Restaurant Tyler

In the past week, I have eaten at Restaurant Tyler in Starkville, MS THREE TIMES.  During those times, I have partaken in some of the best food I've had in Starkville.  I have eaten lunch and dinner there, and I have pictures of one of the dinners (please forgive me, for they are terrible pictures that rob justice of the food's deliciousness.)  I also realize that deliciousness is a dumb word, but did you know that, in the English language, we have the least words describing TASTE out of all five senses?  I should invent some.  Do I have the authority to do such a thing?

Here is a picture of the restaurant.  It is in the door on the right in the building.  Even the outside is cute!

The night we had dinner, we were immediately in awe of the upscale nature of the restaurant.  It was quite dark, the tables were lit with small candles, and bright, interesting art adorned the walls.  However, it was still comfortable and felt inviting.  I'm not used to being in nice restaurants, but I felt welcome there.

When we were seated, we were greeted by a sharply dressed server who told us the specials for the night and took our drink order.  To my delight, the drinks were served in little jars!  Adorable.  We ordered a bottle of Sweet Magnolia muscadine wine upon the suggestion of our server.  It was nice and sweet, but I'm not a big fan of the taste of alcohol, so take my opinion on that with a grain of salt!

First, we ordered the tomato and goat cheese tart.  If I remember correctly, it had tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, caramelized onions, apples, and goat cheese.  It was so delicious, and certainly served as a true appetizer and not a mini-meal like the appetizers at most restaurants.  The goat cheese was so creamy and tasted amazing with the rest of the ingredients.  It was very complex and I appreciated how there were many flavors and textures that all tasted so interesting together: the chewiness of the bread, the sweetness of the onions, the acidity of the tomato, the tartness of the apples and balsamic vinegar.  Delicious, and I think the rest of the table agreed!  Here is a picture, and please forgive its terrible quality.  Without the flash, the picture was too dark, so you'll have to settle for this displeasingly bright picture.

Next, we all received our entrees.  I ordered truffle gnocchi with grilled sausage, Megan ordered fried chicken with macaroni and cheese, and Liza ordered baked pasta in a spaghetti squash.  I wish I had a menu so I could provide the exact descriptions.

My dish was finished with a white truffle cream sauce and came with a large piece of grilled Italian sausage.  It was one of the best pasta dishes I'd ever had!  I had never had gnocchi before (we talked several times that night about the correct pronunciation of the word!) and I loved it.  It was light and soft, but even the pasta itself was creamy, which shouldn't be surprising to me since gnocchi is a type of dumpling.  The flavor of the sauce wasn't overpowering like cream-based sauces sometimes are to me, but I could taste the hints of garlic and truffle.  I wish I had the recipe for that sauce! The sausage was also very good, but I only ate about 3/4 of it because I don't enjoy a lot of meat with pasta.  Basically, I LOVED IT.

I found the description of Liza's dish: "Baked orecchiette pasta served in a roasted spaghetti squash with molten telleggio cheese."  Sounds good already, right?  It was great!  Cheese pasta is amazing anyway, and this was the first time I had ever tasted spaghetti squash.  I had heard before that spaghetti squash can taste somewhat bland, but this was definitely not!  It was chewy and flavorful, but not heavy.  In fact, the tables didn't have salt and pepper shakers, and I didn't even miss them.  That means a lot coming from me...I ALWAYS salt and pepper my food before tasting it.  Also, I think Liza's dish was definitely the prettiest...beautiful presentation!

And if you thought Megan's dish would be boring since it's "just" friend chicken...so wrong!  It was the best fried chicken I've ever eaten.  It was a boneless chicken breast, and I actually enjoyed that.  I found the desciption of her meal, as well: "Buttermilk and coconut battered Statler chicken breast, nestled in a pepper jack macaroni and cheese casserole."  I won't say much more than that (you probably don't need more), but the chicken was very tender and I really loved the light, flaky crust.  I even tried the brussel sprouts on the side of the plate (first time eating them), and I enjoyed those, too.  They had a sweet flavor and tasted like they were roasted or steamed.

Finally, we ordered stuff pancakes for dessert!  Description: "Stuffed with maple glazed pecan cheesecake filling, and served with Vermont maple syrup custard sauce."  Sounds good, right?  Well, it was better than good.  The pancakes were light and chewy, and the filling was sweet yet tangy.  And the sauce...it was great.  It was very sweet with a hint of maple, and it was pretty much perfect.  The dessert also came with a few pieces of strawberry.  And they gave it to us free since it was Megan's birthday!  How sweet.  Here is a very bad picture of a piece that I tore off.

I couldn't have asked for a better first meal from Restaurant Tyler!  Since then, I have tried their hamburger steak blue-plate lunch with sides of fries and cheese grits (since then, I crave those cheese grits about once a day), shrimp risotto, caesar salad, a bite of my friend Diana's filet mignon, and chocolate layer cake.  I also tried the corn salsa from my step-mom's plate lunch, and I loved it.  In fact, all of it was amazing.  I know this probably sounds like a paid endorsement, but I am just genuinely excited about having a new (to me) restaurant in my town to enjoy.  *ahem* And if they really wanted to pay me, they could just pay me in cheese grits or chocolate layer cake.  I do have a birthday coming up, you know.

"Hello, Cupcake" Monarch Butterfly Cupcakes

So...last Thursday, one of my very best friends (Hi, Megan!) turned 23.  We've known each other since high school and we lived together in college for 2 years.  She is now married and we both currently live in the same town where we went to college.  I don't know how much longer we'll both be living here, but I do know that when we leave, I'm going to miss her severely.  We both love to bake, so I thought I would make her something special for her birthday, and the "Hello, Cupcake" book I received for Christmas gave me plenty of ideas.

There are so many adorable ideas in this book, but I knew when I saw the monarch cupcakes, I just had to make them for Megan.  Butterflies have a special meaning for her family, so that was my inspiration.  This was my first attempt at making such an "outside of the box" cupcake, but it certainly won't be the last.

First, I gathered the edible ingredients for the cupcakes.  You'll need a boxed cake mix, food coloring, canned chocolate frosting, canned vanilla frosting, M&M's, dark cocoa chocolate melts, and candy melts in the color of your choice.

P.S. The "cast of character" shots are an ode to The Pioneer Woman, one of my favorite bloggers.  I LOVE Ree.

Next, I drew the outline for the butterfly wings and the antennae on sheets of paper.  Mine definitely weren't perfect, and they don't have to be!

Next, I put the outlines under sheets of wax paper and melted the candy melts in plastic bags until they were liquid.  Then I just snipped a small corner off the bags and began trying to make these things!  And let me tell you, these were not made without some difficulty and practice.

First, I snipped too large of a hole in the bag of orange candy melts, so I had to struggle with the orange melts oozing out of the bag too quickly during the entire process.  Next, the hole I snipped in the bag of chocolate melts was too small and I busted my cheap plastic bag because of all the pressure I built up in the bag!  So, my advice to you here:  if you use this method during any kind of baking, buy quality plastic bags!  Haha.

The process of drawing the butterflies SOUNDS simple, but it definitely took a little time for me to learn how to properly control the bags and steady my hands enough to make smooth outlines.  I recommend sitting at a surface where there is enough room for elbow support.

Basically, I outlined the wings with chocolate, filled in the middles with the colored melts, and then dragged a toothpick from the outside of the wings toward the middle.

Right after I completed a butterfly, I placed some sugar pearls on the tops of the wings.

After I finished all of these painstakingly cute butterflies, I baked the cupcakes and frosted them with tinted icing.  A tip I learned from a cake decorating class I took a while ago:  for boxed cake mixes, use a mixture of sour cream and buttermilk (or just buttermilk) in place of the water called for on the box and add one extra egg to the mix.  The cupcakes are much more moist and delicious with these changes!  Also, I attained a more uniform cupcake size than usual from a tip in the "Hello, Cupcake" book:  pipe the cake batter into the baking cups using a plastic bag.  However, I have tried this before and the bag burst open, so use quality plastic bags.  I've already said that, haven't I? :)

Finally, I assembled the butterflies using M&M's for wing support and piped on the butterfly body with chocolate frosting.

As you can see, the butterflies aren't perfect (they definitely are in the book), but Megan thought they turned out lovely, and that's what really matters to me. :)

I also edged some of the pink frosted cupcakes in sugar pearls.  I thought they looked classy! 

Speaking of classy...right after devouring a few of these cupcakes, we had a particularly sophisticated birthday dinner for Megan at a restaurant none of us had ever been to.  It was one of the best meals I've ever had!  Maybe that's what my next blog will be about.  Blogging with pictures is definitely more difficult than I thought it would be, but I hope I'll get the hang of it!

Hope you enjoyed the post...maybe now you'll try something that is a bit of challenge for you, too!