After snagging some asparagus and corn from Gentile’s, I got off my lazy ass and took out my grill out of hiding. Luckily, it still worked and had some working juice. It’s a crappy ass grill, but it works just fine. I just put a little olive oil, salt, and pepper on these bad boys and grilled em up. They cooked up perfectly. There’s nothing like asparagus with that delicious grilled flavor.
I also grilled up some chicken thighs. My super easy recipe of bottled sweet chili sauce, a dab of sesame oil, and a little salt. It doesn’t get any easier.
As for the corn, I just grilled em with the husks. I removed the silks and kept the husks on and just grilled them until the husks pretty much turned black. I didn’t have to soak them or anything. And they turned out super sweet and great. New Jersey white corn. Go get em while you can!

I went to a show later this week and stopped by Grace Tavern for a pre-show bite. I’ve been wanting to go here for awhile since I’d heard about the blackened green beans. I knew I was going to be getting these. D got the kelly burger, which came with bacon and cheddar. Also, a side of delicious fries with Monk’s bourbon mayo. Once again, I let D be a guest blogger.

“That’s good burger, very tasty. Those are good fries. They’re spicy fries. If I didn’t like spicy fries, I wouldn’t have liked these spicy fries.”

Yeah, he’s right, they are spicy fries. And they’re good spicy fries. Oh baby.

Our waiter looked straight out of 80’s glam band Faster Pussycat. It was freakin uncanny, and his pants were so damn tight. I asked him for a recommendation and he recommended the jambalaya. So I went with it. Not bad. Certainly not great, but not bad. Shows you what happens when you trust the opinions of a glam metal guitarist. The garlic bread was pretty good too, but perhaps a bit too crunchy.

Onto the best part of the meal… Behold the blackened green beans! Fresh green beans smothered in magical blackened spice. They were certainly spicy, and certainly crunchy. I really enjoyed these. Your fingers get blackened too, and probably your teeth. It comes with the same Monk’s bourbon mayo, and it’s a nice thing to dip into. I got the small order, but it came with a decent amount of beans. Next time? I’ll just get a big thing of beans and a big thing of fries.

Other than his overly tight pants, the service by Mr. Faster Pussycat was just fine. The place is really dark and pretty small. Most of it is bar, and there is a very tiny dining area with probably about 16 seats. It really filled up right after we got there. So good luck getting a table!

My friend runs this fantastic monthly movie watching and discussion group called Javaflix. We watch a movie, then we talk about it, and then just hang out. It’s totally cool. Last week, we watched Blood Diamond (yeah, so freakin heartwarming), but the best part was that there were guests there from Sierra Leone, and they brought some homemade vittles! Whoohoo!
Some simple, yet delicious, fried sweet potatoes. I love me some sweet potatoes. Seriously, my favorite root vegetable of all time.

Again, some simple fried sweet plantains. You all already know how much I freakin love me some plantains!

The piece de resistance? A fish stew… or as they call in Sierra Leone, soup. Yeppers, they call stew soup there. So behold the fish soup. It mostly consisted of sweet and melt in your mouth onions, some red and green onions, and just a smattering of fish thrown in there. It wasn’t as spicy as it looks… it looks more lethal than it was. It was just good. Greasy and delicious. I want to learn how to make this!