Fireside Dining!!!

Oh. My. Gosh.

Ladies and gentlemen, I just had he best meal of my entire life. Ok, I may be  being somewhat dramatic but let me tell ya...this meal I just had was hands down magnificent.

Everything about it...the food, the atmosphere, the service, the people. This was a quote from my brother,"I'm surprised that people don't do cartwheels and flips in here. I mean, this food is ridiculous!"

Tonight, we dined at the Empire Lodge's Fireside Dining. It's at mid mountain, nestled in the trees overlooking the ski runs. They convert the ski lodge into this gorgeous white table cloth restaurant at night. They have four beautifully rustic fireplaces, each with a different dinner course.

The first is for the Swiss raclette cheese which they melt onto a plate and then you get all these dippers with homemade mustards and chutneys. I loved the fig mustard and the strawberry chutney.

The next fireplace has a bunch of different stews and potato dishes. I had the almond flour dusted trout with a beautiful salad and pickled beets. There was also a Panko crusted duck breast, a root veggie stew, cream of spinach soup, and other yummy comfort foods.

The next fireplace had roasted legs of lamb with mashed potatoes with roquefort cheese, and roasted acorn squash.

roasted acorn squash!

The grand finale was the dessert fireplace with an array of dippers, white and milk chocolate and caramel, plus this gorgeous rustic apple crisp with fresh whipped cream.

The food was incredible and delicious. The acorn squash was just sweet and creamy with a crunchy caramelized crust, and the trout was wonderfully flakey and delicate with a nutty crust.

And the raclette was what they're known for. I don't know what it is about the melty cheese, but with the mustards and all the accompaniments like prochutto and potatoes, it was fabulous.

But what made this meal so remarkable was the service. When we got there, we told our waitress, Christine, that we had several food allergies in our party, she was so helpful. In fact, she even brought the chef, Chef Shane, out to talk to us at our table, and he went over dish by dish what was okay.

After that, we were so thankful and thought what a wonderfully accommodating and helpful restaurant it was.

But then they raised the bar.

After we finished the third fireplace and were getting ready to go to dessert, they brought out 3 amazing gluten free cookies that were still warm - fresh out of the oven -- and they were made out of almond flour, so I could eat them!!!!

almond flour cookie!

And if that wasn't amazing enough, the chef had also sent out a dairy/soy free chocolate fondue especially for me!!!! He found out that I couldn't have soy either, so he made it with amaretto so I could have it!!! How incredible. Seriously amazing.

the dairy/soy free chocolate was fabulous!

When I tasted that cookie I seriously almost cried. It was so soft and chewy and slightly nutty and just spectacular.  Thank you Chef Shane and Fireside Dining!!!!

So aside from that outrageous feast tonight, I also had a fantastic day at Sundance. I ended up seeing films since it was foggy and snowing and not a great ski day. So we saw three films: Big Sur, about the life of Jack Kerouac, starring Kate Bosworth and Josh Lucas, and then two documentaries: Gideon's Army about public defenders, and Blood Brothers, about a guy who visits India and falls in love with kids with HIV. Great great films.

So today was a home run for sure! We even got my dad to go see a film with us!! :) We're having another big ski day tomorrow.

Have a great Friday!