July 8, 2011- Sazerac

Kate and Spencer kindly offered to babysit Katie for us tonight. Date night...what a treat! After getting her settled in with them, I met Ben downtown for dinner and a movie.  We planned to keep our food costs down by sticking to happy hour menus.  We ended up at Sazerac since the happy hour menu was offered until 8pm, two hours longer than most restaurants. 

We started with Crispy "Truffles"-- a deep fried ball of yukon gold potatoes and truffle cheese, coated in bread crumbs, served with truffled aioli.  I really expected a fancy potato chip when I ordered them.  What a pleasant surprise.  Next, Ben had the pulled pork sliders with a mustard based bbq sauce, and I had the cheeseburger sliders with garlic aioli.  We wrapped up the meal by sharing the grilled housemade Andouille sausage.  It had a great texture and a unique flavor.  The food was wonderful, but so were our seats.  

We were seated at the chef's counter, which meant we could watch the chef prepare food while we ate.  The thing we miss most about not having cable television anymore is The Food Network.  We love watching people prepare food.  Tonight it was just like we were part of a live studio audience for a Food Network show.  What fun!  The chef greeted us and said goodbye when we left, but was heads-down the entire we were eating.  I wonder if he likes being watched so closely while he works. 

The movie we saw was Horrible Bosses.  Oh man, that is a hilarious movie!  We were in a packed theater and the whole audience laughed and groaned and jumped as one.  If you liked The Hangover or Bridesmaids, I've got to think you will love this movie!  We will own it for sure.

Saturday, 2/5/2011

We spent today at Stevens Pass.  Ben, his brother Spencer, and our friends, Karen and Michel, skied most of the day.  Katie and I hung out in the snow-- walking around, throwing snowballs, and watching all the people come and go.  Spencer spent some time with us in the later afternoon since he had a headache and his feet were hurting.  We finished up around 4:30 and drove to Karen and Michel's house to change our clothes.  We tried to eat dinner at the Red Hook Brewery, but ended up at Red Robin when the wait at the brewery was 1.5 hours. 

I had the grilled chicken pesto pasta, which was really tasty.  Ben had three steak sliders.  Katie did a fair job eating her ketchup only burger with fries.  Red Robin is always pretty darn good.

Friday, 7/30/2010

Whoo hoo...it's date night for the Ackers! My mom graciously agreed to take care of Katie this evening so that Ben and I could go out on a date. We went to SIP in downtown Seattle for dinner. When Katie was around 6 months old, we ate at the SIP in Gig Harbor. I'm glad we could enjoy it at our own pace this time:) For dinner, we shared a fantastic caesar salad, sweet roll sliders, and potato frites with sage and garlic. Yes, that is just a fancy way to say french fries. They were really good frites! With dinner, I enjoyed two glasses of Malbec, Ksana, Mendoza, Argentina, '06. Ben had a cab, which doesn't seem to be listed on their online wine menu. For dessert, we shared a crepe cake with hot fudge drizzle. It was literally a stack of thin, sweet crepes, cut into a wedge like a slice of cake. It was tasty for sure, but not something I would order again.

After dinner we watched Inception. It is a good movie that I don't need to see again. Ben, on the other hand, says he will definitely see it again. Thanks Mom for the date!

Friday, 7/23/2010

We attended the wedding rehearsal for our friends Laura and David this afternoon. We are going to be their photographers tomorrow. They were kind enough to invite us to their post-rehearsal reception downtown Seattle at the Red Lion Hotel. They reserved half of the lounge and patio for their guests. We were lucky to find a table to sit down at. We enjoyed pulled pork sliders, egg rolls, hummus, potato wedges, fried shrimp, and plenty of cookies and tasty desserts. It was a very nice evening until...Katie puked. Yes, that's right...she puked at the reception. (Just warning you now that I am going to get a bit graphic in the rest of this post.)

We think that the puking was triggered when she choked/gagged on a small piece of chocolate truffle. She had been drinking a ton of water and eating cheese just prior to the incident, so it was like a small, yet foul, geiser that mainly landed directly on my sandal covered foot. YUCK!!! She seemed fine and was only concerned about the puke which was running down her leg. Ben ran to go get some help from the hotel staff. The nicest waitress name Monica came to our rescue. She brought us wet towels to clean up with and even took our soiled shoes into the back to wash them for us. We stripped Katie down to her diaper cover and clothed her in a very large tie-died shirt. It was a youth size small:) Anyway, we got cleaned up enough to leave, said our goodbyes and went home.