The English Inn

Thanks Grandma!!

My Awesome Grandmother, as a stupendous thank you gift for our help with events for her business, Fresh is Best (Go check it out!), got us a gift certificate to the English Inn in Eaton Rapids.  For us wannabe foodies, that was pretty awesome.  It took us a while to actually get down there to use it, but we decided it would make for a GREAT anniversary dinner.  And we were right! ;-)

We didn't actually take any pictures of our own, cuz it seemed a little tacky for the elegant dinner.  Maybe next time!  In the meantime, I'll link to a couple external images.

This is the building (a photo by Anne Ruthmann that I found via Google Image Search and am borrowing for the purposes of showing you where we were).

This is the room in which we were seated.  Very adorable, in my opinion.  We were seated right in front of the fireplace, which, being May, wasn't on, but was still quite pretty.  (I think it's actually the table in the lower righthand corner of the image, which is from the English Inn Website).

We started off with two appetizers: a Smoked Salmon Crostini, which had tomato and basil, and a Baked Brie with strawberries, crackers, etc.  Both were AMAZING, although the crostini actually had a tad too much basil for my taste. 

For dinner, Dante had Braised Duck with saffron risotto and seasonal vegetables.  When asked for comments, he says "It was DELICIOUS".  I agree.  lol.  He did then elaborate, saying "Each of the parts was basically what you would expect, but the best thing was eating them all together."  The risotto was creamy and the duck was amazing, and it was all around just awesome. (I'm noticing a very complementary theme here.... lol).  Unfortunately, they haven't updated their online menu to include this dish, or I might have a few more details for you.

My dinner was the Pork Gratinee, which IS on the online menu.  It is described as "Grilled bone in chop, caramelized onion, gruyere cheese, port wine reduction, daily vegetable, crisp polenta cake".  It was more than amazing, and like Dante's Duck, best when eaten together with the pork and some onion on a piece of the crispy polenta cakes.

By the time we got to dessert, we were both full, but there was NO way we were leaving without trying at least one dessert.  Unfortunately, we were a little too full to try more than one, so we opted for the lightest and most unique dessert on the tray, a white chocolate mango mousse.  It was very light and smooth, and a perfect end to our awesome dinner.

So in summary..... amazing food.  Thanks again, Grandma!