Birthday Dinner

Since my birth anniversary is coming up soon, a subset of the Scotts* treated me and Jamie to a celebratory dinner. A nice evening was definitely had.

The location of the feast was our local edition of the Elephant Bar Restaurant. As you can imagine for a Friday night dinner, the place was filled with patrons. This, of course, immediately challenges me. You see, even though I have excellent hearing (I’ve taken care of it over the years), if there is background noise (even low-level background noise)—especially crowd noise—I have enormous difficulty in making out what people say. My brain just doesn’t filter it out as well as for most people. I’ve learned to rely on lip-reading in these circumstances. Given that even good lip-readers only get about 1/2 of what’s said—and I’m not well-practiced at this point—you can imagine the fun I have. (When I’m at a basketball game, I’ve long since pretty much give up even trying to understand what people are saying.)

In any case, this was about celebration. It was me, Mary, Dale, Jamie, and Jamie’s new-ish beau (who I like, so far). As with all such gatherings, I’m just happy to get to share the event with people that I love (and the beau).

As you can imagine, eating at a restaurant that is decidedly non-vegetarian poses frequent problems for me…ones that the legions of carnivores among us don’t really seem to appreciate. I poured through the menu trying to find options…options that weren’t just salad (decades of restaurant salads have soured me on settling on them…my meals deserve entrees no less than anyone else’s, after all). My main course was stir-fried vegetables with marinated tofu. I decided to risk the footnote that there was a small chance that some shrimpiness might be included (mostly in the oil…I guess they fry their shrimp in woks). My only recourse was to modify another entree…which would mean, basically, a salad without the meat included. So, with my veggies, I also ordered a side of baby greens in a balsamic vinaigrette. I’m not opposed to salads…just that I don’t want that to be my only choice.

The salad was rather good. The dressing was well-balanced, and the inclusion of some bleu cheese and walnuts rounded out what could have been just a plate of green. The main course was quite adequate. The veggies were slightly more cooked than when I do stir-fry, but not distractingly so. The sauce was a good balance of soy-sauce saltiness and a mild sweet-and-sour.

To round out the evening, since Jamie and I were celebrants, we were presented with free sundaes. I wasn’t really wanting the extra calories, but the ever-present glutton in me forced an acceptance of temptation, and the sundae was soon no more.

I must say that it was a pleasant evening of food and company. Then again, I’m pretty easy about such things. I’m just happy that I was remembered, which is always an unexpected plus.