November Girls Dinner: Shokran Moroccan Grill

Pat chose Shokran Moroccan Grill for November's Girls dinner.

Only five of us were able to make it after an attack of the flu took some of the girls down for the count.

Liz and Pat

Bethany and Nancy

Shokran is BYOB, which is always a nice treat for our group of lushes.  We had our own beautiful private room.  I almost felt like we were in Sex and The City 2 eating a fabulous meal in Abu Dhabi.

We ordered vegetarian couscous, beef couscous, beef kabobs, chicken couscous, and kafta.  The meals were tasty, and there was no room for dessert.  I know, y'all are shocked that I didn't stuff my face with some sort of chocolate, but I stuffed my face at the beginning with hummus and pita bread, so there was no room for chocolate.  You can bet that I made up for my lack of chocolate consumption over the weekend though.

Next month is our special December dinner that has a gift grab bag to make the dinner even more special.  I'm excited.

September's Dinner: The Gage

We went to The Gage on Michigan Avenue for September’s dinner. It was a lovely fall evening, so I walked to the restaurant.

There were just five of us this month: me, Aimee, Jodi, Nancy, and Susan. I swear, Nancy is a trooper for driving in every month from the suburbs. I’m so glad she makes the trek.

I have passed The Gage many, many times before and have never gone inside. It is so much bigger than I expected. It was pretty crowded too. I like to see a place thriving on a Thursday night downtown.  But now that I think about it (and cousin Mike reminded me) the place was a bit too loud and made holding a conversation at the table a bit difficult.

I think all of us ordered a fish dish except for Aimee; she ordered the chicken.  Three people ordered the pumpkin soup as an appetizer and raved about it.  My fish was tasty and I am pretty sure everyone else enjoyed their meals.  I really wish I was a better writer, that way I could really describe the food and the flavors in details with fancy ‘foody’ words.  But, alas, I’m accountant and the best I can do is say:  it was YUMMY!

We ordered 4 of the 5 desserts on the menu.  I think that is the way to go from now on.  That way, we can pass the plates around and everyone can get a taste of the sweets.  Although, this dinner club knows me pretty well, and if I can get a good chocolate dessert, I am like a three-year-old who hasn’t learned how to share.  The girls know to keep away from me and my chocolate and that there is no chance in hell I’ll be sharing my chocolate.  (although I have been trying to change my stingy ways…..)

This restaurant was a little pricier than those we have gone to in the past, and with the cost of parking, I think it may have been one of the pricier evenings we’ve had.  Good thing I was able to walk there and back.  
All I can say is that I am so happy to be part of this little group.  It is something to look forward to every month and it is a special treat to have a nice dinner with friends. 

August’s Dinner: Girl and The Goat

For August’s monthly dinner club, I chose Girl and The Goat. I made the reservations over a month ago (and lucky thing I did!) because the restaurant is the baby of season 4 Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard, and it is very popular.
The day of our dinner started out roughly. Like I said, I made the reservations over a month ago, and I made the reservation for 7 people having no idea how many people would actually be able to make it. There are 12 people or so in our dinner club, and every woman is assigned a month to pick dinner for the third Thursday of that month. It’s great because you can put dinner club in your calendar for the next five years because you always know when it is, and there are never 153 e-mails going back and forth asking “does this date work for you?” So the girl picks a restaurant, and sends out an e-mail a week or two in advanced with the details of the restaurant asking for a “yes” or “no”. The average turnout for a dinner club is maybe six folks, except for December’s dinner which has a gift exchange involved, and no one wants to miss that one!

Anyway….I made my reservation a month in advance because Girl and The Goat is brand spanking new, and Stephanie Izard is famous, and and and….

After I sent my e-mail to the ladies, I got 8 “yeses”. I thought, okay, fine, I told the restaurant 7, but there is often a last minute cancellation due to lack of childcare or work or or or….. and besides, what is the big deal with adding a chair if 8 it is.

Well, apparently the difference between 7 and 8 is a big freaking deal at this restaurant. I called to confirm on the day of dinner, and told them we would have 8 people instead of 7 for our 7:30 reservation. I was told that they couldn’t do 8 people until 10:45, or we could go to a nearby restaurant.

What?!?! You can’t squeeze a person in? Ahhhh shit.

I was so mad and frustrated, and panicked. How could I tell someone they couldn’t come to girls’ dinner?! I had a pit in my stomach the entire day until around 6:30 when Aimee texted to say that she couldn’t make it to dinner because of childcare.

Phew. But, poor Aimee, she missed out.

The food at Girl and The Goat is meant to be shared, sort of like tapas. We started with goat cheese bread, and went ‘girls gone wild’ from there.

We had chickpeas, cauliflowers, green beans, scallops, skate, octopus, chicken, goat pizza, crab, fries with like a ham salt, and one of each dessert (our server, Tony, called one of the desserts “where gelato meets heaven”, and heaven it was). And, we ended up, or I ended up ordering two more loaves of bread (one of which smelled like beer---yum). The girls were full. I was okay as I don’t eat meat, so I stuffed myself with the veggies, bread, dessert, and wine. Some of the gals ordered coffee, and the cream was a cow/goat milk combo which pushed the girls over the edge—they were in love the restaurant. Seriously, everything was delicious.

I was disappointed that we didn’t order the fried pig face. I had heard it was really good (not that I would have eaten it, but I wanted someone else to try it).

So, after a rocky start in which I thought one of us was going to have to sit in a high chair in the corner, we had a fantabulous time. We really laughed a lot at this dinner; I think three bottles of wine helps loosen my laugh muscles (zoinks—my laugh muscles are pretty damn strong).

*photographers note:  I am trying to learn how to shoot in 'manual' mode which means it takes a couple of tries until I can get a decent picture....now you try telling 7 women they can't dig into their food because the photographer is trying to get the perfect shot...yeah, now you understand why the shots are blurry