My Bride recently went to an overnight conference in Okemos for business and one night she and a group of friends had dinner at Cellar Dusty’s.  She has dined there before, but we have not gone there for dinner together.  The people that own Cellar Dusty’s also own the English Inn that I have already discussed.  This is a much more laid back venue than the English Inn, but the same dedication to the food and wine is seen in both restaurants.

My Bride attempted to take a picture of the podium where you first walk in at the hostess’ station.  She did this because the podium was paneled with wine crates, just like I had used to panel parts of our wine cellar.

At Dusty’s all the entrée dishes have a choice of three different salads, and the five friends enjoyed some nice plates.  There was a salmon and pasta dish, a stuffed chicken dish, a pork tenderloin dish and my Bride and one other had almond encrusted whitefish.  They then enjoyed some Crème Brulee and coffee, except for one friend that had a bottle of Walls Banana Bread Beer for her dessert.  My Bride said she tried a sip of the beer, and she enjoyed the nose of the beer, and she told me, that if she liked beer, she probably would have enjoyed it.

With the dishes that were ordered the wine selection was much easier, as they just enjoyed two different bottles of Chardonnay.  The first selection was a wine that my Bride and I had just had the other day, Sonoma-Cutrer 2011 from the Russian River Ranches designation, which is very creamy and a classic “oakey” California style Chardonnay.  The other Chardonnay that they had was Dona Paula Los Cardos 2011 from Mendoza, Argentina.  This wine was much crisper and more of a Continental finish to the Chardonnay.  So there were two different interpretations from the same varietal.

As a P.S. to my Bride, I still want to go to this restaurant to try it for myself, as they have a very interesting duck offering on the menu.