Ribs, Frisco Grill and Margherita

So it has been an eventful couple of weeks! We've eaten some absolutely great stuff lately. The first of the list was Lasagna and a Tomato salad that my SIL made for us. It was delicious with everything made from scratch, including the tomato sauce, with the exception of the pasta.

In order to make up for the heavy meals we've been having, we decided to have a nice, light, natural breakfast on Sunday since I had a premonition that some great food would follow. Unfortunately, I must admit that cooler heads prevailed and we went with some french toast. How do I eat it? With peanut butter and maple syrup!

And then Friday rolled around. We had a BBQ with a group of friends and it was decided that I would make my spare ribs. It's a rather long, if not complicated, process. So I bought to racks of spare ribs and brined them before putting the dry rub on there and letting them sit overnight in the fridge. Of course, we got up incredibly early and managed to drag ourselves to the house where everything was going to happen.

I like to use a charcoal chimney with lump coal since it's faster, has great flavor and seems to burn forever! so we started up the fire and the crack of dawn. Well, almost. Well, more like noon. Ish. Ok, Ok, so we're not morning people and just managed to drag ourselves out of bed by 9:30 and had the coals ready by noon. On went the rack of ribs and, due to the lack of wood chips, we threw on some soaked oregano stems to make some aromatic smoke to give the ribs some great flavor. After about 4 hours, this is what it looked like.

It was quite spectacular. The meat was moist and soft and came off the bone quite nicely. I think with every attempt I keep getting closer to what it should be. Maybe next time they'll be perfect! After that great meal we were quite full until Sunday when we went to Frisco Grill. I have to say that this is one of those places that I just can't believe I hadn't been to before now! It was absolutely great. I had the Buffalo burger and the Chunky Monkey Milkshake and am looking forward to having it again. It was juicy, tasty and surprisingly light. If you're after some great grilled food or fantastic finger food, I would have to send you towards this place!

I also recently heard of a new gourmet store, Mia Cucina, which seems to be somehow related to NuChef. It took a huge amount of self control to not splurge every penny I have to my name in the place. They have EVERYTHING! Cheesecloth, sieves, spatulas, baking materials, finishing oils, vinagrette recipe bottles, fresh herbs, pots, pans, meats, seafood and just about everything you could ask for. Including...

French cut Lamb Chops! Now for those of you have a ready and constant flow of this kind of wonderful packages, all I say to you is :P For the rest of us, this is quite a find! I've been searching high and low for this. I also found mussels, tuna steaks and a full leg of lamb! But moving on to the true star of this week.

Margherita Pizzeria is a fairly new gourmet pizza restaurant. We decided to splurge today and had ourselves a salad to accompany our pizza. After having seen it advertised numerous times on GuateDining and reading so many great reviews of the place, we decided to put it off no longer!

Sadly I must say that it was the one somewhat drab part of our meal. The lettuce was good, the tomato's fresh and the egg acceptable but what really made it boring was the Mozzarella Cracker. It was too thick, soggy and underwhelming. The pizza, however, is another story all together.

This pizza is awesome, absolutely incredible. The tomato sauce tastes like they just pureed some incredibly fresh, ripe tomato's into a simple but delicious sauce. Everything here tastes so fresh that it must not have been out of the ground for more than a few days! The crust is nice and crisp and has that particular taste and texture that can only come from one of these:

A brick oven kept at 900º that makes this pizza quite exceptional. And it doesn't end with the pizza. For dessert we had a nutella pizza, in order to keep with the theme. The base was a little tough but the flavor was absolutely more than enough to make up for that small shortcoming. With a nutella base and covered with Walnut, strawberries and whipped cream this dessert takes the cake! So if you're up for a good meal with great ingredients and on a reasonable budget, this is my #1 pick of the month. Try it, share it and enjoy!