Bubbles & Shells at Chianina

Thursday, June 25, 2015

5 of us met at Chianina , www.chianina.com,  tonight for their Thursday night Bubbles and Shells. Half price for 3 different sparkings, Champagne, Rose Cava and Proseco. $1.50 each for 3 types of oysters or baked Little Neck clams. The clams are not a good buy. Very small and not worth $1.50 each. Maybe .50 cents each.

Tonight's selection was Chefs Creek from Bay Sound, Canada, Sunset Beach from Hood Canal,  Washington and Malpeque from Prince Edward Island. The Chefs Creek I had not had before. They were large and had a nice salinity to them.

I followed up my 9 oysters with an order of Baked Marrow Bone.  Serve with toast points to soak up the richness of the marrow.

As always we were served the Rye rolls and the Salted Honey rolls with two butters and an olive oil. Had one of each.

There are 311 species of oysters and I would think you could get all species without a problem. But apparently, no. I woke up Friday morning with a swollen mandible muscle. Could hardly eat breakfast. After being at work for an hour I noticed my tongue had swollen and was affecting my speech. I left work and went my internist who said I was having an allergic reaction and gave me a shot of cortisone.  My the late afternoon some relief came but I still could not chew anything without a tremendous amount of pain. Waking up on Saturday morning there was more relief but still not 100%. Maybe 55%.  We will see what the day brings.

Since the Chefs Creek oyster was the only one I had not had before I will put the blame on it. I do realize that your body changes and you can have an allergic reaction to any food you have eaten before.  I am not sure if I want to experiment too much on trying the Chefs Creek again to see if it was the 100% culprit. But I will remember the name and not order it again. Which is too bad because I did like the flavor.