Chop House

On Saturday night James and I got dressed up, dropped the girls off, and went on a date!

As we were getting ready, James wondered if he should wear his suit. I told hm he really didn't need to and he would probably be over dressed. He wore khaki pants and a nice button down shirt and I wore a cute black dress. Annabelle documented the moment for us.

We made a reservation because we weren't sure of their policy and it seemed a little fancier than just showing up.

We get inside and I secretly wonder if they are open because it is so dark. We make our way to the hostess station and she checks our reservation and bring us to our table.

Before my eyes even adjust to the darkness we have about 5 people doing things at our table.
Someone is arranging silverware, someone is taking away extra dishes, someone is putting a napkin on my lap.

After we are settled in, the water waiter shows up and offers us 3 choices of water - something we missed, sparkling water, or tap. James (smart guy that he is) chose tap and got a lovely glass of refreshing ice water. I decided to be fancy and get sparkling water. A moment later the water waiter returns with a lovely glass bottle of water. He pours it for me. As soon as he leaces I take a drink and realize I've made a huge mistake. This stuff is horrible. First of all, it is warm. Second, there is absolutely no flavor at all. I was stuck with it though because I couldn't ask for tap water now.

Time to Order
The waitress goes through the whole menu explaining everything including how one choice is from a cow from Austraila that is given a Japanese massage and fed organic food (should a cow be treated better than many people?). James was really looking forward to having lobster. He asked the market price and it turns out that if he wanted two tails it was only $115 and just a single tail was $59. He decided to choose something else.

I ordered the North Atlantic Salmon, James went with the Beef Wellington (waitress' favorite), and for our sides (one side feeds two people) we chose the garlic mashed potatoes and the macaroni and cheese with poblano peppers.

My salmon was delicious. I discreetly took out my camera and quickly took a picture. Because of the darkness my picture did not turn out very well.

James enjoyed his beef wellington, but decided that if he had to spend $50 on the beef wellington or $50 on a whopper junior, he would definetly choose the whopper junior.
As I am eating my meal, I am pretty much overcome with thirst. I tell James to take a drink and then put his water down on the otherside so that I can take it and not look like I am reaching for his water.

I do feel like I need to drink my water because we are pretty sure that water that is served from a glass bottle is not free like the tap water.

Oh I better fill you in on the bathroom situation here at the Chop House. The waitress walks James almost to the bathroom. There is a bathroom attendant in there who hands him a towel after washing his hands. Do you tip him?

James and I never get dessert when we go out for two reasons:
1. We are usually too full
2. We do not want to spend the money.

However, I feel we need to get dessert because we are at this fancy place and it seems like the fancy thing to do. We need to cleanse our palate with a nice COT (change of taste). After reviewing the dessert menu we decided that it is worth it to spend $8 on a Mint Creme Brulee Cheesecake with an Oreo crust. It was just the right amount of mint to taste refreshing, but not be overwhelming.

After dessert, the waitress brings us our bill and we realize that my fancy water was $5. I decided that I needed to dik all of it and quickly drink the remainder of what I have. Seriously $5 for water and I don't even get to keep the bottle? (They took that away after refilling my glass for me).

Our total bill was higher than groceries for almost 2 weeks. Thank goodness we have a gift certificate that James' dad gave him for his birthday.

It was a lovely experience, but we decided we will not be returning anytime in the near future. We would rather go somewhere that just gives you tap water, doesn't feel the need to massage their cows, and where we can actually see each other.

Oh yeah, James would have fit in nicely with his suit.