Special for Two

Last night my wife and daughter and I, hit the King's Plaza Diner for dinner. It's a really cool old school diner, one of the few left in Brooklyn. Dinner starts with a relish tray, then pickles and assorted crudites, soup or salad, entree, dessert and coffee. Dinner last night even included an old school waitress who called me "Hun" all night. It was great.

Now if you know anything about old school diners, you know that the menu must have at least 500 different selections, from a mozzarella omelet (which my daughter had) to King's Plaza Paella for two, which my wife and I split. The trick with the old school diners is that even though they offer 500 different items, everyone of them has to be good and the portions plentiful

I never saw paella on the menu before and I was a little skeptical; even the waitress had to check the menu to verify it was there, but let me tell you, it was good. KP didn't disappoint.

As you can see from the picture above, it's hardly paella in the loosest sense of the word. But the dish did have rice, chicken, lobster, clams, shrimp, scallops, roasted peppers, peas and carrots. Once you dropped the paella reference and thought of this dish as a "chicken and rice" dish, it was really, really good. There wasn't any "Spanish seasonings" in this dish, but it was well flavored with the tasted of chicken and shellfish. I can't wait to try it again.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

A Contest: Comfort Food

A new week brings another contest here at WhiteTrash BBQ. I have a pre-release copy of the new novel, Comfort Food by Kate Jacobs author of The Friday Night Knitting Club.

So what's Comfort Food about? Here's some of the back cover info...

"Shortly before turning the big 5-0, boisterous party planner and Cooking With Gusto! TV personality Augusta "Gus" Simpson finds herself planning a birthday party she'd rather not - her own. She's getting tired of being the hostess, the mother hen, the woman who has to bake her own birthday cake. To make things worse, the network execs at the Cooking Channel want to boost her ratings by teaming Gus with the beautiful, backstabbing Carmen Vega, a former Miss Spain, who is decidedly not middle-aged.

But Gus is not giving in without a fight."

I'm just starting to read this myself, so I can't get into the details of the book yet. I like what I've read so far and I think you will too.

So how do you get a copy of the book? Send me an email at BrooklynQ@gmail.com with the correct answer to the following...

"Who won the first Grillin' On The Bay in 2006?"

The answer can be found here on the blog or at the Grillin' On The Bay website. This contest is open only to residents of the United States. All responses are due no later than Midnight on Saturday, May 3, 2008. The winner will be chosen at random from all correct responses. The winner will be announced on Monday May 5, 2008. My decisions are final.

Good luck and thanks for playing!