A Beautiful Sunset

Sunset Grill
2001 Belcourt Ave
Nashville, TN
615-386-3663

Sunset Grill 12 oz NY Strip, port wine demiglace, mashed potatoes, and haricot vert

I have been traveling back to back to back for work and personal reasons, and have been to San Francisco, Sonoma, Cleveland, Sundusky, Somerset, and Montgomery all within 3 weeks. I have not been home to buy groceries or to cook. He was also on a heavy travel schedule, and unable to get food for our house. So finally, on Friday night, we both made it home at about 9 p.m., exhausted, road wary, and wanting a decent meal. For some reason I just wanted a classic steak at an old fashioned steak house like the Fifth Quarter (now closed). If I did not get a steak that evening, I was sure to get one over the weekend. I suggested the Sunset Grill because 9 p.m. in Nashville begins the "late night" menu search, and Sunset is a place where I know I can get a decent hot meal at that hour, and I know I can get a steak. The other decent options don't have steak per se, and other "late night" places are fast food, which I definitely do not want.

We arrived at about half past the hour, and I was able to order a Pittsburgh rare NY Strip with mashed potatoes and haricot vert for $24.99 or about $33 after tax and tip. The plate was so big, I basically ate half for dinner, and than was able to enjoy my 2nd half again for lunch! Yum. Sunset Grill definitely provides a good decent hot meal to accommodate our busy travel schedules. It was nice to not have to go to the grocery store, shop, prep, cook, and then eat dinner which would have taken about 2 hours minimum, and dinner would not have been on the table until about 11 p.m. or midnight. After my horrible full body reaction to fast food, I was not about to go get fast food for dinner because the thought of fast food at that time just made me queasy. It is just nice to have a decent place to eat after 9 p.m.

My tri-tip, organic mashed potatoes, and haricot vert

I really enjoyed my steak from Sunset Grill. The mashed potatoes were made with cream and butter, and were deliciously rich. The haricot vert were sauteed and just had a nice green snap to them while I ate them. The demiglace was a flavorful accompaniment to the potatoes and beef. I really like this traditional midwest style meat and potato dinner every once in a while.

I took a trip to Trader Joes thinking I wanted to finally get back into my kitchen and cook, now that I am home for a week. Funny what I picked up, I picked up a tri-tip, 4 lbs of organic yukon gold potatoes, a bag of haricot vert, all costing a little less than $24.99. I nearly had the makings of a similar meal to Sunset Grill! Yay! This is what I made:

1. tri-tip with a dry rub of Hungry Gnome local organic garlic,
kosher salt, Penzy's pepper corn, and
Sonoma's Matanzas Creek lavender herb de Provence
and then finished with Matanzas Creek Himalayan salt with lavender

2. Haricot vert sauteed in Hungry Gnome local organic garlic,
kosher salt, Penzy's pepper corn, and
home churned butter made from JD Country Milk cream

3. Mashed potatoes made with Hungry Gnome local organic garlic,
kosher salt and Penzy's pepper corn, and
home churned butter made from JD Country Milk cream, and
JD Country Milk skim milk

I put the tri-tip with the rub under the broiler to try and get a char on both side. While the tri-tip was in under the broiler, I boiled the potatoes, and put the haricot vert in the sautee pan. Instead of using my locally grown dried cayenne pepper on the beef, like I normally would, I opted for the black pepper. I thought the cayenne would be too heavy and over ride the herb de Provence, where normal black pepper would be a softer taste to compliment the herb de Provence. I I heated the butter, garlic, and milk before adding it to the potatoes before mashing, as this seems to help keep the potatoes from becoming gummy. The cost of the milk, butter, garlic, herb de Provence, and Himalayan salt may have cost an extra $2 (tops), so for $27 (max) included cost and tax, I was able to make a generous meal for us and probably 6 other people, or a total of 8 servings. We still have plenty of meal left in our fridge for lunches and dinners to come.