For my first full day in the burbs of Seattle, my new boss and his wife took me into Kirkland (home of Costco!) to eat on the water at Anthony’s. Kirkland is a fairly large suburb and has mad shopping and dining. We were in a fairly bustling area, and just driving through, there were countless eating options. Kirkland, I’m a bit jealous of you.

For those of you that have visited the pacific nw, Anthony’s operates a couple of different flavors of seafood restaurants. It seems to be pretty exclusively in the pacific nw, so sorry to those of you not living here or visiting. I went to an Anthony’s once in Oregon years ago. This particular anthony’s in Kirkland is on the water, so you an see all the boats docked and see across the water to all the lit up buildings in Seattle. It’s a seafood joint, and whence you’re in Seattle, you should definitely partake of the seafood, or at least that’s my philosophy. It’s a fairly upscale place, but not snooty. We weren’t super dressed up or anything.

I’ve been on a scallop kick lately, so I went with the scallops. I was expecting maybe 3 big grilled scallops, but instead, I got a bunch of little ones, that were peculiarly battered. I did not expect batter on the scallops at all. We were all surprised. The rice had golden raisins in it. I’m usually not into raisins, especially not in rice, but I didn’t mind these at all. But I ate them separately, so that’s probably why. The beans were lovely. Overall, it was good, but the scallops were a bit too buttery. Yes, I said it, too buttery. As if that’s a bad thing, but in this case, it was a little bit too much butter!
I was pretty much overstuffed from just my entree, but they had this crazy thing called “slump” on the dessert menu. And to top it off, it was huckleberry. I’d never had huckleberry in my life, so I had to try it. Huckleberry grows best wild in the pacific nw, so I ended up seeing it several times on various menus during my visit. Other than this trip, I’d never encountered it before. It pretty much tastes like blueberry, but a bit sweeter. And what is slump? It’s just another name for cobbler, and I love me some cobbler. We asked the waitress how big the slump was, and she made it seem tiny. Then we ordered it and it was huge. It could so easily have been shared by at least 2, if not three people. I barely made a dent in mine! Service was quite good, the view even better.

M had a cookie exchange party this year. I’d never been to one, she’d never thrown one, so it was all a nice first for us all. In fact, everyone that went to the party had never been to a cookie exchange party. It was a random coincidence. We couldn’t just stuff our faces with cookies, so M had a nice spread for us. Cheese with port wine sauce. Candied walnuts. Veggie spread with spinach dip. Hummus and pita. All freakin good, especially the darn walnuts.
Some candy cane cookies, with a hint of peppermint. Peanut butter cup cookies with a whole peanut butter cup smooshed in. One of my favorites from the party.
R made some fudge and peanut with chocolate chip cookies. This from a woman who doesn’t cook at all, apparently.
A made these chocolate crinkles which were a huge hit with the kids. They totally cleared her out!
K and the kids made some sugar cookies along with chocolate espresso biscotti. I couldn’t even imagine making my own biscotti.
M, the hostest with the mostest, made these chocolate heath bar cookies. Beyond decadent!
I made some chewy gingersnaps from a random recipe I found on a fellow blog. I used fresh spices that I got from the Head Nut, so with every bite of cookie, you got a punch in the mouth with all the spices. They were a hit!

For our one dinner in Cancun, we decided to go out on the town. We drove round and round, and even ended up in the city center. It was a bit too sketch for us, so we headed back to the hotel area. While our first choice was seafood, after making u turn after u turn, we somehow decided on a steakhouse, of all places. La Mansion calls itself a mexican steakhouse, or the mexican steakhouse. I’m not sure what that means, even still, but they love them some meat. It’s one of those pick your own meat places, where it sits in a case and you have to decide. They also roll out some meat to your table to describe it to you. It’s a very nice and luxurious place. I felt like a bit of a fraud when we got there. I certainly did not belong there, but they treated us with some of the best service I’ve ever had. It was pretty late, but they eat their dinners late here. The waiters hung up our purses on racks that were at each of the tables. That was just the start of the too nice service. You get complimentary bread and man, it was warm and delicious. Even the little rolls of butter were delicious. They gave two hot sauces for the steaks. One was freakin hot and not possibly usable by me, and the other was more like a pico de gallo, but the veggies were cut very fine. There were seafood items available on the menu, but we would have felt silly, so we both ordered steaks. R got the porterhouse steak. She didn’t ask for ketchup, but they just brought it out anyway. She also got some souffled potatoes. She thought it would be a souffle, but it ended up being long cut potato slices that were deep fried. Still good, but she just didn’t expect glorified fries. I picked a tenderloin that they butterflied for me. I got mashed potatoes and they brought me some chimichurri sauce for my meat. I am usually not a steak eater. You would be hard pressed to find me at a steakhouse, or at least voluntarily. I’m not sure I would even know how to cook a steak. But damn, this meat was mmm, mmm, good. Extremely tender, flavorful, and cooked just right. In addition to the sauces, you also get a little bowl of lightly cooked onions and various peppers. I did not touch the peppers but I did eat the onions with my steak and it made it that much better. I’m usually not a dessert person either, but we both decided to splurge that night. The waiter had brought over a tray with all their desserts and basically wooed us with their beauty. R got a banana pudding type thing. We’re not sure exactly what he called it, but it was a fairly thick banana pudding. He described it like a creme brulee. It was good! I love anything passion fruit related, so I got the passion fruit mousse. They called it a mousse, but it really wasn’t mousse like at all in its consistency. It was a bit chewy and rubbery, as if it had a bit of gelatin in it. It would have been awesome as an actually fluffy mousse. But as it was, it was still pretty good.

Oh, and before we got our meats, the waiter placed cloth bibs on us. Not handed us bibs so we put them on, he tied them onto our necks. It was weird, even though it was supposed to be fancy. And when I went to the bathroom, I had to go down some steps, and the waiter put his hand out so he could guide me and make sure I did not fall? All this fancy and gentlemanly service was nice, but also kind of bizarre.