I had another session with my dinner club and we went to one of our favorite haunts. We went to The Courthouse Grille in Plymouth, and I have given the history of this restaurant before. My dinner club has by charter only forty-four members, so finding a venue that will allow us the privacy can be challenging. Most restaurants don’t have private rooms any more, and The Courthouse Grille has several besides the main dining room and the tavern. We have checked into some other establishments and some want to charge us an additional fee for the room above and beyond the price of all of the dinners and perhaps eighty drinks for the evening, which I think is poor business.

The Courthouse Grille appreciates our business and they always do a stellar job. They begin with an offering of a garden salad that is more than just some leaf lettuce and they have some excellent in house baked rolls, and I am not a bread eater. While most establishments try to keep the selection to three or four different entrée choices for dinner, here we are offered seven choices. Our choices this evening were Veal Marsala, Shrimp Scampi Roma, Grilled Salmon, Sautéed Perch, Chicken Piccata, Lasagna and a New York Strip Steak; and I might add that the sides with each plate is different, so they are not just dumping food on our plates. Afterwards we have a chocolate sundae, which is a tradition that was insisted upon by the Club Secretary several times removed.

We always have a cocktail hour before the dinner and meeting, just to catch up with each other and for some good times. I like to enjoy a Whiskey Sour during this time, as it is not too heavy of a cocktail and of course the cherries are extra nourishment. I had decided on the Veal Marsala and I asked to see the wine list, to see what they were offering by the glass. When one looks at most wine lists by the glass, the usual suspects are usually there, but I like to find something new to write about. Of course, by now the wait staff has gotten used to my request to bring along the bottle, so that I may photograph it. I had a glass of Bodegas Esmeralda Tilia Malbec 2014. The Malbec grape is originally from France and holds sway in Cahoors and is part of what is known as the Bordeaux Blend as well. The Malbec grape has become the king of Argentina and was originally planted there in the mid Sixteenth Century. This particular wine comes from a plateau near the Andes Mountains in the Mendoza region of Argentina and is a major producer of wine. I took a gamble with this selection, because Malbec can be a very heavy wine which would have overpowered my veal, but this wine was softer and mellow and actually went quite well with the dish, and I was a happy man.