Lunches, Brunches and Dinners #1 - Lobster/Avocado Salad, Strawberry Salad, Steak & Eggs and Milk Chocolate Hazelnut-Cherry Torte

Today's meal started with a lobster & avocado salad. The whole dish rested on a crispy little vanilla brioche and included sliced avocado wrapped around some perfectly cooked lobster. The presentation was a bit too fancy for my liking and made eating the actual dish a bit of a drag since it was hard to get a forkful of everything in one bite. The taste and textures were excellent and the miso-ginger dressing paired well with the rest of the flavors. I'm also always a sucker for red grapefruit with anything.

Here's what it looked like inside.

The girlfriend had a pretty awesome strawberry salad.

The Strawberries were local from the hudson valley area and perfectly fresh and sweet. I love strawberry season. She only let me have a few bites but the large berries rested on house made ricotta which was delicious and the salad included some crunchy bits(spiced granola and toasted almond bread) that paired well with the sweet fruit and lightly sweet ricotta. There was also some nasturtium and grape must in the dish as well. I'm usually not a fan of sweet salads like this one but the crunch combined well with the light sweetness and the slight kick from the nasturtium and grape must.

Here's another shot from a different angle that shows some of the crunchy bits.

For our 2nd course - we both had the steak & eggs.

Mine was medium rare and included some tasty eggs with an avocado based sauced and a fried egg that was perfectly runny. The dish also included some crispy bacon, cherry tomatoes and crouton as well as a garlic-anchovy dressing. The cheese was also made at the restaurant since the owners also run a dairy farm

Here's another shot with the egg moved.

We were stuffed at this point but the dessert looked good as well so we decided to split a milk chocolate hazelnut-cherry torte.

The torte melted in our mouths and included an orange infused chocolate mouse to go along with the hazelnut layer. To the honest, the hazelnut was hard to pinpoint as the orange infused chocolate took over the flavor profile but it still tasted delicious. It was too bad though since we're both big fans of anything hazelnut. The sauce was a maple creme anglaise and the torte came with a small scoop of delicious sour cherry chocolate chunk ice cream - also made with milk from the dairy.

Overall, an excellent meal.

Thanks for reading and let me know your thoughts on the post for future entries. I plan to make these often as I try to go out at least once a week for a high quality meal like this one. Were there enough pictures or would you want more? This is my first post so I'm still new to this and looking for any feedback to make my posts better!