After a year and a half of collecting a few bucks each time we play poker, we finally amassed over $2600 which we agreed to spend on a dinner for the top 25% of players based upon the number of games played. Kat booked us the private dining room in the kitchen at the Old Homestead steakhouse in the Borgata. It was a sweet room with glass walls and sheer curtains to give us a little privacy. There was also a freaky parabolic dome ceiling which made the voices from those seated across the table sound like they were coming from behind you.

We knew we were going to indulge that night and we began with the wine. I started with the 2002 Viader, a label that I hadn’t tried since the 1996 vintage but which was a style I knew I liked- big forward fruit with rounded tannins. I’ve always felt, especially with blends, specific years don’t matter nearly as much as knowing a particular winemaker makes wine that matches your taste. Unless that winemaker leaves the winery, you have pretty high degree of certainty that any vintage you get of that same wine will be something you will like, and sometimes you get even more. That was the case with this 2002 Viader, which had wave after wave of complexity and most notably pronounced vanilla and black cherry flavors. Incredible.

Then came the food, starting with a giant seafood tower with crab legs, clams, oysters, lump crab meat and a tremendous amount of giant mutant-sized shrimp. Everything was absolutely fresh and those shrimp were so meaty it was ridiculous. The tower was so bountiful we couldn’t even finish the last four shrimp because some of us were getting a little full before our steaks even arrived!

We killed off the Viader and Gar chose the next wine- Silver Oak. Not quite a special occasion wine nor worth the price in my opinion, but in the spirit of the celebration, I didn’t want to monopolize the wine selection. But after the lush fruit and vanilla in the Viader, the Silver Oak was rather dull and flat. Dark notes of oak and tobacco prevailed and without the fruit to round it out, it just seemed a bit too serious and not as much fun to drink.

The entrees came, and the steak au poivre was awesome as always. Still the most deliciously consistent perfect execution of steak au poivre anywhere. For our last wine, I wanted to jump back to the Viader, but we had apparently cleaned them out of that. I then asked for the Rubicon and they were out of that as well. So then they upsold me to the Quintessa. Coincidentally, Quintessa was another wine that I had first tried at the same 1996 tasting event where I had tried the Viader (the other super-wines I had in that tasting were Etude, Opus One and Joseph Phelps Insignia). We were in fact mostly full from the seafood tower, and I don’t think any of us finished our steaks. Three of us wrapped our remaining au poivre leftovers for Lisa to take home to Rog. Needless to say, we had no room left for dessert, so we settled up our tab and hit the gaming floor.

To say we were brutalized would be an understatement. The only person to win out of our whole group was Kat who went to bed happily after winning enough money for the next morning’s $340 poker tourney buy-in. I dropped all of my first 3 buy-ins at blackjack and decided to go play some $1-$2 NL to recoup some of it. As most of you know, I hate cash game poker and usually only play tourney, so you know I was desperate to change things up. No such luck. I did manage to turn my $300 buy-in to over $540, but then the walls came crumbling down in one hand. I was dealt A-10 spades and limped in from middle position with 3 callers. The flop came K83 all spades. Early position opened with a small bet and I made a small raise. The guy after me re-raises me. EP folds to me, and I pause before re-raising the minimum. The guy after me moves all in and of course I call. He shows Cowboys, the turn comes a blank and the river is a 3 filling up his boat and busting me. Wonderful.

The next day, a bunch of us entered the $340NL, but Kathy didn’t. She was the smart one. All of us finished out of the money, Twoin getting the closest, finishing 25th, but Kat was the star of the day, playing a $100 sit n go and taking it down. From the sounds of it she played great too, leaving the runner-up feeling helpless by the time they got down to heads up play. Nice job Kat!

So, having taken a beating in AC, I returned home and decided my punishment should be that I can’t eat out so much for the next few weeks in order to recoup the money I blew. So I stopped by the supermarket on the way home and did some cooking yesterday. I decided I wanted to try making Daisy Martinez’ Pernil the right way as opposed to the improvised pork roast I did in NH. The result was spectacular. I marinated the pork shoulder overnight with the wet adobo and then just let the thing cook for four hours the next day. I did have to cook it at 350 instead of 400 though because the higher heat was causing too much smoke in my kitchen. But other than that I did it exactly the way she spelled it out and it was terrific. Coincidentally, this past Wednesday, the day I returned back to work from NH, Mark Bittman’s column in the NY Times was about, you guessed it, Pernil. But his version had a bunch of tweaks to it, including cumin and the use of a lot of onion. I love Daisy, so I wanted to stick to her recipe first, and it did not disappoint. Below, a picture first of the roast from NH (it tasted better than it looked, I swear), and then a picture of the Pernil.