These Plates Are A Mess! Of Absolute Deliciousness.

Plating and presentation are skills important to all home cooks and vital necessities for restaurant chefs but sometimes, at home after a long or trying day, we can let our hair down and relax our standards. 

At Cafe Drake HRV our food is largely unstyled and we always snap pics of what we actually slopped on the plate moments before inhaling it. More of an effort is extended for dinner guests but hopefully the photos below demonstrate that even if plate isn't beautifully composed the food can still be delicious and appear appetizing. 

Just don't get in the habit of dumping dinner on a platter and calling it a night; there's always a place and time for rinsing off the tweezers and artfully arranging the microgreens! 

Salud!

Broccoli and Chickpea Soup, Bread, Garden Tomatoes and Salad Greens, Roasted Yams and Yellow Peppers and Tomatillo Relish

Japanese Hot Pot

The Japanese Hot Pot plated in a bowl with Heirloom Tomatoes

Brown Rice with Ground Seeds and Nutritional Yeast. Okay we know that sounds as unappealing as the monochromatic beige-on-beige visual above but it's really, really tasty.

At least serving kimchi in a separate small bowl keeps it from getting lost on an otherwise busy plate.

Artfully arranged and presented nachos are the norm at Cafe Drake HRV, as a quick perusal  using the search option at the top left corner of the page will reveal. Tonight's nachos? Not so pretty but bold in flavor and taste courtesy of our Ancho-Pasilla Salsa. The salsa recipe can be found HERE in the 2014 archives.

Here, a Bare Bones plating-style belies the big flavors of Soup, Herbed Garlic Bread and a Well-Dressed Garden Salad.

After staring at this photo for 20 minutes we figured out what it was - a dinner last week at Cafe Drake HRV of Baked Polenta Wdges, Sunflower Sausage, Salad and House Pickled Jalapenos!

Before you judge, the grim banality of this plate of brown food does clean up sorta well. See next photo below.

Whole Wheat Tostados with Lentils, Sunflower Sausage and Caesar-Style Arugula Salad

Poha, Salad, Pappadums and Mint-Green Chili Chutney. Poha is a dried and flaked rice produced in India, generally cooked as a pilaf with vegetables and spices. You'll find our standard recipe HERE in a post from 2009.

Lentil-Stuffed Poblano Peppers with Tomato and Habanero Salsa, Yellow Rice, Yellow Tomatoes, Cilantro and Pumpkin Seeds

In the midst of all that mix, a melange of spicy, salty and tangy flavors. Don't judge the complexity of a book by its simple cover.