The last evening of our exhausting, Disney-ccentric convention brought a group dinner at The Ranch in Orange, CA. The Ranch is an upscale restaurant that looks like your fancy father’s den that has been decorated by your mom. If that makes sense. The team is predominately European and the blokes from the UK were thrilled to find out that beneath this nice restaurant was a country-western barn that was heavy on the line dancing. I watched them practice their jigs and controlled arm movements around quite the expensive machine that hasn’t even gone through FDA trials yet. It most comical, so you can imagine their devestation when we found out that the line dancing bar was closed the night we were there. Fancy steaks would have to do instead.

Seated in dad’s library, this tasty looking menu was presented to us for a few selections. I smartly sat next to one of my favorite colleagues. He also loves food and we agreed to split all of our dishes. His sea bass for the win, I might add.

First up, was the Heirloom beet salad with manchego and marcona almonds. Amaizng. I would have been quite happy had this been my main – it was ample size to be! I’m not usually one for beets, but the spinach salad just sounded so ordinary, I thought I would try this and I’m very glad I did.

 
For my main, I tried the steak with roasted potatoes, because we were at a “Ranch” so when in Rome. I was promised it would be cooked medium, but it was more well done than I’d liked. The steak was literally the size of a brick and I sold off hunks of it to co-workers in an attempt to make it disappear. Rodney’s sea bass was much, much better, and had it not been for my massive salad, I would have been very jealous.

Finally, the win was back on my side for dessert where I ordered the deconstructed Milky Way. The chocolate stuff I could take or leave, but all of these bursts of homeade nougat were absolutely amazing. Overly sweet bursts of goodness for the tongue. I threatened that if Rodney did not eat some immediately he would regret it and would not soon have the opportunity again. He agreed on all matters.

The other dessert was the seasonal crostada. It was apple and it was very boring. One bite was plenty. Thanks, Rodney!