A Wonderful night with El Toro Meats and Columbia Crest Grand Estates

BBQ Nights-South OC Style!

Overview of my plate....yum!

Close Up Cross Section of the Sirloin

Top View of the PinWheel

Was fortunate enough to score $20 dollars worth of meat for $10 courtesy of an online promotion and decided to use the evening to do some grilling and blog about it. Basically on the meat side we picked up a nice sirloin steak along with a sirloin pinwheel. For those of you unfamiliar with the pinwheel, its is a steak that is circularly sliced, ran through a tenderizer, then marinated in bordelaise/Worcestershire mixture. It almost has a teriyaki like taste in my book but with a good cut of steak and good ingredients it is arguably one of my favorites.

And to mark the occasion we sprang for a bottle of our new favorite wine in the Columbia Crest Grand Estates Merlot from Washington. We love the cab but thought on this eve we would roll with the merlot since the wife prefers it. And I do have to say....for those of you shelling out 5 or 6 bucks for a bottle of Yellowtail; trust me the 1 dollar more to get the Columbia Crest Grand Estates is well worth it. I gave some friends a sample of the cab a week or so again and most agreed it was as good as any $20 bottle price point.

What made the Grand Estates Merlot most remarkable IMO, was the finish. Like a good cigar or glass of scotch it had a long slow lingering finish that I have never experienced with wine at this price point. I took a sip inside the house and went outside to tender the grill and a few minutes later could still taste the nuances of oak and berry. Once again if you are paying 5 or 6 bucks for an everyday drinker give any of the Grand Estates a try as both the Cab and the Merlot are outright fantastic.

For the meat I used a basic dry rub for the steak and since the pinwheel was pre-marinated did nothing. We prefer our steaks very rare which makes sense for the fact that you can reheat leftovers and still have a bit of pink in the middle. For the veggies I use a pepper melange with some brown criminis over the grill in my now legendary bbq grill woq. I was considering roasting them and making some type of confit or remoulade but decided to keep it simple.

All in all a wonderful night, with wonderful food, with my wonderful family, with wonderful wide made all the more special by the fact it wasn't to be spoiled by my not so wonderful favorite NHL hockey team who by good fortune was not playing on this night and thus not offered the opportunity to spoil the occasion. And for that I thank the lord and the hockey gods for a wonderful, wonderful evening.