Fleming's - Almost as Nice as My Kitchen

I’m cooking in MY MOST BEAUTIFUL KITCHEN! It is so beautiful that it makes me cry. It really does. I just sit in our sunroom and look at it and I can’t believe I live in such a beautiful place. I promise to post pictures of the finished product – as soon as my daughters have seen it. They are coming at Christmas and I can’t wait to see them when they see it. I don’t want to spoil that moment (for me) by showing them a picture ahead of time. So, please have patience...

I haven’t taken time off to write to you all. The first day I cooked — Tada!--- fried eggs! Yowza! Then lamb chops, then homemade beef barley soup. I have running water – right in the kitchen! And a garbage disposal! And outlets that don’t trip breakers when you turn on the microwave at the same time that the refrigerator turns on. Wow. It’s amazing what we take for granted.

And to celebrate the new kitchen, we finally had dinner at Fleming's. It was the Wednesday evening before Thanksgiving. It was snowing romantically. A perfect night for a long, quiet dinner for two. Fleming’s fit the bill. It is a fabulous spot – if you can ignore the ridiculously expensive part. But never mind.

Fleming's is famous for its service, and this is well-deserved fame. You might want to stop there sometime just to experience how well you COULD be treated every time you go out. Our waiter knew every dish on the menu. He could describe how it was made, what wine it would compliment it. He was not averse to talking a bit about himself in a very amiable way. He made our evening very special.

Then there’s the food. I decided to split a bottle of wine with The Man Who Only Drinks White Wine. We ordered a bottle of Cuvaison Chardonny - Napa Carneros 2005 ($60), which was, of course, very nice. It’s a heavier Chardonnay than some, with some oak to chew on. So I ordered my dinner to go with this wine choice. The Red Meat Man has his own ideas of what goes with what, that is: red meat goes with anything and so does white wine. Okay, then.

Everything at Fleming’s is ala carte. I’d heard that the portion sizes of the side dishes were prodigious, so we decided to each order three items and share. I ordered an appetizer of crab cakes ($15.50), Fleming’s Salad ($7.95), and Seared Scallops ($28.95). The Man ordered a bowl of Vegetable Beef Soup ($9.95), a 12 oz Filet Mignon ($36.96), and Fleming’s Potatoes ($8.50). Can you imagine such prices? In Milwaukee? Whew! It’ll be snowin’ in Miami before I see the inside of this place again.

But let me describe the food, just so I can re-live the experience. My crab cakes were very crabby, almost all chunks of fresh crab and very little filler. They were small, but The Man tasted them agreed they were good. High praise from him – for something that swims. His Vegetable Beef Soup was delicious. Almost as good as mine, we decided, though we both like the addition of the barley that I put in mine. The salad was very good, but how can any salad – pretty basic with greens, glazed walnuts and dried cranberries with a very light vinaigrette – be worth $8? My scallops were served with a puff pastry filled with summer squash and a lobster sauce. Now that was tasty – and worth the price if anything was. As for the filet mignon, it was Big Beef, cooked very much the way The Man ordered it (red, with a hot center). Fleming’s Potatoes were a treat. This was a large portion of augratin potatoes, thinly sliced and oozing with cheese. Lip-licking good. We shared that and still brought half of it home.

With my scallops, I ordered a glass of red wine (whose name I forgot to write down, even after all these months of reviewing for you all. I know it was a yummy pinot noir for $13), bringing our grand total bill to $190. May I say, "YIKES!" That is before subtracting the $75 gift certificate I’d purchased earlier at the Waukesha Land Conservancy’s auction to reduce The Wallet’s pain ever so slightly.

Actually, I have to give The Man credit. He didn’t complain once about this bill and thoroughly enjoyed the evening – many thanks to our exceptional service.

By the way, I did check out the ladies' bathroom. I only wish mine were so attractive – and it was just as clean as yours at your house. And that’s saying something, for Bluemound Road.

No longer
Kitchenless in Brookfield