5 Year Dinner at West Restaurant

Our 5 year dating anniversary was August 4th. Aaron didn't want to celebrate it, but we had a gift certificate from our groomsman Cliff that he'd gifted us for our wedding.

I'd been dying to go, but it's downtown and we've been too busy to use it. Our last big dating anniversary seemed like a good time.

I tried on all my dresses, and only found one that worked, so off we went for our 7pm reservation.

West is beautiful inside. It's very modern, but comfortable and sophisticated without being stuffy.

We settled on the 7 course tasting menu - vegetarian for me, and land (meat) for him. After we ordered from our very attentive waiter, he brought out a bottle of wine for Aaron and a fancy drink for each of us - a gin drink for Aaron and a virgin raspberry one for me. It was DELISH!

Our meals started out with an amuse buche of shaved fennel with citrus:

 My second course was a delicious beet salad with peaches, walnuts, and greens on top of an arugula pesto.

My next course was a Spring Pea Soup. It was probably my favorite thing, and Aaron thought it tasted like the peas were freshly picked from the garden.

 

What was cool about Aaron's menu is that the majority of his dishes were absolutely new for him. His second course was beef tartar, and his third course was pate. Although he wasn't a huge fan of the pate dish because of the white chocolate mousse that accompanied it, he still loved that he was trying something different.

My next course was a panzanella salad. It has smoked tomatoes, eggplant, roasted onions, goats cheese, and toasted bread. It was good, but not my favorite because of some of the spices they used in the sauce on the plate. It was a little strong.

This was Aaron's quail. I took a picture because it was just so darned beautiful even though I don't eat meat.

The next dish for both of us was a tart raspberry sorbet. It was a nice pallet cleanser.

My final course was dessert, and probably in the top 2 for the night. Mine was roasted fruit with a spiced waffle, topped with maple pecan ice cream. it was so good - I just wish they gave me more!

Aaron's tart with a mint sorbet was also delicious!

After we were done and enjoying our coffee, the waiter presented us with this nice congratulatory plate with truffles. We split each one so we could each taste them, and they were wonderful as well.

It was the perfect way to spend our last dating anniversary, even though we're married and it doesn't really count anymore. No gifts, no la-di-da other than dinner! We spent the day thoroughly cleaning the house after all! It was a wonderful treat, and we are so thankful to our friends for giving us this great experience!