2005-02-20 - 1:16 a.m.

Ah, Saturday--the half day.

After I got out of work, the Roommate and I went to the fancy gargoyle restaurant in Davis. We've passed this place hundreds of times, and I always thought never I'd wind up inside. I also always thought it was really small--like three or four tables and a bar--turns out that there's an inside area, and the part that's visible from the outside is the "pub" area. It's kinda funny because next door is "lowbrow" Rosebud, where the Roommate and I go all the time (it's a "diner"), and I always thought there was a back part to that place before I visited. Ah, John trivia. Interesting to only me, and marginally so at that.

Anyway, we had tax return money, which both of us spent pretty much wisely, and this is the reward:

We dressed up. We made reservations. We took the bus.

We split a very nice bottle of cabernet. The waiter poured a bit of it into my glass and waited, as I (and rather quickly, I might add) figured out that I was supposed to sample it first, which I did, and it really was a nice balance of fruity, floral, and warm. I don't know if those are the standard adjectives, but that's how it tasted.

We slurped oysters for an app. My ribeye steak (medium) with some weird and extremely complimentary thingie that looked like mashed potatoes but was not, and beets, yeah, that was the second best steak I've ever had. The Roommate had pork tenderloin with (more) oysters, which were cooked.

I bumbled dessert, trying to order their Jamaican coffee (coffee, Tia Maria, and I think Hennesy and if not, nothing else but whipped cream), but I ordered a Jamaican Irish coffee, which obviously didn't exist, because I'm an idiot. The Roommate successfully ordered hers.

Listen, man, I was feeling heady from the wine, satiated from the food, nervous from the waiter who probably makes more than I do in a year, and weirded out by all the rich people around me. I passed the I know what to do when the waiter pours a tiny bit of wine into a glass for me to check test, I think I did fine.

We also ordered cr�me br�l�e, to split, and it came with a cookie. I knew what it was that I was ordering, but I kinda forgot what it was when I ordered it (I had previously programmed myself to remember if you have a chance to eat cr�me br�l�e, don't think, just do what it takes to get some), and I wasn't sure if it was the kind of dessert you could split, and yeah, you never know what you're going to get when you order something in a restaurant full of rich people who are sick of eating the best food over and over again (the exception would be the dry martini, three olives, where you know exactly what you're going to get when you order).

Anyway, the waiter brought out two dessert spoons, and at the same time, two champagne glasses full of a hot liquid with cream on top.

I thought that the champagne glasses contained the cr�me br�l�e, and that we were supposed to eat it with the dessert spoons that simultaneously arrived, and I was wondering how, and then I realized that that the Roommate's glass was lighter in color than mine, and maybe that's because cr�me br�l�e is two things and they were nice enough to separate it into two glasses for us, but why would they give us two full glasses, and then it all made sense, for one serene second, when I remembered that they were going to bring over a cookie!

Oh. See, I'm used to spiked coffee being called Irish coffee no matter what�s in it, and to it being served in mugs. With handles.

I can be oblivious at times, well, frequently, but when I do dumb things, it's not because there's a lack of a functioning internal logic.

The real cr�me br�l�e was fantastic, as were our coffees, and after two hours had passed and we settled up, I bought a 30 pack of Bud from the packie, and we took the bus home and when we got there we brushed our sugared teeth. Our respective teeth, not each other's. The latter would be be weird and hard to execute and definitely not worth the effort.

It was a good meal, and I appreciated the opportunity to safely poke my head through a window which is almost always closed to me. It's not like I aspire to be in fancy restaurants every night, and please don't infer that I pity the rich, but sometimes I'm glad I'm not, because we had a truly novel and exciting time in an environment where almost everybody around us was bored and taking it for granted.