Lake of the Ozarks Work/Quest

So as promised, Laura and I hosted tables at the 19th Annual Wine & Brew Festival held at the Country Club Hotel & Spa in Lake Ozark yesterday. Of course, work melded into fun as Laura and I decided to relax for dinner afterwards!

Here's Laura standing by her adorable table:

She has her hand on a family heirloom she refers to as her 'genie in a bottle'. She does a great job of table decoration, doesn't she?

In contrast, here's my table:

I feel like my table is anemic in comparison. As you can see, I went with the tasting tub instead of the raft. I just need to figure out an ice-dumping strategy for that raft and I'll be in good shape.

We asked a few of the 'ladies of the lake' for some restaurant recommendations that fit my criteria: lake view and outdoor seating. The weather was fantastic yesterday, and as much as I like working this particular event every year, we were stuck inside so I was ready to be outdoors for a bit.

Baxter's Lakeside Grille was the restaurant we settled on, and after a very small wrong turn, we pulled into a packed house. But the hostess was able to find us a superb table on the outdoor patio quite a bit faster than we expected. Here was our view when we sat down:

Oooooohhhhh......Ahhhhhh.....I think Laura and I said that about three or four times each after we sat down at our table. We were hungry and ready to put our feet up for a while!

We started by ordering spinach and artichoke dip. Pretty yummy!

We kept looking over the wine list, but after four hours straight of talking wine, we were feeling like something else....shocking, I know! We settled on mojitos. I ordered a mango mojito, while Laura went for a classic:

That's my mango mojito....it kinda looks like lake water, doesn't it?

Laura's mojito looks much more appetizing. So we were not initially thrilled with our mojitos actually. They were both much sweeter than we prefer, but that was easily remedied with a few extra squeezes of lime to offset the sugar level.

For dinner, Laura order the scallops served on a bed of roasted potatoes and green beans:

She really loved the green beans, and enjoyed the scallops & potatoes as well.

I ordered the seared ahi tuna salad with pinapple chutney:

Fresh and delicious!

And when the food arrived we decided we were ready for a glass of wine. Laura ordered a glass of Robert Mondavi Sauvignon Blanc. I went for a red I've never heard of before - The Dreaming Tree "Crush" Red Wine ... I feel very on-trend drinking it since I've recently read that blended wines are rising in popularity.

Both were nice solid wines. The red was probably a little too heavy and dry for my salad, but that didn't keep me from enjoying both!

What we really enjoyed the most about dinner last night was the view. The sunset was so pretty! We just couldn't leave until the sun was completely down, so we split one more glass of wine - another blend from Peter Lehman called "Layers".