Tag: anniversary dinner

Weekend Things

Lauren4 Comments

Whew!  Do you ever have a weekend where you end up feeling more tired than rested?  Because I just had one.  And I’m kind of excited that it’s Monday and I have to be sitting at my work desk.  Emphasis on sitting.  We did so much house work this weekend.  But first!  A fun Friday.

P.S. This is a food-heavy post.  You’ve been forewarned.

Guys, I got contacts on Friday morning!  I’ve had glasses with a minor prescription since college but I rarely wear them because I hate seeing the frames in my periph so I’ve just been squinting at the TV guide and missing turns because I can’t read the street sign until I’m passing it.  I finally got contacts and life is easier now.  I took my fully functioning eyes to a concert on Friday night to celebrate.  Or because I was already planning to go to that concert.

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To say I’ve been excited to see The Head and the Heart in concert would be a huge understatement.  I adore this band and I’ve been anxiously awaiting the day I got to see them live.  I’d like to pretend we got there early because we were that excited, but it was like 10% excitement and 90% wanting to get one of the few seats so I wouldn’t have to stand for 3 hours.  And that’s what we call adulthood.

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Anyways, they were every bit as good as I thought they would be.  No, wait, even better!  Call me a uninformed fan, but I had no idea they had two male singers.  Totally thought it was just one voice on their albums.  Oops!  I’m so glad we got to see them.  My heart was soaring when I got to hear “Shake” and “Rivers and Roads” in person.  Chills just thinking about it 🙂  Also, some guy got on stage and proposed to his girlfriend, didn’t invite her on stage, then proceeded to celebrate and hug all the band members while she just stood there in the crowd.  Dude, come on.

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Saturday involved lots of house work — we picked paint, got to work on the kitchen and the living room and hooked up our new range! — and take out.  We tried this pizza place down the street for the first time and despite not having stellar reviews, we actually thought it was really good.  I’m a fan of anywhere that offers a bunch of veggie-licious whole wheat dough options so this was a win for me.  Then the annual viewing of my favoritest Christmas movie.  You think I would be sick of it but no.  Not even in the slightest.

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Sunday started with this bad decision.

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Dear body, please have a more consistent reaction to caffeine.  Love, Lauren.

This was my attempt at having a super productive day and don’t get me wrong it was super productive.  It was also super jittery and anxious.  I will never learn.  After I had more than adequately caffeinated myself, we tackled more painting, a trip to Ikea, a trip to the grocery store, cooking in our so-close-to-being-back-in-one-piece kitchen, un-packing boxes of kitchen stuff and a shower where I’m fairly sure I forgot to rinse the conditioner out of my hair… Oh, and our Christmas lights are finally up.  Yay!

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Then my parents came over to see all the progress at the house and to take us to dinner for their anniversary.  If that sounds backwards to you, then that makes two of us.  I tried to encourage them to enjoy a night out on their own but my mom insisted and I’m not one to turn down dinner.  Plus I suggested they make reservations at a restaurant we had tried to go to on Wednesday night, only to find there was an hour and a half wait.  If that kind of traffic on a week night isn’t a sign of a good restaurant, I don’t know what is.

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I think the popularity might have something to do with these little margaritas.

Turns out it makes more sense to order the large margarita and share it, rather than all order a small or medium for ourselves.  Joey tried to convince both my sister and I to order a large and both share with him.  Yeah, nice try.  Mass consumption of chips, guac, enchiladas, rellenos, burritos and sopapillas ensued.  And by the end of dinner, a majority of the table felt sickeningly full.  Who ordered those sopapillas?!  Oh, right…

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A very Happy Anniversary to my parents! 🙂

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And a Happy Monday to the rest of you!

My Kind of Celebration

Lauren4 Comments

Monday was Joey and I’s anniversary.  When I mentioned this to my mom earlier that day, her only question was “Well did Joey get you flowers?!”  My answer?  “No, but he picked out a fancy restaurant in Denver and made reservations for dinner!”  To me, that’s ten times better than flowers.  I will always accept flowers of course, but spending the evening together on an outdoor patio with wine, delicious food and good conversation is the best way to my heart.

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We ate at Rioja, which is a “Mediterranean-inspired” restaurant on Larimer in Denver.  We were really lucky to have amazing weather for the occasion and to have a table on the patio open up just as we arrived.  Dining al fresco is the best, isn’t it?

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Goat cheese biscuit, lavender sourdough and whole wheat roll.  Plus soft butter!  Don’t you hate when they bring out chilled butter and you end up ripping a hole in your bread instead of spreading it?  And then this came out.

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Guys.  That’s a cube of bacon.  Seriously.  And I know it looks gross but it tasted like the most amazing piece of brisket!  It wasn’t insanely salt or insanely fatty.  In fact, it wasn’t fatty or salty at all!  Are you as amazed as I clearly was?  And that curried garbanzo puree underneath was to die for.  When I saw this appetizer on the menu I said “I AM NOT GETTING THAT BACON.”  Followed by, “Wait, how can we not get that bacon?!”  We also ordered the artichoke tortelloni appetizer and it was amazingly good.

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I have to commend Rioja on it’s timing.  Joey and I hate when restaurants rush your entrée out while appetizers are still being eaten.  We had a good 20 minutes (our waiter warned us when we ordered our entrées that Joey’s dish would take that long, so we were prepared) between apps and dinner plates to people watch (Larimer is a busy street!), sip our drinks and take in everything around us.

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I ordered the seared sea scallops and would you just look at all those components!  I loved just about everything — from the black truffle vinaigrette to the grilled ramps — except the actual scallops.  To be fair, I’ve never had a chef-prepared scallop and mostly ordered the dish because I wanted to know what good ones taste like.  I discovered that I just don’t really like the taste/texture of scallops.  Oh well.

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Joey got the pan roasted chicken and it was HUGE!  He brought about half of this plate home, which is very unusual for him.  There’s a bacon-golden raisin bread pudding underneath that I kept sneaking bites of, but as good as that was, the chicken was the definite star.  It was so moist and flavorful.  I had serious entrée envy.  Luckily Joey was willing to share.

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The chicken also came with braised Tuscan kale that neither of us cared for.  When we had our food boxed Joey requested that that kale not be included and our waiter smirked at us.  And that’s the one part of the restaurant experience I wasn’t that happy about.  The waiter filling our bread and water needs was great, but our actual waiter was a little bit condescending.  Maybe it was just a fluke.

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And even though we were pretty full, there’s always room for dessert.  Especially when it’s teeny white chocolate cheesecake bites!  We weren’t totally on board with the toasted black sesame ice cream (it was a bit gritty…) but the “sesame nougatine” which I described as sesame granola and Joey lovingly described as birdseed was a deliciously crunchy contrast to the cheesecake.

Another fun restaurant experience and another year under our belts!

One question, would you have ordered the bacon??