fritter was DELICIOUS!  The rice and bean puree were good, not amazing but at that point I didn’t even need them. 

Then came dessert…oh yes, what you’ve all been waiting for. 

Now I usually shy away from “deep fried” items, but after reading this description there was no WAY I was leaving without trying it!

um…yes please!!!

yes, that would be a deep fried banana, cut into 4 pieces, with marshmallow on the left, peanut butter mousse on the right, and all drizzled in delicious chocolate sauce.  The chocolate tasted like melted semi-sweet chocolate.  A-MA-ZING!!!!!!!!!!  The banana was hot and gooey and eaten with a bite of all components was heaven in my mouth. 

Since Brian was driving home, he opted for a cappuccino as well…

Thanks, Black Trumpet, for making our first Valentine’s day as husband and wife a memorable AND delicious one!