Friday, February 15, 2008

Valentine's Day Recap!

The boy was very good to me this Valentine's Day, but then again he usually is, no complaints here.

We had tickets to go and see the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra at the Ordway in St. Paul. I had never been and was looking forward to it. Neither of us are all that familiar with St. Paul and had thought about having dinner in St. Paul first, but thought better of it since we do not know it as well.

The boy came home from work as I was finishing getting ready, we both enjoy getting dressed up to go out for the night, and last night was no exception. I had gotten a new dress earlier in the week and was looking forward to wearing it.

There he was bearing gifts,

pink roses which I love anytime of the year.

He also had a very pretty gift bag with a very small box inside. He has never bought me jewelry before, I have a lot of jewelry and I am also the type if I need it I have it. I have my Tiffany sets which I love and I have a ton of vintage jewelry plus I have my everyday pearls and such. He picked out the sweetest pearl and diamond earrings, very simple and very sweet which I just love.

I picked out an "outfit" for him. He does not have to get dressed up for work, very casual, so he does not have a ton of dress clothes. So I bought him a pair of dress pants, a shirt and tie. Unfortunately even though I bought the right size shirt, it is a tad too small in the neck so it has to go back, but he did wear his new pants and tie out and loved them.

Dinner was at the Grand Cafe in Minneapolis. Neither of us had ever been there or heard much about it, so we were taking a risk, but it turned out to be a risk that paid off.

They were serving a tasting menu last night so we were lucky enough to get to try a great sampling from their menu.
I loved the ambiance, it is so comfortable and romantic, very soft, and a very subdued color palette with soft lighting throughout. There are three rooms inside, we sat in a room in the back. The music that they play is old school jazz which was really nice as well, a little Bing Crosby, Etta James, just good stuff.
We started with Crostini and Chickpea puree with a truffled dwarf peach and spicy micro greens-very good and the flavors together were just delicious. Something that I never would have had at home, and I may not have ordered on my own, but would definitely try again.

Then we moved on to a taste of gnocchi with braised leek cream and truffled bread crumbs. I loved this because the cream sauce was just the right amount, not to heavy and not to rich. Also, the gnocchi that I am used to is larger and heavy, this was small, light and delectable, hand rolled. I would have this again.

The last of the amuse bouche course was completed with a pickled beet and watercress salad with fennel and marinated chevre. You know this was good if the boy ate all of it as well considering how much he does not like goat cheese which I love. I always pictured beets to be a deep purple color, I did not even see them in this salad.

For our entrée we had a choice between 1000 Hills Farm Prime Rib “Oscar” served medium rare with asparagus and a béarnaise saucse, or medallions of butter poached lobster tail or pan fried polenta. We both had the prime rib, I had mine without the blue crab which the boy said was divine. It was SO good and just the right amount, not a heaping slab of meat, but a nice portion and the béarnaise again, was not too much and not too rich. We did not need to add extra seasoning to anything.

To complete our meal we had a choice between a Malted Milk Chocolate Tartlet with Banana ice cream or Coconut-Cardamom Trifle with a blood orange crust and toasted pistachio, I had the tartlet and the boy had the trifle. It was SO good.

Then we were off to The Ordway to catch a little Stravinsky, Chopin and Bizet. It was wonderful, one of my favorite things that we have done together and I cannot wait to go back. I am not musically inclined (some actually have been witness to this in my Wii Boogie performances) but I love love love music and can just get lost in it. It was a wonderful way to end a Valentine's Day with my sweetie. I could not have imagined it any better.

This morning the boy set off to work, but not before making us BOTH tuna salad sandwiches, and my favorite way, with pickles! Tonight we are going to stay in, it is only about -4 with a windchill I don't even want to THINK about. So I am making this for dinner and we will have a fire and catch up on some Netflix. This weekend we will do some running around and errands but mostly working on some projects at the boys house. Low key weekend, sounds WONDERFUL!

7 comments:

Cindy said...

What a great Valentine's day evening!! The dinner sounds divine, and the boy really nailed it with the gifts. Thanks for taking us along! Seriously, the closest I get to an evening like that these days is reading about it someone else's blog. Thank goodness for blogs!

ATC said...

Ohhh, I love the earrings, the flowers, romantic dinner and outing! What a lucky lady!

Britt said...

Sounds like a fabulous Valentine's Day! Love the earrings!

My husband has a hard time finding dress shirts that fit around the neck too - it's a pain.

I'll be posting that recipe soon!

tulipmom said...

Sounds like the perfect evening!

Anonymous said...

Glad you enjoyed the food.. I really like that place.

Anonymous said...

Are those slim jim bites in the first picture???

Martha said...

Awww! What a great VDay! Love those earrings

And guess what? you were only a couple of miles from my 'hood!

xoxox,
martha

 
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