Thursday, February 13, 2014

Year of Dates: January

So, I totally cashed in on that corny Pinterest idea of giving a year of dates and gave it to Stephen for Christmas. I mean, what else do you get the guy who wants nothing affordable?



I was especially excited about January's date because it was the "Choose Your Own Adventure" date - meaning there were like a hundred different options of how the day could go, all depending on what Stephen chose.

So we started out at Parkville Coffee, and he had to choose a Phase 1 envelope. The choices were Go, Do, or See. His initial envelope choice wasn't feasible (which turned out to be the theme of the evening, but we just adapted as necessary), because it was 2:30 and all of the museums closed at 4:00 - wah wah. Poor planning. So eventually he chose the "Do" envelope which contained the options of going to Crown Center, Cellar and Loft, or The Wine Walk on Delaware.



Neither of us had been to  Crown Center since Middle or High School, so it was fun to walk around and see the shops. I especially enjoyed the Chinese Tea Shop - where they were doing a tea tasting (hello, party idea) and Stephen of course liked the Chocolate shop and the science-y shops.

Chinese Tea Tasting

lerv. 

We're so beautiful. 

After we'd walked around for a few hours, we'd gotten hungry, which was Phase 2.

The options for Phase 2 were based on locations: Kansas, Downtown, or North of the River. Once again, Stephen opted for one that wasn't feasible time-wise or sounded that great to his cold-ridden self. He settled on North of the River and Stroud's, with Cafe des Amis as a backup in case the line was too long at Stroud's (spoiler alert: it was nearly two hours). We ended up at the French restaurant in downtown Parkville, which was delicious and a great time.

om nom noms!

Pretty Downtown Parkville. 

Appetizer: Coquilles st Jacques gratinees
(sauteed scallops and mushrooms in sherry wine bechamel sauce
topped with cheese then gratinee)

Dinner: Cailles farcies au foie gras
(roasted semi-boneless quails stuffed with foie gras and
black truffle, served with truffles sauce) and Stephen had
magret de canard
(pan-seared Moulard duck breast crusted with pink peppercorn,
served with a cranberry and port sauce)

And of course we splurged on dessert:
Souffle au chocolat
(chocolate souffle with strawberry sauce and vanilla ice cream)



We already knew that Stephen was going to choose the Home option for Phase 3, because he was sick, so we decided to hold off on the other two options for a later date (See and Drink). The at-home options were a chocolate tasting, buying a new video game to play together, or competitive board games.



Unfortunately, we're picky about our video games and the amount of money we're willing to spend on them, so Game Stop just wasn't working out. We decided just to head home and play some good ol' Wii before watching SNL. Yeah, we're that couple. It was great.

tea and popcorn are mandatory for game night


All in all, a pretty fun day. And we fully intend on using the rest of the envelopes the next time we're bored or up for some new adventures.


Until next month.



Love,
Vanessa and Stephen (and Tuck)