I am going to talk about the restaurant and not the singing group and if you remember them, you are probably as old as I am. The other day I ended up in a discussion about restaurants and chefs and Chef Loving’s name popped up and I was able to add to the discussion that the last I had heard was that he was an instructor at the Culinary Arts program at Schoolcraft Community College where my Bride and I go to almost every year for their Extravaganza. Some of the people had remembered going to his restaurant, but couldn’t remember where it was. I told them, that it is now another restaurant and that one has been going strong for some time.

The restaurant had an eclectic mix of dishes and I thought it had if I may coin the expression a “Soul Food Fusion” to it, nothing that I could really put my finger on, but it had a Southern feel to some of the dishes when I was there. I remember having his Five Onion Soup, which was the dish that almost everyone had and it had Vidalia onions which were not seen often here at the time. My Bride had Rye and Pistachio Encrusted Whitefish that was baked in a cast iron skillet with potatoes and snap peas. I had the Chicken and Andouille Sausage Pasta, kind of reminiscent of New Orleans and it was nice and spicy. I remember that they had Sweet Potato Pie for dessert, but we opted to share an order of Bread Pudding with a Bourbon Caramel Sauce.

With all of the spiciness of the dinner, I could have gone with a red wine, but I chose a white wine, because it would be chilled and I thought it would fight the fire of the dishes. The wine was one of the popular priced wines that one still encounters quite often now, but then it was rather novel. We had the Lindeman’s Bin 65 Chardonnay from South Eastern Australia. Australia was the hot country at the moment, so most restaurants and even some bars would try to have some wines from Down Under. Australia is now what I would consider a mainstay on many wine cartes especially in the popular price category, though the majority of their great wines are not encountered that often here. People always joke that I can remember stuff, and I remind them that I only remember the extra stuff in life that makes me happy.