Pre-Birthday Dinner -Shopstar
Tonight we celebrated my birthday a day early at Napa River Grill. Honestly, given the events of the past week, I was hoping for a quick, low key pass through to my 34th year. Dan was open for restaurant suggestions earlier this week & we settled on Napa River Grill. This is my 2nd favorite restaurant in Louisville. They’ve opened at a new location in the new Westport Village. While the patio isn’t quite as charming as the old location, the interior is very neat & the food is awesome.
I stopped by to see Bryan & Leslie last evening to check in on her. Initially we’d planned on dinner w/ the DePasta clan, but I did leave an open invite to Bryan & Leslie if they felt up to coming. I was really happy they decided to join us along w/ Leslie’s mother & R. Later, Dan O’ & Gina called to see what we were up to & that evolved into a few more guests for dinner.
For appetizers, we had calamari & shrimp scampi. Bryan, Dan & I had the Ferrari-Carrano Fume Blanc from Sonoma with our appetizers. This is a terrific easy drinking wine that’s very food & seafood friendly. For my salad course, I had the special salad which was wilted spinach, toasted almonds & blood oranges w/ a blood orange viniagrette. The entree was Napa’s Sea Bass. A & I split this as it’s always too much for me. They do a terrific asian seasoning along with ginger infused rice. Since I’m a huge ginger freak, that’s one of my favorites. I paired this with a Napa Chard blend. I do have to look up the winery as it was a nice pairing with the fish. Unfortunately, I didn’t take notes at dinner & the wine by the glass list hasn’t been updated on the Napa website. Dessert was Napa’s bread pudding with vanilla custard & chocolate sauce. Everyone at the table enjoyed a bite! Dan & Bryan had the steak & veal, so they did a bottle of the terrific 2004 Cinnabar “Mercury Rising” Cabernet Sauvignon from the central coast CA. Lots of fruit, light tannins & smooth finish.
Dinner with this group is usually a fun affair. I think the week’s events were weighing heavily on most of us. We did all smile & had a few laughs though. I really needed that! Midway through dinner, I asked Leslie if her Mom was okay with all of our excitement. We can be a rather wild bunch with no topics off limits. The topics tonight ranged from TV sizes, broken legs & elderly girlfriends. The whole experience can be overwhelming, but it will almost always be entertaining. Leslie drew a parallel to how sometimes it’s like dinner with the real life TV family….except I don’t think we cuss that much & we’re not dysfunctional. Dan & I were talking about the evening on the way home. It made me happy to think about how warm we are, how sincere everyone is, how much we laugh & enjoy each others’ company and how we all cheer for each other in our triumphs & stick up for each other when we need it. We have some of the best stories…ones that we never tire of retelling & still entertain us even after a few years! It’s also a bit comforting to know that I have great friends & family. I think I’m lucky for this. It all makes for a great birthday…even on a year when we had more reasons to be sad than celebrate.
