It's Blumen amazing!

Just doing a quick update before I go to work. urgh. :P

     So, Amanda (of Kickass Superhero fame), Jolene, and I went to Blumen Garden Bistro on Highway 49 just outside Picton to sample their Countylicious menu. What is Countylicious? Just about the greatest idea a restaurant has ever had! Every spring and fall, many of the... er, fancy shmancy restaurants in the County come up with some interesting meals using local, seasonal produce. Then, they give you an appetizer, entree and dessert for about $35 plus tax!
     Now, just to put this into perspective for you - let's say you're having dinner at Kelsey's. Nice place, and the food's good, but it ain't REAL food. It's just a couple steps up from McDonald's really. Don't get me wrong, I like a nice meal at Boston Pizza or Montana's or one of those other chain restaurants with all the neato shit on the walls. But, I know I'm not doing my body or my farmers any favours by eating there.
     Anyway, let's say you get the potato skins, some smothered chicken and a molten lava cake. Not only are you going to get diabetes immediately, it's going to set you back $8.99... plus $16.99... plus $6.49... that's about $32 altogether. With Countylicious, you can live like rich folks, eating fancy, homegrown food for the same price! It's one of my favourite times of the year, for sure.
     It's very nice in the Blumen Garden Bistro. Nice and warm on a brisk November night. Decor is simple and neutral; nothing funky. Sucks that they don't offer Bring Your Own Wine, because that would have saved me a bundle. Instead of my lovely $14 bottle of Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau, we had to order a bottle of Rosehall Run Cabernet Franc for $27. Strong bouquet, smooth finish. There's just something about County wines that I don't like. Probably because you can't usually get one for less than 17 bucks and I'm a cheap bugger.
     The Countylicious menu includes three choices for each course and all three of us ordered the same appetizer and main - braised radicchio and pear salad with gorgonzola fritters, candied walnuts and honey drizzle to start, followed by herb-crusted mushroom, celeriac and leek confit tart with arugula, pear and pecorino Romano salad. Lots of salad, right? Unfortunately, that's what you get when you're a pescatarian ordering from a prix fixe menu. Some of my other options included oxtail soup, pork belly hash, veal cheeks and turkey legs. Blech. Hell, at least it's not Prairie Oysters.
     The appetizer was sooooo good. I find radicchio a little too bitter to truly enjoy it, but it did mix well with the sweet pears and salad dressing. The best part of this course, though, were the gorgonzola fritters. MMMM MMMM MMMM! I could have eaten a plate of those fritters. Poor Amanda was more interested in the candied walnuts and, because of her poor karma, she was the only one who didn't get any on her plate. Haha. I joke. There's nothing wrong with her karma. It's just weird she wanted them so bad and she didn't get any. I shared mine with her and she gave me one of her fritters, so her karma should improve :)
     The entree was basically a quiche that was very good. The crust wasn't flaky, but definitely light and crumbly. I really liked the lightly battered leek rings and potato crisps that were piled on top, however, there was a marked difference between our low pile of rings/chips compared with another table's rings/chips. Apparently, their dinner had been assembled by the chef while ours had been topped by a lackey :( I couldn't have eaten more than I had anyway. The only thing I didn't like was the size of the chunks of leek in my tart (as opposed to on my tart). Too much mushy leek in one spot. But, that was Amanda's favourite part, so "to each his own".
     Throughout dinner, we spoke of bowel movements, baby daddys, precocious children and drunk sex. If there was more inappropriate subject matter for our fancy bistro conversation, it might have involved Catholic priests and Jewish circumcisions. You can dress us up, but you can't really take us out.
     Finally, we each had a different dessert. Jolene got a steaming hot cup of fall fruit crumble and Amanda got the  apple cheesecake. I got the churros, which were very phallic, and if I'd had a couple of more glasses of wine I would have shared that information with the rest of the patrons.
     One thing I found really odd was that there was another Lightfoot in the room. The dishwasher, who was Amanda's mother, found the name on the reservations list and told me about it. Now, "Lightfoot" is not a common name in Prince Edward County and I was pretty sure if there was another one nearby, I would have to be related. Turns out, my dad's cousin's wife, Maureen, from Belleville was out enjoying Countylicious with two of her friends, as well, that night. It's a small (delicious) world.