A fabulous night out

My company gives out gift cards every quarter to employees with perfect attendance.  I've chosen to receive gift cards to Pappa's restaurants over the past while.  We don't often go to Pappa's restaurants as they're often too noisy.  They do, however, have an upscale restaurant that is a little quieter.  So, we've saved up the gift cards for a while.

We finally arranged out schedule so that we were able to use them last night.  We had $295 worth of cards.  We expected to drink a bit and didn't want to be concerned about DWI, so we called a cab for the trip to and from.

We got to the restaurant and were promptly seated.  It was obvious we were ahead of the power curve as it was fairly empty.  After perusing the menu a bit, we placed our order.  Kim had the salmon filet, while I had the Kobe Beef Ribeye.  Kim ordered the asparagus as a side and I got the au gratin potatoes.  We both ordered the Shrimp Bisque for our soup/salad. 

We decided on a bottle of Pinot to go with the meal.  I don't remember the vintage, unfortunately, or the vineyard.  I know it began with a B and was Australian.

Shortly after placing our order, the manager came over and talked to us as we'd mentioned my allergy to crab while ordering.  He wanted to make certain there was no allergy to any other shellfish as the bisque had other shellfish stock in it.

Our entrees were fabulous.  The Kobe beef was very impressive and the salmon was quite nice.  Kim's asparagus was good, but I found the au gratin potatoes to be a little overwhelming with a strong flavor of nutmeg.  That might have been a side flavor of the cheese, I'm not certain.

We'd saved some room for dessert and order their pecan pie.  It was very, very good.  An interesting presentation.  The pie itself was mostly the usual custard consistency of a normal pecan pie.  It was then covered in a spirited caramel pecan sauce with a nice portion of ice cream.

To go along with the dessert, we ordered some single malt scotch.  Kim had an 18 year old Glenmorangie, while I had a 30 year old Gordon and MacPhail.  The 30 year old was definitely much softer on the nose, but the 18 year old had an interesting fruity finish.

The meal was fabulous, but we did spend all of our gift cards, plus a little more to cover the tip.  We also spend a good amount on the cab rides.  I don't expect we'll do anything like this in the foreseeable future.  But it was nice to do.