Alphablog - G

G is for Gertrude's.

Clinton's mom had her birthday last month and we decided to take her to the Desert Botanical Garden for dinner at Gertrude's, and then walk the trails.

We picked Debbie up and headed over to make our 5pm dinner reservation, not taking into account the traffic in that part of town - oops! It was okay though, when we got there it turned out we really didn't even need a reservation as there was only one other table filled. Not that surprising, I guess, considering it was a week night. We ordered drinks and an appetizer (Poblano & Garbanzo Hummus | House Pickle Vegetable + Cotija + Crackers + Olive Oil + Herbs) and while we were waiting for that, I walked over to the main entrance of the Garden to get our tickets for after dinner so we could just go straight into the exhibits.

While heading over there I noticed that the tables all had different little centerpieces of succulents in all kinds of different (and what looked to be hand-spun) pottery - little pots, mugs, shallow bowls, etc. They also had tealight candles in little wooden holders. I wish I had though to take a photo or two but I didn't.

Unfortunately, I was also unable to take any photos of our food because we chose to eat outside and it got dark pretty quickly. There was a candle in the middle of the table, but it only provided a very small bit of light - which actually leads me into a funny thing that happened.

We ordered our food and by the time it came out, it was completely dark outside so while we could see what we were eating, we couldn't really see it in detail.

Debbie ordered:
Beets
Garden Beets + Seasonal Lettuces + Crow’s Dairy Chevre + Maple-Sherry Vinaigrette + Hazelnuts
3 Napkin Smoked Sow
Smoked Pork + Az. Cheese Co. Jack + Cilantro + Pickled Apple + Pickled Onion + Red Chile Jus + Ciabatta

I ordered:
Natural Chicken
Natural Breast + Brussel Sprouts + Potato Puree + Natural Jus

Clinton ordered:
Red Chile Short Rib
Crow’s Dairy Goat Sour Cream + Fingerlings + Mango + Pickled Red Onion

Everything is fresh, organic, and local if possible, and it was all really good. The funny thing that happened was that while we were all asking if the others wanted to taste, Clinton told his mom he was going to give her a bite of potato, and said that it tasted kind of weird. I looked at his plate and realized that the fingerling potatoes were dark, and what he thought was potato was actually slices of mango! HA! We all got a pretty good laugh out of that because, yeah, that would be a pretty weird tasting "potato"!

Debbie loved her beet salad, and I loved everything on my plate - I usually go for something a bit more adventurous, but that plate of comfort food just sounded really good to me, and it did not disappoint. Clinton enjoyed his as well, but was disappointed when he realized that it had goat sour cream - he hadn't noticed that on the menu, and he hates goat's milk. It wasn't too bad, though, he just scraped it off.

We declined dessert since we intended to get gelato later that evening on the way home, and then we headed over to walk the Garden. When we got there, however, we were dismayed to find that there was next to no lighting! We were pretty surprised by this since they are open until 9pm, we just assumed that the trails would be lit. It also seemed strange to me that the girl wouldn't have mentioned that when I bought my tickets at dusk and mentioned we'd be going straight in after dinner. Oh well. We were able to get a refund when we decided it was too dark and dangerous to attempt the trails, so we just looked around the gift shop and then went to get gelato instead.

We will definitely be going back to the DBG this month, though, because there is a new Chihuly exhibit being installed. We all saw it when he was there back in 2009 and are excited to see what new pieces will be shown. I'll be sure to update with pictures after that trip!