Sunday, August 24, 2008

Sips and Nibbles

As minor as we all thought Tropical Storm Fay would be, she certainly proved to be a pain in the butt. It started raining Monday night, and then continued to rain until Friday. Daily rain isn't that unusual here in the summer, but it generally comes at about 4pm and lasts about half an hour, and then it's all sunshine again. This was all day, all night relentless rain. To illustrate, here's a picture of our parking lot from this week. You'll note that the water is high enough that you can't see the curb in some areas. (That little yellow car in the background is mine!)

As a result of the rain and flooding, we've been a little stir crazy. Frankly both Kyle and I were happy when the flooded roads cleared and we were able to go back to work. So, Friday night, we decided we'd celebrate that the rain had (mostly) stopped. We went to our favorite wine shop, WineStyles with a friend for the wine tasting. It's a great little shop- it's a franchise, and is owned by a nice couple that are passionate about good wine. If you're intimidated by wines and wine shopping, this is a perfect shop- all the wines are organized by "style" (ie. bold, mellow, fruity, &c) and every single wine has a card next to it that tells you what flavors it has, if its dry or sweet, what kind of food it's best with. And if that isn't enough help, the owners and employees are very friendly and knowledgeable, and don't mind helping you find the right wine. (Oh, and most of the wines are priced under $25, which is a bonus!) I'd highly recommend taking a look at the website to see if there's a franchise in your area.

We tasted some wines, and picked up our wines of the month, then headed over to the World Beat Cafe, a local tapas restaurant. Recently, they've been offering an all-you-can-eat tapas menu for only $25 per person. They have a special menu for the offer, with about 20 selections, plus the offer includes a bottle of wine, pitcher of sangria or three cocktails per person. (I had a chardonnay, but didn't finish it- we corked it and brought it home.)










It was especially fun with the three of us, because we shared all the little plates of food. I can't remember exactly everything we had, but I took pictures of the tandoori chicken with peanut sauce, the Mediterranean calamari and the five cheese flat bread.
I love tapas, because I like not having to commit to one entree. You get the chance to try small amounts of several things, plus they really encourage a very fun, social dining experience.

2 comments:

La Pixie said...

Ive never had "tapas" before... and Im not sure exactly what it is... but the experience that you describe sounds like a lot of fun.

Pumpkin said...

Tapas are little appetizer-sized portions of foods. Traditionally, they are Spanish, but a lot of tapas-style restaurants do tapas in a variety of cuisine styles. Since portions are little, you order several dishes per person. Usually everyone at the table shares what they've ordered.