The Marentes Network

The Art of Fine Dining at 1309

Yesterday night, we had a great fine dining experience at the THIRTEEN 09 restaurant of the El Paso Community College. Emi is a student of the culinary art department at EPCC. This restaurant is scheduled to be open to the public next year. Last night, the culinary students of EPCC prepared food for a selected group of fine food lovers, like us...

In the photo above, Alicia y Xochilt are watching the culinary students in action preparing the dishes.

The restaurant did not open until 7:30 p.m. but we were there very early to be the first ones and get a good table. We are always on time for food...

Here, Emi is very busy preparing a great appetizer dish that we was served before we started our full course dinner. The dish, although very small portion, was great and served to open our appetite...

The menu included a five course dinner. The first course included Thirteen 09 salad, crab cakes and fruit and cheese platter. In this photo, Emi is concentrated in arranging the main dishes.

After eating a good portion of different kind of cheeses (including some which Ruby calls "smeely cheese"), Xochitl seems very impressed with his main dish (also called main entreé); grilled beef tenderloin accompanied by chasseur demi, mushrooms and garlic, asparagus and diced carrots.

Xochitl gave me a very small portion of beef. It was juicy and really good...

For her first course, Alicia ate a really great crab cakes dish. For her main entreé, Alicia asked for roasted chicken breast with Kansas City medley rice pilaf, asparagus and roasted pearl onions.

Since I don't like chicken I don't know if it was good, but according to Alicia and Jaime (both asked for the same dish) it was "delicious"...

Jaime was very happy when the server brought him a mint ice cream after eating a great Thirteen 09 salad which I also ordered. After the small portion of mint ice cream, the server brought him his main dish...

I ordered the seared pork in a port wine demiglace with roasted gralic mash, asparagus and diced carrots (above). This was the best pork dish I have ever tasted in long time...

Here I am taking care of the desert which was also great. While Xochitl and Jaime had ordered double chocolate brownie fudge cake served with chocolate velvet sauce, Alicia and I ordered the holiday pudding flambé, below...

The diner experience was great and we are very happy and proud of Emi's progress in the culinary art.

We are very thankful to Emi and all his fellow co-students for the great fine diner experience. We intend to go to this restaurant once in a while next year when they open for the public...

Tags: alicia, culinary, emi, eppc, food, jaime, xochitl

< Previous Post

Comment

You need to be a member of Marentes to add comments!

Join this Ning Network

Comment by magdalena on November 20, 2009 at 10:31am: everything looked good!!!!!!!!!

Comment by emi_marrs on November 16, 2009 at 8:25pm: It was a 5 course dinner, we start with an amuse bouche which literraly translates to a mouth amuser. 1st course was a choice of either the cheese board, crab cakes or salad. Then its the intermezzo which is a palate cleanser to welcome to your main entree. Main entree was a choice of either pork or beef tenderloin or stuffed airline chicken breast, last was a choice of 2 desserts. Enjoy!!!

Comment by Xochitl Lugo on November 12, 2009 at 9:00pm: Tia I think I was scared because the portions were so tiny....lol...j/k... they were perfect!!!