Thursday, March 1, 2012

Homeroom: (Belated) Valentine's Day Mac & Cheesiness

Homeroom's Gilroy Mac & Cheese. 
With poor Ben severely sick and in pain with an old person's disease shingles on Valentine's Day, it's pretty needless to say that we didn't really get a chance to celebrate. Luckily, neither of us puts too much stock in the made-up holiday, so we weren't too upset about this. But we do usually mark it in our own little way and, despite the fact that it came a little later than usual, this year was no exception. I had heard good things about this mac & cheese place called Homeroom in Oakland, so we decided to check it out for a belated Valentine's Day date.

Homeroom's DIY Chandelier, hanging over the community table.
Photo Credit: Homeroom.
It was a Friday night and the place was packed, but we fortuitously managed to get seats right away. Now, I should have expected this from a place that specializes in mac and cheese, but the place had a total hipster vibe to it (in a good way). There's a community table, diy chandeliers, wall decor consisting of succulents, and a chalkboard with a map of California on it and other cute Bay-Area-bougie things. They even served their drinks in mason jars!

Ready to eat our mac n' cheese!
Anyways, this particular night, Ben ordered the "Spicy Mac" with breadcrumbs, which for some reason is excluded from their online menu, so I can't give you specifics in terms of ingredients, but I can tell you it lived up to its name. Seriously, you need to have something to wash this down with or your mouth might be left with third-degree burns. I ordered the "Gilroy" with breadcrumbs and broccoli, which includes gouda, sharp pecorino and a hint of roasted garlic. (As a native NorCal gal, I appreciated the playful naming of the dish). We had fun being couple-y as we ate, taking bites off of each other's plates, which had the added bonus of making both of our dishes taste better. Because Ben was still recovering, we both made a wholesome choice with our beverages by getting homemade root beer, which had this refreshing, almost spearminty aftertaste that we both found to be quite enjoyable.

Tell me what homemade oreos look like?
This is what homemade oreos look like.
(Also Blue Bottle coffee in a big red mug)
I received a lovely tip from miss Miraya (whom you should all know by now from this and this) that their homemade oreos were to die for, so we ordered some for dessert. This was probably my favorite part of the meal. The oreos were not only made from real chocolate cookies (not those little cracker-like things you get with the name-brand version), but they also a bit of sea salt on top of them which was just the icing on the cake. I actually think that sea salt and chocolate could replace icing and cake in that proverb because the combination is just that natural and heavenly. And, in spite of my coffee-hating ways, I quite enjoyed dunking my oreo into the Blue Bottle coffee that Ben ordered to top of the meal. (I even took a few sips, but don't tell!)

 Our return to Homeroom: "Mexican Mac" takeout 
Now, not to get too cheesy (get it?), but the wonderful meal that Ben and I had that night more than made up for the fact that we weren't able to celebrate Hallmark Card Day in a timely manner this year.
We got to do some of our favorite things: talk about nothing significant for long periods of time, make fun of each other, and geek out over delicious food. Best of all, we discovered a new place to eat, and we've since gotten takeout from there (I was boring and stuck to "Gilroy", Ben tried "Mexican Mac," which has chipotle peppers and a lime on top, nuff said). All in all, it was a pretty good time with a pretty cool guy. And that's as cheesy as I'm gonna get.

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