Dinner c/o Isabel with CP

It's been a few months since CPM and R's wedding. And I hadn't gotten the opportunity to see CPM since, which was sad making. She's doing a serious weekly commute to Maryland for graduate school, so the amount of time she's actually in Philly - and in a position to hang out with the likes of me - is limited. So I was glad when we began forming a plan to have such a face to face. In the end we took advantage of a Groupon I purchased a while back for dinner at Isabel. I enjoyed my last meal and dining experience at the establishment, but I hadn't found the opportunity to return so the deal (one appetizer, two entrees and dessert for $25) was tantalizing. CPM and I met up at my apartment before walking over to the restaurant. Almost on cue, it began torrentially raining. While we shared an oversized umbrella, we were both quite damp and dripping by the time we safely arrived at Isabel. We were quickly seated by the front window, which gave us a lovely view of just how rainy it was going to be (very rainy).

CPM supplied us with tequila for margaritas. We were curious about a few different options that Isabel provides, but took the advice of our server and ultimately chose the guanabana variety. We both struggled to describe what it actually reminded us of as far as taste, but we were in agreement that it was to our liking. Sweet, but not too much, and a nice mixer for the tequila.

We went with the mushroom and chorizo fundido, which I pointed out had many a similarity with our erstwhile pizza fave, just without the bread. It was a shallow bowl of melted cheese with plenty of chorizo and mushroom chunks, served with tortillas. So ooey gooey.

I debated what entree to choose and, again, took the advice of our server and went with the scallops.

This was a goo choice. I was surprised by just how many scallops I was given and the mango salsa accompaniment was bright and lively. The scallops were also nice and tender. I haven't tried cooking scallops in years, but I recall that when I did, they often ended up rubbery. These were nothing like my sad attempts.

And for dessert we shared the bread pudding, a warm sweet mess of tastiness with malted vanilla ice cream. Rich and hearty, a good dessert for such a rainy night.

It was great to catch up with CPM, and good to go back to Isabel.