Dining Out for Life

BLVD - fun food

The Annual Dining Out For Life Event was a couple weeks ago.  There were about 70 restaurant locations around Nashville which participated and all of the restaurants committed to give a percentage (30- 75%) of the cost of meals sold to Nashville CARES, a fantastic non-profit organization in Nashville which provides direct services and support to 17 counties around Nashville helping and supporting families who are dealing with HIV/AIDS.

Dining Out For Life is so easy to participate.  Just dine out at your favorite restaurant, and that is it.  I can do that.

So this year, I had a lunch meeting and a dinner plans at restaurants participating in Dining Out For Life.  For lunch, we decided on going to BLVD because our local sweetheart Chef, Arnold Myint decided to donate 75% of our meal cost to Dining Out For Life and Nashville CARES.  We shared a pile of curry fries and I had a romaine salad with fried egg and lardon.  My friend had a PRB (Porter Road Butcher) hot dog on a roll.  We just had a lovely lunch meeting, and $30 of our meal went to Dining Out For Life, Nashville CARES.

Capitol Grille - Dinner Prix Fixed

And for dinner, my friend made plans for a dutch treat dinner out at the Capitol Grille, one of my favorite restaurants in Nashville.  This is the 1st year Capitol Grille decided to participate in Dining Out For Life, and my friend decided we should dine at the Capitol Grille in celebration of this great decision.  Capitol Grille arranged for a prix fixed 3-course menu for this special event.  I was so happy to see my favorite first course, the onion bisque with a mini brie sandwich and bacon.  The onion bisque is an old "hold over" and has been on the Capitol Grille menu for years and years.  With changing of the chefs over the years, the onion bisque has continued on each menu year after year.  There would be irate patrons who would boycott if the onion bisque were to be removed, so smartly, year after year Capitol Grille keeps the soup on the menu.  The soup is just so yummy for my tummy.  

My second course, I opted for the Double H ranch beef dish.  As you know, I am all about the local food movement, and I love that the Hermitage Hotel now has the Double H ranch for local organic, free range, grass feed beef.  I have loved that Tyler Brown, Capitol Grille and Hermitage Hotel staff have lovingly tended to the local organic Glen Leven farm, where most of the spring, summer and fall vegetables served at the Capitol Grille comes from.  Glen Leven is about 5 blocks from my house, and I can't really get more local than that, unless it is from my back yard.

And for dessert, I got the panna cotta, chocolate, coffee dessert with a nice camomile tea to accompany the dessert.  I am not a dessert person.  I also am not a a caffeine at night person anymore.  The older I get, the most sensitive I am to caffeine, and I stay up too late if I have caffeine in the evening.  So for this dessert which had caffeine in it, I decided on the camomile tea to "duke it out" in my stomach with the caffeine.  I wasn't up too late with the caffeine, so the camomile tea probably did help with that.

On this evening, the 7 of us had a great time chatting and dining, and about $140 of meal went to Dining Out for Life - Nashville Cares.

That is not a bad take, $170 in one day, for doing what we would have normally done anyway.   I will try to keep you posted next year for Dining Out For Life.  It is so easy.  Pick your favorite restaurant and do what your normally do!