A meal to remember

We all have our luxuries, and mine is restaurants. I may be ridiculously frugal when it comes to things like furniture (about 80% of my apartment was given to me), I may pinch pennies when it comes to clothes, and I'll spend hours downloading all the songs of an album off some sketchy p2p users because I don't want to pay for it, but when it comes to eating out, I'll go all out.

I get it from my dad. Our summer vacations would be as frugal as possible: packed in the mini-van, sharing one motel room (guess who got the cot?), and guided by the principle that the free attractions are the best ones, but our meals would be at the best restaurants that my dad could find. He would research five-star restaurants beforehand and plan our travels around the meals. My entire family cross-references our vacations with meals: Switzerland? "Was that the town where we got cheese fondue and dad said parakalo¹ to the waiter?" California? We toured wine country in a dusty van, but what we still talk about to this day was the puff pastry in tomato soup that we had at Domaine Chandon. Our roadtrip from Houston to Colorado and back after I graduated high school is remembered by green chili in Taos, cheap burgers in West Texas and Tex-Mex on the San Antonio river walk.

So last night, in my enviable role as Megarita's birthday date, I could think of no better celebration of her birthday and my great luck than to go out to a really nice dinner. It may seem a simple and uncreative gift to some people, but to me, going out to a good restaurant is the ultimate celebration, and the best way to spend money. And Ten Penh² didn't disappoint. It was one of those meals when every...single...bite³ was dizzyingly delicious, impossibly tasty. It's a meal I'll remember for a long time, because I remember my good meals.

¹ What you say to get the attention of a waiter...in Greek. Needless to say, the German-speaking Swiss waiter didn't respond.

² Dreamweaver geeks should check out the links at the bottom of the menu page: it still has the local path on the links! Amy's folder, we hardly knew ye.

³ Split the Curried Crab Cake, then she had the Sake-Mirin Marinated Lamb Loin ("I've got 18 kinds of lamb on my plate") and the Lime Mousse for dessert, and I had the Garlic Peanut Halibut and the Milk Chocolate Brownie for dessert. Please note capital letters on all dishes, because it was that important, that good, and that worth it.