La Belle Vie

As you all have probably heard so many times you're quite nauseated by now, this was a very exciting year: I turned 25 (five squared) and my mom turned 49 (seven squared). I always have trouble thinking of what to get my mom for a gift, but this year I had the perfect solution: a fancy dinner. La Belle Vie was recommended to me by one of the attorneys I work for, a self-proclaimed foodie. He proclaimed La Belle Vie the best restaurant in the Cities, which is all it took to pique my interest. What better way to commemorate such a special year?

As we pulled up on Friday and handed my mom's car off to the valet, I began to suspect we would not be disappointed. We were led through a big hallway, past the bar/lounge area into a brightly lit room with maybe fifteen tables. At first, we were the only ones there. The silence and emptiness of the room, combined with the several fork and spoon layout on our table (incidentally, this fancy silverware was replaced after every course) caused us to sit up very straight, talk quietly and giggle a lot, at least until the room began to fill with other diners. We decided on the chef's taster's menu: an eight-course dinner filled with things I had no hope of deciphering (except for the promising mention of beignet).

Among the notable bits of the meal were the irregular and truly lumpy lumps of sugar for our coffee; the delightful rye bread with (golden!) raisins accompanied by an attractive and ample circular pat of butter; the glass of Riesling, adding a bit of sophistication and ; the crispy fish and magical beans (who knew a mere bean could be so tasty?) in the soup; the bright orange trout roe (eggs) making the fish course a delight to not only my taste buds, but to my rods and cones; the tasty cow thymus invitingly called sweet breads; the tiny, delicate wafer with holes so large you could poke a pen point through, which I miraculously still managed to fit all my fancy gouda and jam on; the tablespoon or so of grapefruit and fancy yogurt which came with the daintiest of spoons; and last, but most definitely not least, the chocolate syrup-filled chocolate beignet and chocolate custard/crème brulee.

I can't wait to go there again!

Birthday Adventure

It would be remiss of me not to include a blog about the adventure had on my birthday! Part of the motivation for this particular outing was to share with Mikey our favorite things about living in this metropolitan area. Since I am always quick to point out with pride my light rail stop, and to talk about the excellent people-watching to be had on the light rail, it makes sense that we would use it as our mode of transportation for heading downtown. We were not the only ones who had that idea, however—so did hundreds of people attending the Twins game. I suppose one cannot truly experience the light rail until one has been packed like a sardine, although I’m not sure how good sardines would be at standing, let alone hanging onto a handrail so as not to be jostled too much.

Our first stop in downtown was aimed at completing the thrilling task of renewing my driver’s license. It was pretty cool to do it in one of the downtown government buildings, and again, another excellent people-watching opportunity. After that, we wandered around the skyway until we stopped off at the new library to get me a library card (happy birthday, indeed!). It was at this juncture that I thought it would be kind of fun to figure out a bus to get us to Dinkytown for lunch. The bus ride to Dinkytown and back was enough to prove that city buses (although not necessarily their suburban counterparts) make for excellent and varied people-watching, especially in the middle of the day.

After eating at Annie’s (a meal that included my reason for loving the restaurant: a Reese’s cup milkshake), we walked down the street and prepared to wait for our bus. Before we got to our prescribed location, we rerouted ourselves into a tattoo shop, where I procured a free t-shirt (yay for birthdays!) and enthusiasm from the tattoo artist about my idea for a new inking. Although I was tempted, we all left needle-free but full of promises for the future.

The night was capped off with a visit to Doolittle’s, where my favorite buffalo wings and a free dessert waited, along with Mikey, Chester and my Metro-area dwelling immediate family. We were pretty wiped out from our adventure, but it was a very pleasant evening to cap off a fun day.

The Independent

As you all probably already know by now, one of my favorite things to do is people watch. Therefore, if I eat out somewhere and enjoy it, plus I get to experience varied and excellent people-watching, it quickly jumps to one of my favorite places to eat. One such place is the Independent in Uptown. I sometimes forget about it, due to the fact that Famous Dave’s is right below it and I’ve gotten a little disenchanted with Uptown anyway (read: I feel like a dork when I’m surrounded by the coolness that pervades the neighborhood). However, it seemed like a good place to take Mikey at the start of his visit last Wednesday.

We were surprised to discover that Wednesday nights is two-for-ones for mixed drinks at the Independent. Again, if you know me at all, you know that I very rarely drink (an unfortunate by-product of my 21st birthday). This time was an exception, however, after I saw Chester order a pear cider and Mikey ordered a fancy cocktail (and received two) that I cannot recall the name of. So, decided to order a drink (and received two), the name of which I already cannot recall. It tasted pretty good, but I ended up only drinking about a third of one drink before I passed it to Chester.

I don’t know if Chester is a serious lightweight or just already so goofy that a couple of drinks was enough to open the floodgates. He was being silly and putting his arm around me while Mikey and I looked on in mock horror and revulsion. Well, the mockery was not as apparent to all, because a woman dining a few tables away actually went through the trouble to approach us and ask us if we knew “that guy”. It afforded us (meaning me and Mikey, not necessarily Chester) a good chuckle when we realized he probably appeared to be quite creepy.

More tales of the weekend to follow, so do tune in.