Yesterday was our 25th anniversary. Jon sent me these beautiful red roses. We went for lunch out in Agoura Hills, at an Italian restaurant he'd been talking about for a year but I'd resisted.
I imagined it was going to be modern and white and pink because that's what nice Italian restaurants are like around here. Like crisp and skinny bread sticks in soda straw wrappers. Instead it was in a house by the side of a big green hill. (And green hills are only around for at most a month a year in Southern California.) There were dark couches in booth formations. A big beamed ceiling, a friendly feeling. Although it was dark inside you could see a flowery garden out back.
Right before we headed out, Jon had spoken to his broker, who works at Citigroup. This is a guy who went to the San Francisco Art Institute when I did, in the mega goofy days of the early 70s. (Somehow he resisted the pull of the artist's life!) Jon casually mentioned where we were going for lunch, because his broker likes to know about restaurants, and he hadn't heard of this place.
We were led to our table. There was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne on ice in a bucket!
We were sure they'd taken us to the wrong table, but it was a gift from the broker and his assistant. There were little cards by our napkins. Jon was as bewildered as I was till we read the cards. Until then he had thought, "Boy, this restaurant is kind of aggressive."
We shared a plate of calamari. It included a small fried zucchini that looked like a baby elephant seal- euh-- and I had gnocchi with chicken, mushrooms and pesto sauce. Not a pretty dish, but tasty. Jon had some fancy meatball special. The food was quite tasty. At the next table six women and their boss were having a multi martini lunch, shades of the 50s.
The reason I mentioned Citigroup: you don't suppose the champagne was comped on the bailout money, do you? EEK!
6 comments:
I hope it's bailout money....it's infrastructure. Katy
Cute photo.
Happy Belated Anniversary!
Congrats on 25 years! Lunch sounds fabulous. What a great broker!! This is my idea of trickle-down or trickle-up or whatever it is now.
(side note: And I liked that book by the champagne's spokesperson: French Women Don't Get Fat: eat small amounts of great food.)
Yes, it was bailout money and I can't think of a better way to spend it.
I will save my rant on "the Frenchwoman". She's on my list of people who ARE NOT NICE.
Those flowers are gorgeous.
The restaurant sounds dreamy. But the champagne came in a bottle and not in cans???
But Mean Jean, rant on. I'm curious.
I hadn't heard about the French woman before either, but a bottle of champagne at lunch takes control of the whole day, and yes it's better than in cans, Linda.
It was a very magic moment, actually, because we were both so clueless and sure a big mistake had been made.
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