Day 5.129: Pig Pit and Manama

It was a meal-out blow-out day today!

Finding ourselves vegetarian-less at lunch time, a reduced Friday-lunch group went to the Pig Pit BBQ. In fact it would have been fine if we'd had the vegetarian with us, but in any case, we got to eat piles of smoked meat without guilt.

Here's my pulled pork sandwich (nice smoke ring, tasty and not too smothered in sauce - there was more at the table) with fried okra and coleslaw:

It was a big pile of tasty food served quickly and inexpensively in a friendly little place in the middle of nowhere. Excellent.

Then, this evening, some friends of ours were involved in a charity baby-sitting event at Shaker High School. So, we dropped the kids off there and went out for dinner! Since we were dropping the kids in Latham, we naturally decided to eat in Bethlehem.

Actually, it is restaurant week in Bethlehem so it wasn't as mad as it sounds. We visited Manama Grille (recommended - as was Pig Pit now I think about it - by friend and local blogging celebrity derryX).

Restaurant week means they were offering a reduced menu at three courses for $20.12.

Here's what we had:

Along the top, Exile #2's choices: Hummus (with cucumber since Exile #2 couldn't have the rather excellent bread - in fact she says she could happily have eaten it with a spoon!), Badenjan Nagrani (roasted eggplant/aubergine - amazing smoky flavour - yum!) and Firnee (a rice pudding with rose water, almonds and pistachios).

At the bottom, my choices: Falafel - crunchy and delicious, Filet Kebab - herb-tastic and Baklava - so good I started eating it before I remembered to take a picture and then finished it even though I had really eaten a lot by then!

We drank Sulemani tea (iced) which was deliciously spiced and refreshing and generally had a very nice time indeed.

Then we went and collected the kids.  It seemed the right thing to do.