Last night we went to the newly opened Roy's in Chandler, to celebrate Stew's birthday, and I must say I'm looking forward to going back. We've been to other locations in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Maui - and have enjoyed the trademark 'Hawaiian Fusion' cuisine. For this visit, I made the reservation online at Open Table and noted in my reservation that we were celebrating a birthday.
When we arrived, we were taken to table with a curly ribbon around the votive candle - a nice touch. Stew had the prix fixe menu, which included a 3-sampler appetizer, a choice of 4 entrees - he ordered the macadamia crusted ono, and a choice of 2 deserts - he went for their signature chocolate souflee (even tastier than I remembered). We also ordered the calamari - light, crispy, and perfectly salted. I had a mixed green salad, and ginger sea bass - which came served over snow peas, and with 3 wild mushroom raviolis on the side (kind of odd, but very tasty).
When the dessert came out, the waitress also gave Stew a 3-sampler desert, with a candle, and Happy Birthday written in chocolate on the plate. And they took a digitial photo and later delivered a printed copy in a Roy's card. Another nice touch.
catalog (of all places) for butternut squash risotto. It was very rich and yummy - especially because of the browned sage butter you drizzle on top at the end. We couldn't easily locate butternut squash puree. So we ended up substituting butternut squash soup from Trader Joe's - using equal parts of soup and chicken stock (4 cups each), instead of the 6 cups stock the recipe called for.
Bulk pick-up is just around the corner, which means a weekend of trimming the trees. Stew began by chopping up our palo verde tree that had fallen over during a storm about a month ago. Back then, we had noticed 2 baby birds huddling under a branch, after having apparently fallen out of their nest during the storm. Well amazingly, they were still there - once Stew started up the chainsaw, the mom bird took off across the street. So not to harm the birdies, Stew pulled the branch in which they were now perched off to the side. Who knew we'd be such softies for a pair of pigeons (ok, well mainly me). Anyway, pigeons aside, after 2 hot mornings of hard work, our large pile is pick-up ready.
