I've been remiss in bringing you all the details of my dining life. It's been over a couple of weeks since I went to
Four Square, which, as always, was a wonderful experience. I went there with a couple of friends, just two days before I received my new camera. So, these photos were taken with my old camera and you'll just have to endure. My Hippest Friend had the baked Stump Sound oysters with yukon gold potatoes on whole wheat blinis and smoked char roe. It looks good to me, and, as you can see, he was eager to try it.
I had a bowl of the Orange Cranberry Bean and Housemade Bacon soup. It was very good, but somehow I was thinking that it would have cranberries in it instead of having cranberry beans in it. I was craving fruit and I thought cranberries and bacon would go well together. I enjoyed it, though.
For my entree, I had grilled mahi mahi with stir fried soba noodles, red kuri squash, green mango with coriander, coconut-shellfish emulsion and lime pickles. I think I ordered this mainly because of the mangos and they weren't very prominent in the dish, but there were some. Overall, it was very good and perfectly prepared.
One of my friends had pan seared scallops with roasted apple and foie gras bread pudding, braised celery, saba and a creamy chestnut sauce. That was absolutely fantastic and I would definitely order that if I had another opportunity.
That friend was on a roll, because he also ordered the almond cake with olive oil ice cream, coriander-honey croquant and an orange-cava sauce. He described it as the "sleeper hit dessert of the year".
I had a dessert special, tangerine "but not so tangeriney" smores. Aside from the fact that the top half was camera shy and kept trying to escape before I could photograph it, it was a delightful dessert. This photo was taken after I had reassembled it twice, so it may not be quite the presentation that was originally intended, but it's pretty close. I like tangerines and I was still in the mood for fruit at that point, so I was happy. The cookies were almost like granola bars and the tangerine marshmallows were subtly flavored.
In addition to getting our own desserts, we all shared a bowl of sorbet and ice cream. We got chocolate mint chip, blood orange sorbet and brown sugar ice cream. These were served with a madeleine cookie and were delicious.
I believe this was the fourth time I'd been to Four Square, but I hadn't been there in many years. It's in a quaint and potentially romantic four square house with tables that are spread far enough apart to allow conversation. The service is exceptionally attentive and Chef Shane Ingram came to our table to introduce himself. It's a perfect place for a special occasion or when you feel like splurging on a leisurely evening out.
This evening, I went to an open house for Bronto Software, which is located at the American Tobacco Campus, in Durham. Bronto provides software for direct email marketing. As Adam Covati (@covati) explained, above, they make sending mass e-mails easier as well as providing detailed statistics on which users are reading the e-mail and how they are interacting with it. Once this information is available, it's possible to target changes to specific sets of recipients. Depending on the audience, it's sometimes difficult to understand how or if a message is being received and Bronto's tools provided a lot of insight into this. While those of us who work in higher-education may constantly hear that college-aged kids don't read e-mail, e-mail is apparently much more effective as an advertising and sales tool than print or telemarketing.
I enjoyed looking around their new offices, running into a few fellow bloggers and meeting the Bronto staff. DJ (@djwaldow), above, is watching an entertaining video of himself giving a tour of the offices.
