So, for those of you who don't know,
Groupon is a pretty great thing to subscribe to if you live in a city that offers it. For example, one deal I ran across in the last few months was $17 for $35 worth of a meal at
XIX. After
my positive experience there for Thanksgiving last year, I jumped on the chance for a discounted second act. Then, a while later, she-J. and I met up to actually cash the groupon in. There were a few restrictions; I had imagined us sitting at the bar, sipping on cocktails and eating a huge cheese/charcuterie plate, but the groupon was only good for the main dining room and required us to buy one entree. Regardless. For my first cocktail I tried a drink that included: citrus vodka, pallini lemoncello, lemon juice, and macerated fresh blackberry (and probably more, but their downloadable menu cuts off certain words). I liked it. Tart but not too much so.
She-J. let me pick the cheeses and salami. I made a poor meat selection that neither of us particularly cared for, which I cannot elaborate upon because the menu cuts off all the cheese and meat names. So, I can be just as useless when it comes to the cheeses.
Also it was as dark as a closet in the dining room. Like, really dim. This, of course, made taking good photographs quite the challenge. This was the best I could do.
We shared the lump crab salad to meet the entree requirement, and I will say it was a generous and satisfying salad.
After that we went to Capital Grille so J. could get her dessert fix (three homemade ice creams if I recall correctly). We asked the bartender what her signature cocktail was, and it was something with pineapple that had been soaked in vodka. We each took one.
This was the first time that She-J. and I had hung out without the kids in, well, I would say as long as the kids have been alive and I've been in Philly so 3-5 years depending on how you want to look at things. I experienced a little trepidation on this account. She-J. is such a good friend and I value the time I spend with her and her family...and yet I worried that without the constant punctuation of kids wanting or needing something/just being entertaining, we'd have awkward pauses or a lack of topics for conversation. I was, as you would probably have told me had I expressed this fear to you, wrong. A great and varied evening.
She-J. let me pick the cheeses and salami. I made a poor meat selection that neither of us particularly cared for, which I cannot elaborate upon because the menu cuts off all the cheese and meat names. So, I can be just as useless when it comes to the cheeses.
Also it was as dark as a closet in the dining room. Like, really dim. This, of course, made taking good photographs quite the challenge. This was the best I could do.
We shared the lump crab salad to meet the entree requirement, and I will say it was a generous and satisfying salad.
After that we went to Capital Grille so J. could get her dessert fix (three homemade ice creams if I recall correctly). We asked the bartender what her signature cocktail was, and it was something with pineapple that had been soaked in vodka. We each took one.
This was the first time that She-J. and I had hung out without the kids in, well, I would say as long as the kids have been alive and I've been in Philly so 3-5 years depending on how you want to look at things. I experienced a little trepidation on this account. She-J. is such a good friend and I value the time I spend with her and her family...and yet I worried that without the constant punctuation of kids wanting or needing something/just being entertaining, we'd have awkward pauses or a lack of topics for conversation. I was, as you would probably have told me had I expressed this fear to you, wrong. A great and varied evening.
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