Hamburgers in Royal Oak, Fish Tacos in Ann Arbor, and a week of transition

This week has been busy in a different way. Every day of the past 5 days has found me having lunch and dinner with friends who have been neglected of late. I've been getting into the gym and the yoga studio, watching things that have been trapped on my DVR for months, and reading a book about Northern Ireland.

Last week I quit my job in Royal Oak and will start a new job on Monday, a real lawyer job, at a firm in White Lake. That's north of Brighton. I hear there are good things to eat.

My last week in Oakland County found me doing some traveling and eating at some very popular area restaurants. One day I had to go take care of some business in Ann Arbor, so I stuck around for lunch and headed to Lena, which was one of the Detroit Free Press' top 10 restaurants of 2012. The hostess makes a girl feel welcome. "How are you, my beautiful lady? Would you like to get cozy by the fireplace?"

I did indeed sit by the indoor fireplace and ordered pineapple aqua fresca.

Oh I loved it. So sweet and refreshing.

For lunch I had fish tacos. The waitress suggested I have the fish battered and fried instead of grilled, which might have been a mistake. There were three tacos on my plate, flour tortillas topped with rice, beans, cilantro, fish, a chimichurri, and crema.

The tortillas were tasteless. A salty, grainy little corn tortilla would have been better. Every ingredient was fresh and flavorful, but there was nothing to lend any heat to the taco. No salt and pepper on the table, either. It was a satisfying lunch, but there wasn't anything for me to write home about.

The next day my birthday boy coworker and I headed north on Woodward and had lunch at Redcoat Tavern, the longtime standard-bearer of metro Detroit's best hamburgers. The place looks like a barn, and when you step inside your eyes have to adjust to the dim red light. We knew we wanted burgers, and I ordered mine with provolone cheese and caramelized onions. I accepted the tomato and lettuce that come standard but had to nix the tomato because I couldn't taste the meat.

And this meat begged to be tasted. It was juicy and tasted like a true burger, not like the plasticy, artificial garbage meat that's so prevalent in fast-food restaurants today. The bun was a cushion. The onion rings, which my coworker raved about, were too greasy for me.

I still ate a few, of course, in the name of research. A few days later I returned to Vinsetta Garage, where I'd destroyed a 3am burger a few weeks prior. It was the best burger I'd ever had. The Sriracha mayo absolutely knocked me out. I didn't even care that my hands smelled like meat for the rest of the day- it was worth it. On my return visit I tried the Vinsetta Burger, which didn't hold a candle to the 3am.

The burger sauce is reminiscent of a barbecue sauce, and was a little sweet for my taste. I wanted the kick of the Sriracha mayo. Matter of fact, I'd eat that mayo on just about anything. Maybe I will spend the last day of my spring break concocting a little of my own mayo.

Pork Belly at Sansu. Mistake.

If you're anything like me, when you see the words "pork belly" on a menu it's hard to think of ordering anything else. If you find yourself at Sansu anytime soon, and this item is still on the specials menu, don't order it.

Yes, it looks delicious. It ain't. There were too many chewy, rubbery bits for me to take a confident bite, and this dish was missing some serious flavor. I picked at it and then ignored it, while crying on the inside.

I wasn't that sad, though, because I'd already devoured these babies:

The Sansu avocado boats. Get back, jack. They quarter an avocado, layer it with crab salad and tuna, and tempura batter it. Let's get real for a second, "tempura battered" is highfalutin code for "deep fried." The avocado boats are legit.

I had the greatest of intentions- I thought I would get a seaweed salad and salmon sashimi and call it a night. I can't control myself. But check out what my book club girls ate:

Altu's for City Pulse

I need to get my act together and tell you all about the delicious things I've been eating in Royal Oak, Ann Arbor, Iowa City, and Williamston.

But for now, read about what I ate at Altu's, and the two men who accompanied me.

Feast for Two.

Spicy Chicken Stew for lunch.

Dad Johnson. (Nerd alert with those pens in his pocket,
amirite?)

Restaurant Weak?

Every year, I put a few extra miles on my car driving around to different metro areas in our state to partake in their Restaurant Weeks. Grand Rapids has one. Royal Oak just had one (I ate at Bastone, which wasn't great), and Detroit has the mother of them all, which happens to be fast approaching in April.

I think Restaurant Weeks are incredible. I know they're a lot of work for both planners and restaurant staffs, and I know diners have to put a little extra thought into what their eating plan is and maybe make a reservation when they wouldn't normally, but these events get my blood pumping. I don't think there's a better way to experience a restaurant that might just be a little out of your normal price range. 

I remember a few years ago, there was a half-cocked attempt at a Lansing Restaurant Week. I can only assume that, since this event hasn't appeared again, it was a flop (a Restaurant Weak, if you will.) But I think we're stepping up our game in the Capital City, amirite? We've got some great places to eat, we've got a population who cares about supporting local biz, and we've got some social media superstars who promote the hell out of the area's events.

So, do we push for another Lansing Restaurant Week? Do I use my connections and willingness to beg people for what I want and make it happen? Are you all going to help me, and tell me where you want to eat, and promote the event on your Facebook and Twitter?

Those aren't rhetorical. I really want you to answer me. Tell me what restaurants you'd like to see included.

In the meantime, look at this stuff:

My friend, living in England, send me this photo with the caption
"Up from one a penny and two a penny. Inflation."
I LOLd for an hour.

Lent is super hard when you're forced to eat a tuna melt
and fries for Friday lunch.

Crust Bakery in Fenton. I ate a bran muffin, sea salt chocolate chip
cookies, and marshmallows. Lay off me I'm starving.

Stuffed French toast at The (French?) Laundry in Fenton.

Cafe au lait.

Mediteran for City Pulse

You know I love Mediteran. Now I eat there for City Pulse.

Lamb goulash with spaetzle.

Kiss me, I'm Amish

Last weekend, I went to Constantine, MI to visit my friends Melodi and Mika and their two little half-French petits monstres. We drank copious amounts of tea, as we do whenever we are together, and we talked about our lovely British friend Miriam and her upcoming wedding. We debated whether or not we will wear fascinators (well, I don't think Mika is going to wear one.) I came down on the side of yes, definitely, and I will pretend all day that I am Princess Kate.

I pretend that most days.

Melodi's beautiful cousin was celebrating her 21st birthday and we joined her for dinner at Essenhaus, an Amish restaurant and enormous banquet hall in Indiana. Our dinner was served family style (which, in case you're not sure, means that big portions of food are brought out in serving dishes and everyone helps themselves. You know, how you would eat dinner at your parent's house, unless your parents are super fancy and plate your dinner in the kitchen. I know my family doesn't roll like that, and when my brother was bad, my dad would make him eat in the bathroom.)

I ate everything. Mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, stuffing, buttered noodles- they all played a supporting roll to the friend chicken. Good GOD this chicken. It's been a good long while since I had properly fried chicken, and I made up for it by eating 87 pieces of this.

At each person's place there was a little slip of paper for you to order a slice of pie. Essenhaus offers a bevy of pies, and everyone picks what they want and turns their slip into the waitress (who, by the way, was wonderful. Thanks for putting up with the kids and with this animal who couldn't stop eating chicken. Hi!)

Melodi read my mind and pointed out that, even though the 1 and 2-year-old boys would be content with a mouthful of whipped cream, they were eligible for their own piece of pie. I jumped right on that and ordered both a slice of butterscotch pie and a slice of chocolate peanut butter. Mel, as soon as Jules is old enough to realize what I did, I will buy him his own pie all for himself.

This weirdo loved his pie too-

I dwindled in the bakery after abusing myself with friend chicken and picked up some of my favorite Amish popcorn and honey. According to my cousin Katie's comment on my Instagrammed photo from dinner, people from Kalamazoo know all about Essenhaus. Funny, because I've been going to Kalamazoo several times a year for my entire life and nobody has even mentioned a wonderful Amish restaurant to me before. Ya filthy animals.

Noble Fish, Clawson

Yesterday I sat at my desk, thinking about the huge kale salad that I had brought with me to perpetuate the belief that I love healthy eating. I had eaten salad for lunch every day since Monday. I wasn't feeling it. I love kale, but we needed to be on a break.

"On a break." Does everybody else think of this too?

Best show ever.

To get my morning news hit, I went to the Detoit Free Press website, where I saw this breaking news. I was clicking around, checking out the different categories, and when I saw "Best Sushi," I knew what I was going to have for lunch. Sorry, kale salad. Imma eat you for dinner.

I headed to Noble Fish, which, by all accounts, is the best sushi outside of Japan. I do wonder though if people just like it so much because it's in the back of a grocery store and you feel really cool when you walk in, nonchalant, like yes, I'm in a grocery store eating sushi that was just sliced and served up in front of my face. I know everything about food and you'll never be as cool as me.

Anyway, I sidled up to a stool at the sushi bar and stared at the menu. I eat a lot of sushi, but the menus continue to intimidate me. I never know if I'm ordering enough, or if what I'm ordering is enough for a million people, or if what I've ordered is something crazy and I'm going to have to smile and eat it anyway like I totally meant to do that.

I've done that before- in France- with a pig foot. A PIG FOOT! Can you imagine the acting I did to pretend that it was what I meant to order?! I would have given Ann Hathaway a run for her Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

I ordered two pieces each of salmon nigiri, yellowtail nigiri, and scallop hand roll nigiri. It went a little something like this.

It was very good. Fresh fish. Moist rice, not at all sticky or crunchy. The scallop hand roll had a bunch of scallop in each piece, and I love those little orange circles. See why sushi intimidates me? Because I have no idea what those things actually are. I just know that I love the way they kind of pop against my teeth. The sushi was great, but if this is the BEST SUSHI IN DETROIT, then I know some people who need to make a quick trip to Okemos and hit Maru.

Or maybe I just needed to order more. I would be happy to do that. This wasn't enough food.

The real show-stopper of this lunch wasn't the food, though. It was the middle-aged man sitting next to me. You know how sometimes you can just feel when someone wants to talk to you? It was radiating from him. So I turned and struck up a conversation with Alfonso, who is a plumber and amateur racquetball player, and as a result I was treated to an alphanumeric analysis of each letter of my first name and to a honey tangerine, which he pulled from his pocket and presented to me.

I'm considering whether or not I eat it. Don't tell my mother. I felt like he was just my kind of person, because I would definitely give someone a clementine from my purse and expect them to eat it.

By the way, my first name has 9 letters. It was a 15-minute analysis. I love people.