Date Night!

Historically speaking, my wife and I don't 'go out' on Valentine's Day.  Our first year after getting married, I kind of screwed up...I figured if we went out early enough, we wouldn't need reservations.

Yeah...we ended up at home eating pizza, after giving up at several places, and thus was born a 'pizza at home on Valentine's' tradition.

This year, with Valentine's being on a Friday, we decided to try the 'going out' thing again.

Yes, I made reservations this time, at a place called Cheese Louise here in Richland.  Other than the many wineries, it's one of the nicer/fancier places in town.  They were advertising a Four Course wine matched prix fixe meal, and the price sounded nice.

The food was good, as was the company. 

 

 

That was the desert course...three little tasties...a berry crumble, a cookie dough truffle, and a celebration of cream: Irish Cream, Hazelnut Cream, Chocolate Cream, and Whipped Cream, and it was as good it sounds(and was), the best dish we had was the kale/mango salad, in a peppered parmesan crisp bowl.

 

 

 

 

If you then were smart enough to have saved some of the hummus from the first course, the combination of the parmesan crisp and hummus was one of the best flavors I have ever had.

 

The only discordant note of the meal was the wine.  Not the flavor...the wines, showcasing the lineup of Spring Valley Vineyard(in Walla Walla), were excellent...my favorite being the Cabernet Franc.  My issue was the pouring size. Umm...not that I am a greedy glutton, but when you are advertising four courses and four wines, I don't expect 4 full 5-ounce pours....but I expect enough to drink and enjoy with the flavors of each course.  What we got were 'tasting room' pours with each course...and that is actually selling short some of the pours I get at local wineries like Terra Blanca or Tagaris.  The fact that it was the first thing my wife mentioned when we got to our cars shows I am not too out of the box in my thinking. 

 

After a wonderful dinner, we had some tome to kill before heading to one of the local bars for karaoke, so we did what all couples do on dates...we went shopping!  Yoke's was having case sales on canned goods, so, since that was in the same general direction of our karaoke bar, it just made sense to do some stocking up.

 

 

I would like it noted that while I was making her pose for this picture so she can't say I never take her any where for Valentine's Day, my wife called me a goober.

 

Karaoke was fun, and it was mostly to kill time until we could justify paying our baby-sitter enough  to make it worth her while to drive all the way from Pasco.  We finished the evening at home, watching the first episode of the 2nd season of House of Cards, which was just as good as the first season.