Pop up dining at home during covid

We celebrated our 10 year anniversary at a fancy "pop-up" restaurant complete with a 5 course tasting menu where we traveled around the world to our favorite culinary locations complete with photo slide shows, music, and wine pairings. 

For our tenth (10!!!) wedding anniversary, my wife and I had to cancel our trip thanks to shelter in place/travel restrictions. That left me in a bind to do something special for her in the current covid craziness.  I decided i would host a special dinner for Megan. My first thought was I could cook a fancy dinner, but with kids that usually means it is actually more work for her if she has to watch the chidlren while I am in the kitchen.  So what is a guy to do? Luckily, I had my partner in spreadsheet crime, Steffi, to help brainstorm ideas.

Three or four google docs later, we had a plan to host a multi course meal with each course corresponding to one of our past trips or experiences. To make things simpler, I would use door dash for a few courses while having a main course I could bake for a while to give us time to eat without feeling rushed. There are a lot of elements to pull together but the general concept was to have 5 courses, each a different location that we had visited. For each course, we would have a dish from that location, a themed drink and then a slideshow of our trip there. We would start late (around 8:30) so that we could get the kids into bed.

In order to prepare, I realized I needed to do the following:

• Decide the themes
• Build a menu
• Find drink pairings
• Build a slideshow per location
• Build a soundtrack of songs per location
• Decide on the decor

For locations, I balanced places that were meaningful but also had delicious food. I ended up choosing Hawaii, France, Italy, America and then our wedding. 

Food

I built this menu to simulate a fancy restaurant with pairings for each course. Courses 1 and 3 were ordered from door dash so all I had to do was plate them. 

The cheese plate I ordered from fromages.com so I did need to assemble it. I added sliced apples, grapes, olives a bunch of crackers and mixed nuts. I went a little overboard and we are still eating cheese 3 days later.

I had a great cut of cowboy ribeye from Snake River Farms. I normally cook ribeye on the grill with a reverse sear. I used our roasting pan to elevate the meat to increase air flow. About 90 minutes later in the oven at 275 it was ready. I use the meater block to track temperature to make sure it is fully cooked. After it hit temp, I pulled it from the oven and let it sit for 20 minutes and then seared over the grill on each side. It came out to a perfect medium rare.

For dessert, I had commissioned BethAnn from StudioCake to make a cake based on our top layer of our wedding cake. I made a slight upgrade to use her peanut butter ganache that I knew Megan would love. BethAnn was so great. She made it really easy to collaborate and delivered the cake day of to us. I normally don't love fondant but hers was really good. I can't recommend her enough. 

It was a lot of fun. I went overboard in terms of dishes and wines and we had tons of dirty plates after the meal but it was worth it. I think we might do this in the future but with 2 or 3 courses.

Drinks

Since my starter was poke, I wanted a tropical cocktail to pair and opted for a Hawaiian moscow mule. I took fresh pineapple, cored it and blended, then strained it. Add 1 oz pineapple juice and 1.5 oz vodka (I used Pau Ocean Vodka to keep with the Hawaiian theme) to a cocktail shaker. Add a squeeze of lime and then pour over ice into a copper mug. Top with ginger beer (I used fever tree). I added a pineapple wedge on the side of our copper mugs.

For everything else, I went with wine pairings. I ordered most from https://www.klwines.com/ and tried to pick a wine from the appropriate region. Ten years ago, I had purchased a wine for us to open on our 1st, 5th and 10th anniversaries so we decanted the 10 year wine to pair with dinner.

Slideshow

I used Google photos and could search by location. Then I added good ones to an album. To play them back, I used our roku on our tv with the PhotoView channel. All I had to do was pick the appropriate albums to let them play.

Music

I went through Google Play and added songs to these albums. I figured it would be 20-40 minutes per course but I put an hour+ just in case we took longer

• Hawaii
• France
• Italy
• America
• For our wedding, we had gotten an hour long video from our videographer and I uploaded that to youtube and played it back. 6 minute short version here

Decor

I bought a white tablecloth to cover a card table that I put in our office area. I wanted it to feel a little more intimate compared to our normal dining table. Ten years ago, we asked everyone at our wedding to put stones in a vase which I used as the centerpiece along with an electric candle. I printed the menu to add a nice touch to the place setting.

Prague/Austria/Hungary Trip - day 8 - Budapest

Once again it was shaping up for a ludicrously hot day. We again were too late for the tour at the government building so we headed up to the Castle District which is on a hill overlooking the city. It is very touristy but super cute. We wandered around and happend to be there at the exact time for the changing of the guard. Since we had missed this in Prague we hung out to watch but it was on a much smaller scale. Still neat, but it didn't blow my mind.

We were so hot and we wanted to get some shelter from the heat so we decided to go to the Labryinth beneath the Castle area. It was really cool (literally) and we wandered around the dark halls and enjoyed the lack of heat. The 'tour' was terrible in that there wasn't one. It could be really awesome if they took the time to explain what some of the interesting items were and put up some explanations. It was another example of Budapest having awesome things to see but a bad presentation.

At this point we were really hungry so we stopped at a corner restaurant in the Castle district. It was nice because it had floor to ceiling windows that opened out to the street so there was a breeze.I asked for a suggestion and they didn't give me a good one. I should have followed my instincts and suggested we leave, but instead we ordered and lunch was terrible. I was very unsatisfied but luckily we found a delicious ice cream shop nearby that served enormous sundaes. We both got one and it totally hit the spot.

Afterwards we headed to the church that overlooked the town. It was under construction, but they had rooms higher up in the church that let you look down and get perspective on just how big the church was. It was very interesting to do and was actually a good tour. Afterwards we headed back to the main museum and happened on an archery range. I of course was intrigued so I forked over the cash and took a few shots. I will need a lot more practice with a bow and arrow before the zombie apocalypse in order to be effective. Then we headed over to a museum with tons of paintings and old armor and sculptures and stuff. We shared a audio recording as per usual. Sadly I forgot my audio splitter so we had to split earphones. We walked back to the hotel and realized we were getting pretty close to the time to take the train. We stopped for a quick hummus dinner which was delicious and then had the hotel hail a cab to take us back to the train station.

We were flying out of Prague so we needed to train back (an 8 hour trip). We had tried to get a first class cabin, but there weren't any first class cabins available online. We sadly were going to be sharing a cabin with another couple. We weren't super excited about that but the couple seemed nice enough. We inquired with the train conductor if there would be any first class cabins opening up. It turned out that first class was still full but that we should check once he had checked everyone's tickets to see if there were an open room. We checked in and he looked it up and told us that the price would $150 a person to get the room to ourselves. That was a little pricey and I asked if it would be possible to do it cheaper by cash. He told us if we paid American dollars, he could do $50 for both of us. YYB. He took us to our room where we paid him and he told us to not let anyone in because of thieves and that he would come get us in Prague.

We passed out, and he woke us up as promised. We didn't get to shower but were there in plenty of time for our flight. We got back on the plane and sadly headed back to reality.

Prague/Austria/Hungary - Day 7 - Budapest

Once again this is a post I found late - I'm hoping Megan can expand on it.... Apologies for the blanks.

church gelato synagogue massage and bath house.
went to some church?

We got gelato on the corner because it was so hot. I am convinced there is ice cream on every corner in Budapest because it is so hot all the time.

It was ludicrously hot so we were excited to get to the bath house.

We got our room in the bath houseand changed and then headed into the baths. There was a lukewarm bath area and a swimming pool. There are the hot baths that are split by gender so we split up for a while. I noticed that in the men's side it was mixed company but still relaxed until our massages. The massages were weird because you strip down and they don't cover you at all. Then for a half hour they massage you and you are done. It wasn't particularly good, but it was particularly cheap. I finished my massage and headed back to the main area to go for a swim. I got yelled at because I didn't have a swim cap and went to hang out at the lukewarm bath area. Megan came out and met me and we went together to my side which was much hotter than hers. After hanging there for a while, we went outside to the wave pool. It was fun for a while until the waves got enormous. The one woman on the other side of the pool was trapped against the wall as waves bombarded her again and again. Just as I headed over to help her, the waves ended and she was able to recover.

We then headed back to the changing area, and started our walk back to town. We stopped at a few churches and fancy buildings before happening on some STREET VENDORS. I got a delicious sausage and Megan got a smoked pizza. They had a smoker continuously running with awesome pizza that had a very unique flavor due to the smoke. I need to think about doing that in my smoker sometime.

We had booked a fancy dinner reservation based on reviews on trip advisor at Borkonyha WineKitchen We requested a tasting menu from the chef even though it wasn't on the menu. They surprised us with a multiple course dinner that started outside, and moved inside as it got cold. Each course was delicious and we had wine pairings that worked really well.

We then trekked back to our hotel and passed out.

Prague/Austria/Hungary - day 6 - Vienna - church, art, national library

Disclaimer: I found this post 6 years after I wrote it so we are forgetting a few things and places. Hopefully Megan can fill in the blanks.

We headed down south east to another church (insert name). We weren't thinking of going in, but then we saw they had an elevator all the way to the top as part of their restoration process. Having never been all the way at the top of a church's dome so we got in line and took the elevator 2/3 of the way to the top. From there we walked up the staircase to the top where we had view back to downtown Vienna.

At the top, there was one of the guys working on renovations climbing on top of the support beams with nothing below him and no harness. I don't normally have issues with heights but it gave me some vertigo seeing him doing it and I still get an uneasy feeling just thinking about that situation. We took the elevator back down and wandered around the church listening to the audio tour before heading over to another palace. Here, they had gutted most of the inside and converted it into an art museum with some very impressive and well known pieces such as (insert art stuff here).

The audio tour was really good and gave a lot of history towards the various paintings. There were a lot of famous paintings. We shared an audio tour (bringing a headphone splitter was the best idea ever) and learned a lot of the backstory behind the pictures. They did a good job having audio recordings for each of the pieces; it is so much better than a painting on a wall with no information. From here, we made our way to the Austrian national library. They had an exhibition of their tourism postcards and posters made by the national tourism bureau as well as the changes made before and after Nazi occupation. Since we both love travel so much, it was awesome to see this glimpse into tourism and how it turned to propaganda during the Nazi regime and reverted back after the occupation.

 We headed back out to grab lunch at this sandwich shop that was rated highly on tripadvisor that I wanted to see. It turned out it was the mini sandwiches not actual size ones. we got a plate of a bunch of them and had a snack before heading back to the hotel and checking out. We caught the subway back to the train and hopped onboard to head over to Budapest. We were hungry so we ordered some food and I decided to get a drink. The options were either schnapps or budweiser. I opted for both after quizzing them about the schnapps they had. When asked if it was good, his response was "it grows on you". Needless to say it was terrible and I washed it down with my beer.

We got into Budapest late and encountered a subway system that wouldn't take credit cards or any bills over 5000 things because a subway ticket only cost 30 or 40 things. We ended up getting the down low from another couple to go to this tiny stand and buy the subway tickets there. We did, grabbed the subway (the most run down yet we had seen) and take that out to our transfer to a different metro line. There was a huge dichotomy between Vienna and Budapest. Where Vienna was more clean and felt 'safer', Budapest was loud, dirty, run down and there were tons of people roaming the streets at night. In the states, they'd be up to no good, but it was just people hanging out drinking. We figured out the subway and metro, ended up at our Hilton, got our Gold status upgrade and went to bed.

Prague/Austria/Hungary Trip - day 5 - Vienna

Unfortunately, the salad Megan had eaten yesterday (not the sausage as popularly believed by certain people whose name rhymes with egan) had gotten her sick so we moved a little slower this morning. I ate breakfast by myself and then we walked back into town to see the spanish riding school practice. Somehow the 3rd party ticket broker we used forgot to pay for the tickets but we had the email confirmation, so they gave us tickets anyway. It is first come first serve seating so they can fit a ton of folks but it filled up really quickly. We met a bunch of super rude folks who were trying to cut in line and finally fought our way into the school where we nabbed sweet seats at the end and sat back to watch the ridiculous riders and horses. they are so so good.

Unfortunately since it was just practice it did get somewhat repetitive and after an hour and a half, we snuck out to tour the castle in downtown Vienna. Since we were downtown, the entrance was very crowded with a long line just to buy tickets. In a moment of brilliance, we had purchased tickets to both castles the day before and skipped the line and walked in. It was really cool to see the main castle of the Strassburg empire. There were amazing examples of the table settings and silver and porcelain they used to serve dinners.

 After the tour, we headed back to the Spanish Riding school where we had a tour booked. It was awesome to see the stables for the horses. The school is downtown and the horses cross the street every day before the show. We took a look at all of their saddles. As horses progress along their training regimen, they graduate to different saddles for the show. We hopped the subway back to our hotel and got changed for the State Opera. Since Megan was not feeling well, we changed our reservations to a more casual restaurant afterwards.

Luckily we had decided to dress up and I was wearing a shirt and tie because we were there for a premiere. We had no idea what this was and as we headed into the building we noticed almost everyone in suits or tuxes. It turns out the particular opera we were seeing had never been performed by the company here and the first performance is a big deal. Megan had gotten our seats through a ticket broker so we weren't sure where we were until we picked them up at will call. It turned out that our seats were 3rd row direct center. We snuck into our seats quickly and sat down to see the show. There was a lcd on the back of the seat that you could set to your particular language to follow the show. The first act was good, but we both were fairly tired from walking around so I had to fight to keep my eyes open towards the end of the first act. At intermission I pounded a coke and was wide awake for the second half. After everyone in the show died, we filtered out to our post opera reservations at (who knows where?). I had a wiener schnitzel dish which was delicious. We headed back to our hotel and passed out.

Prague/Austria/Hungary Trip - Day 4 - Vienna

We took the overnight train to Vienna and got in SUPER early to a crisp Vienna morning. Where Prague had been slightly too warm on the last day, Vienna swung the other way. Even though it was only 7 am, we decided to attempt to check in to our hotel so we could freshen up. A 15 minutes subway ride later we were to our hotel since Megan was a rock star and had booked us the Hilton in downtown Vienna. As usual, she got a great deal on it. We were reasonably sure they would accommodate our ludicrously early check in and desperate and sleepy enough to try.

Thankfully, we got an amazing bellhop who found us a room and then once he noticed I was a gold member at Hilton, upgraded us to a executive suite. Having gold status is the best, it gives free breakfast, wifi and they'll upgrade your room if possible. In this case, it upgraded our room and we took someone's room who had a note already written to him. Laters sucker! If you were ever in Vienna and your hotel room was crappy at the Hilton, I'd like to apologize if it was your room we took. We headed up to the room to nap and play on the internet (guess who did what) before heading up to breakfast and then setting out for the first palace on our list, Schonbrunn Palace.





We had learned it was right off the subway so we hopped on board the subway at our hotel and hopped off at Schonbrunn. After I directed us the complete opposite direction of the palace from the subway, we eventually ended up at the front gates after a 45 minute detour. Schonbrunn is the most impressive palace I have ever seen. Almost all of the rooms are restored to their glory days are are filled with gowns, jewels, furniture and paintings that make it feel so lively and a stark contrast to the drab emptiness I felt touring Versailles. The only bummer is you can't take pictures so we didn't capture any of the amazingness inside.

After the tour, we decided to head up to their "tea house", an enormous building overlooking the palace. It gave us a good excuse to amble through the gorgeous grounds and me an excuse to eat more sausage, this time Viennese. We headed back down to the palace which gave Megan an excuse to hang out with baby animals.

Then we swung by the downtown area for a tour of a church and slowly wandered back to the hotel through the back streets of Vienna. Along the way, I found another sausage vendor, this time in what looked like a sleeping bag. Obviously I had to order it but it made Megan start to feel sick (or so she claims).

When we were planning our trip, there were options to buy tickets to either the National Opera or the State Opera. We wanted to see the big fancy Opera house, so we had booked tickets to the National since that is bigger than State right? Turns out we were wrong so we ended up with tickets to both! For the record, the State Opera is held at the amazing Vienna Opera house that most everyone has seen before. We took the subway up to the national opera and saw the Sound of Music. Only issue was that it was in German so we missed out somewhat. Luckily we both know the story and melodies well enough to still enjoy it quite a bit.

Afterwards we had a recommendation to go to gasthaus zur opera for dinner. I think I had the Schnitzel. Sadly Megan was still feeling not great so we headed straight back to our hotel afterwards.