Yummy, Yum

Aaron took me out to celebrate my big news this afternoon. He took me to a restaurant I've wanted to go to for a while. Actually it was a place I selected as a possible place to go to on our 5th anniversary. Instead we went to The Castle and ended up with an experience he will never let me live down. But I digress.

The place is called La Panatiere in Rye, NY. It's a French place so the portions are kind of on the small side. Not as small as Le Cirque, but it's hard to imagine something being smaller and not coming in pill form. The food, though was so darn yummy that Aaron had to take a moment after tasting two of his dishes. :) This doesn't happen very often.

I had baked escargot that I can't even begin to describe using words, seared scallops with tempura fried artichokes for my main dish, and a lovely warm apple tart(it wasn't actually warm, but I think I preferred it that way). Aaron had a butternut squash ravioli, a creamless winter veloute (Celery root, pear, roasted chestnut, curry-scented soup), then had braised short ribs for his main course and this thing called an opera cake, which is a espresso cake with ganache. Yummy goodness all around. The only thing I didn't care for was his cake. It was really dense and too heavy for my taste.

The other great thing was that as hoity toity as the place is, the server we had did a great job. He did everything himself, was really friendly but not intrusive at all but was also right there the moment we needed anything. Awesome!

Based on my scale I give it a strong 8; possibly a 9.

Lunch was a lot of fun. We had a great time just relaxing and talking about the possibilities that this job now offers. We also discussed our next big dinner. He wants to go out with my entire family next (just he adults). We're threw a few different places into the conversation but we're still not sure which one we want to do. Eh, it'll be a while before we do that anyway. We also got a laugh over the fact that I now have a snuggie (well, a wannabe snuggie from Brookstone). Yep. My Mom got one and loves it. I tried the thing on, and you know what? Silly as the idea is, the things is incredibly comfy. My Dad got me a really nifty one and darn it, I actually love it. The bad thing about it is that it's an instant nap. It doesn't matter how awake I am, after a few minutes of having the thing on me, I end up out cold.