For the first Saturday in I don't know how many months, Tom and I were actually able to go out and have an evening to ourselves. The usual on the weekends consists of Tom sitting at home in his basement because he has to stay home for Robert. I never go over to his house any more unless I absolutely have to, to avoid all the ridiculousness that usually follows a visit. So, from Thursday through Saturday, I only get to see him at work.
Anyways, to celebrate Tom's Saturday night of freedom, we got all dressed up, went out to dinner, and walked around downtown Royal Oak. Both of which were things we haven't done in months due to our unforgiving schedule. And it felt great to get out, too.
We ate dinner at Bastone, a delicious French/Belgian brasserie in Royal Oak. While waiting for a table, we walked across the street and perused the bookshelves at Barnes & Noble. Its always incredibly dangerous for me to go in there, I usually end up spending at least $50 each trip. But, this time I was good...Tom was the only one who got anything.
For dinner, we started off with a couple of drinks, beer for Tom, absolut & cranberry for me, and an order of calamari. Yes, I introduced Tom to calamari, and now he orders it almost every time he sees it on the menu. Before our meals, Tom had a salad he could barely choke down (I don't think he was a fan of the house salad dressing) and I had the most amazing potato leek soup. Dan's dad used to make awesome potato leek soup...but this stuff blows it away. Mmmm I think I could make a diet of that stuff.
Tom's main entree wasn't exactly a big hit...I think he was more excited about the sound of many different kinds of seafood crammed into a bowl and named 'Waterzooi.' It turned out to be like a big seafood boil or something...everything was still in its shell and it was boiled with some redskin potatoes in a thin seafood broth. It had an interesting taste, very fishy from the salmon. I think I ended up liking his more than he did. My dish was fabulous. Linguine pasta somthered in a heavy cream lobster sauce, similar to a bisque, with small pieces of lobster in it. Topping off the pasta were two huge lobster claws. Delicious. Tom definitely ended up liking my dinner more than what he ordered.
Yes, I was nice enough to give him one of my lobster claws.
We opted out of dinner, given the fact that we were absolutely stuffed. We paid the bill and left to go home. We had considered going out somewhere afterwards, but we were so tired from the day and the near food-induced coma, that we just ended up going back to my apartment and hanging out. Yeah, I know...not a very exciting evening to most people, but I thought it was wonderful. I only wish we could do it more often ;0/