Mushrooms!!!!

The legal kind, of course.   Mike and I were invited out to dinner with our friends, Sara & Alex, this past weekend to One Ocean Resort & Spa where Sara works.  As the Manager on Duty for the weekend, she is allowed to dine at One Ocean's amazing restaurant, Azurea, and she invited Mike and I along for dinner too! How fantastic is that?!  Mike had eaten there before, but it was a first for me and let me just say, WOW!  It was ridiculously delicious....all of it!  Fine dining has changed over time, but Azurea still manged to pull out all of the stops, etiquette-wise, which was awesome to see (and of course, what I would notice and love!).  More importantly though, the food and wine!  That's really what we should be talking about, it's what we do for fun! 

Mike and I started with a beautiful tuna carpaccio, that followed a fantastic shrimp salad amuse bouche.  Tangent: even the bread was served in a special way-we received a detailed explanation of all of the breads and then, blow your socks off right here, they brought us a plate of different additions for the bread (condiments just won't do as a word here): whipped butter, hummus, italian olive oil, roasted garlic (just to spread, like a whole clove!)!  Back to the meal, dinner was just as delicious as all of the things before it (yes, I was basically full when the meal arrived!).  Mike had a delicious NY Strip and I had Beef Tenderloin-AMAZING!  Everything about the plate was beautiful: the presentation, the meat, the whole combination of foods, sauces, and flavors on the plate (potatoes, haricot vert, etc)!  And then, to make the meal even more perfect, the waiter mis-heard Sara ask for a side dish of potatoes and brough not one, but two, side orders of mushrooms!!  Not just button mushrooms, but the most lovely combination of mushrooms ever experienced!  If we hadn't been in public, I would have hogged a whole plate to myself and just eaten the mushrooms, they were that good!  Needless to say, we all had some mushrooms, which were awesome with the beef tenderloin, and I even managed to sneak some extra on to my plate to be boxed with my lefovers!  Heaven indeed!  We finished the meal with cappuccino and desserts (Mike had a blueberry tart and I had a duo of creme brulee), finished our glasses of delicious red wine and said goodnight to our wonderful friends and hosts!  It was a wonderful dinner, definitely top three of all time for me, I think!  So, if you're ever in Jacksonville and want to dine out Five Star style, Azurea is the place to do it!  http://www.oneoceanresort.com/

Yum, Yum Yum, we love great food!  On that note, I'm now starving and need more coffee to tide me over till lunch!  Foodies unite! :)