The Value of a Virtu

It is restaurant week in Columbia, SC. Husband and I took the opportunity to try something new. Vitru is a tapas-style restaurant on Devine St. The setup is pretty run of the mill. One giant room with a bar that is too big, tables that are stacked on top of each other and are too small. Tapas is not my favorite style of dining, but this was a new restaurant for Husband and myself, so we decided to try it.

The menu has a few good wine selections, definitely a little higher than your normal table wine. After strategizing the menu, Husband and I settled on one cold tapas and four hot ones. Now, the reason why tapas is not my favorite would be because there is no semblance of order. I not only have a hatred of chaos, no matter how unimportant the chaos might be, but I am a linear-thinking individual. The kitchen and the wait staff throw dishes at you and your are left with this tiny table covered from end to end with plates.

We began with the chile rellenos con pollo. They were batter-fried and severed with a chile lime sauce. The sauce was brilliant. It was bright and spicy. The chiles were well cooked and cheesy and yummy.

The rest of the food was thrown out at us all at once. We had the crab, avocado and tomato stack, which lacked in seasoning, but the ingredients were fresh. It could have definitely benefited from some acid and some spice.

We also had mozzarella on focaccia with a tomato dipping sauce. Now, this was the most exciting for me when I ordered it. Cheese? Bread? Yes, please. It let down a bit, the sauce was incredibly too chunky to dip the bread and cheese in and the bread either needed to be crispier to begin with or be toasted a bit more. The tomato sauce did have an excellent garlic and tomato flavor.

We also had wasabi-encrusted scallops. This, by far, was the best dish of the night. Inventive and sophisticated. Beautifully prepared. It had a crunch which was contrasted by the velvety scallop and a spice that was just enough not to overpower the dish. This was also the prettiest looking dish of the night.

The last, and unfortunately least, was the "tomato-salted" fries with a chipotle dipping sauce. Now, I don't know what they meant by tomato-salted, but I didn't taste any tomato. The dipping sauce was also the consistency of wallpaper paste. It was an average lump of french fries with an average sauce.

This place has promise. There is a patio outside that will be perfect (mostly because the tables are bigger) once the weather warms up a bit. My biggest problem of the place is that it doesn't have a true identity. Yes, it is tapas, but the dishes ranged from refined to ordinary. The waitstaff have these horrific red shirts to wear as uniforms that reminisce of TGIFridays. I think we'll try again in the spring/summer to see if their crisis will be solved. I'll be rooting for this place.

On a second note, after dinner, Husband and I went to Speakeasy to meet up with some friends for some after dinner drinks. I have a new chick drink favorite. The pear pomegrante martini is amazing.

The Breakdown:


The decor: Typical, almost too typical. The patio has promise, but the bar and the television stationed there dominate the place.

The food: On the fence on this one. Some dishes I would want again and again and some were just ok. The scallops were a home run and the stack and the bread and mozzarella plate would be too with some tweaking.

The wait staff: I don't think that some of the wait staff here are very well trained. Our main waitress was efficient and sweet. Although, they do make the mistake of allowing some of the other wait staff to run plates to their tables. We almost received a plate that was meant for another table and also received a credit card and receipt from another table after we had paid our tab. Please don't make me remember their uniforms again.

The drink: Above average selection of beer and wine.

The atmosphere: Generic. You eat on top of the people next to you and you can't help but notice the television on the bar.

The price: A bit pricey for the atmosphere. Even with a 10% discount from checking in there for the first time on Foursquare, our tab was $70. We did have a couple glasses of wine a piece, which accounted for almost half of the check but to pay that type of money again, I would expect a bit more refinement from the staff and the decor.

A Time for Resolutions: Dieting and savings for all!

I can't pretend I don't participate in the New Year resolution revolving door of "THIS year I WILL get in shape and STAY in shape" and then 3 weeks later after I've shed the 5 pounds I've gained over the holidays turn around and say "yea, right." Well, 6 days into 2011, I've finally gotten on that dreaded scale. Four pounds...SIGH. Up comes the Lost It! app on my iPhone (which, by the way, is a great calorie tracker) and down goes the confidence I had to slap on that really cute new black skirt Mom got me for Christmas.

Dieting sucks. This isn't news to anyone. You've got to curb everything to lose weight and get off the damn couch once in a while. Now, dieting does suck. I have to forgo the urge to snack on the chocolate chips and homemade frosting I used for holiday baking. Yes, I snack on frosting...you have a problem with that? But dieting doesn't mean you have to have boiled chicken and frozen green vegetables. You can actually diet without going hungry, or going without flavor. It's all about making the right choices.

Last night, I made something I have never made before. Tilapia. Apart from canned tuna and anchovies, I have never made anything with fish in the house before in my life. Why? Because it scares me. Fish can overcook so quickly and it intimidates me to drop more money on a product that's just going to taste like I'm licking the kitchen floor at a Red Lobster (but the biscuits are good).

So, while I was browsing my local Food Lion, looking for something a little less fatty than the ham Husband made for me last weekend, I came across some tilapia fillets. The package of two was only about $4.50, so I decided to give it a whirl. I seasoned the fish with salt, pepper, garlic powder and tarragon. Then I sauteed it on medium high heat for about 3 minutes on each side and served it on top of a cup of cooked couscous with raisins and squeezed some fresh lemon juice on top. Less than 400 calories for so much stuff.

Since I suck at segues, I'm just going to start with my second topic. So a couple of nights ago, I saw this show come on called Extreme Couponing. Now, Husband is an extreme cheapskate, so I told him he should turn it on. I regret this. The show was about these people who, as a hobby, try and put together manufacturer's and store coupons with store discounts to basically get hundreds of dollars worth of food for a ridiculously low amount of money. Think $600 worth of food and products for under $10.

This got Husband's mind all jacked up. This is the kind of stuff he thrives on. The man loves a bargain more than anything. Immediately, he got to work, at work (such the productive little monkey he is). He, almost instantaneously found out that he could go to Bi-Lo and work his coupon and savings magic and somehow make it so that the store owes him money. Yup. He called me in the middle of the day, so proud of himself that he caused one of Bi-Lo's self-checkout computers to crash because it said it owed him $0.13. He went to four different Bi-Lo stores yesterday, cleaning them out of pasta. He came home with about 40 boxes, all for a grand total of about $1.50. Here's the proof.

He spent most of the evening scheming about his next purchase. I have been attempting to plant a little seed in his head that he needs to only stockpile stuff that we will:

1) Use, and not the "hey, this is different and looks kind of interesting so I'll get 70 of them" kind of use.
2) Will not expire, at least not in this decade.

I don't know how much of that actually sank in, but I have a feeling we're going to need a bigger boat.