Honeymoon Dinner at the Scenic Cafe

Steve and I love the Scenic Cafe on Duluth's North Shore, run by a food genius named Scott whom I met once at an art opening when I was helping with the catering. He was very nice and kind of reminded me of John Besh.

I would go so far as to say that in our opinion, the Scenic is the only really good fancy eats restaurant in Duluth in the cosmopolitan fine dining done Duluth style sense. As compared to other restaurants, here we feel super comfortable, have never had a bad experience, and truly can hardly wait to return even when we are leaving feeling stuffed. Duluth has another few fancy places to eat but they're either not up our alley (too uptight would be an example) or we've had too many really bad meals there (often both pertain).

Steve and I had a hundred dollar gift certificate (wedding present!) to burn at the Scenic last week and here's how it went:

We had planned to drink only water and eat like kings, but we broke down and ordered coffee and hot Chai tea. Yum.


We started with the tuna tacos because Steve insisted, not that I was arguing! They were packed with tuna sashimi and were Asian flavored with avocado and I felt like I could eat about forty of them. I planned to come back the next day and order 4 plates of them all for myself.










For an appetizer we also ordered this shrimp tamale with house-made spicy mole. It was very good. I tried to get Steve to eat as much of it as possible so I could keep working on those tacos.



I ordered a house salad like I always do mostly because I am in love with their dressings. We got ours with a mustard fennel dressing whose flavor is burned in my mind forever! I loved that dressing and the crispy filo they serve atop their salad.













I always ask what kind of soup they have not only here but at every restaurant I ever eat at. Even if it's Perkins. I just love soup. They had two soups to choose from, one of which I can't recall, and this one; a curried chicken with garbanzo beans. It was really tasty and very much like something we would eat at home.












And on to the entrees! We shared both. This one was, clearly, a big tender hunk of beef with sweet and rich things under and around it. I can't remember a thing about its description besides our waiter calling it something like "beef candy." It was so good, just like he said.









This entree was wonderful, too. The scallops were silky and perfect and the pea and potato puree was spiked with bacon (need I say more).

We ordered our dessert to go, as planned, so we could head to the water's edge for sparkly wine and fresh air.



Dessert was a beautiful spumoni mousse kind of thing. It made our moscato taste especially wonderful!

And I found this heart shaped rock on our way down the beach.

Can you tell I don't like getting my picture taken? And isn't Steve a cutie? This was our honeymoon dinner. It was lovely. I hope we live to be a hundred and nothing ever changes.

Enjoy your day!