Rouge et Blanc

Marlon and I recently had a date night and went to a fancy dinner at Rouge et Blanc. I had a gift certificate and a rebate VISA gift card burning a hole in my pocket and we decided let's go out to a nice dinner on a Wednesday night. We'll dress up, order what we want and have a date.

We've been on a strict all-cash budget for almost 8 months now. It was our New Year's resolution to save for the adoption. We've been pretty good with sticking with it and it hasn't been that hard. We only eat out once a week and rarely is it a fancy dinner with just the two of us. We never got cable after we moved as an experiment and to save some money and don't really miss it. I am a pretty darn good cook and PBS has some great shows to fill in the Primetime gap.

One of our favorite PBS shows is Mike Colameco's Real Food. Chef Colameco tours the kitchens of some New York City's best restaurants. One episode featured the French-Vietnamese restaurant, Rouge et Blanc and we were sold. The menu looked amazing but we were really interested to see how the restaurant was decorated. We want to do a French-Vietnamese look in our bedroom, but haven't quite pulled it off. So I made a reservation for our date.

Oooh la la, the restaurant was romantic.

photo credit: lindsay i from Yelp

We were seated and the sommelier came over to introduce himself and gave us a four page wine list. We drink wine, but we are in no way experts. I tend to buy what sounds good on special and on occasion a two buck Chuck at Trader Joe's. So that took a little time to decipher. We showed sommelier two that we were considering and he recommended a Chablis in our price range. We went with his recommendation and of course, it was perfect! The waitress explained the menu to us. There are no starters or entrees, just plates that can be shared. We ordered four plates - fried brussel sprouts, charred octopus, bone marrow and the soft shelled crab. I told my sister what we ate and she said gross. LOL. We always hear about how delicious bone marrow is and all the chefs love this dish. It was good, but not something I would consider my favorite. I tried it and checked it off the list.
 

Bone Marrow with Fennel Salad | photo credit: Larry l from Yelp

Soft-shelled Crab

We had a wonderful dinner and wine, held hands across a candlelit table and had a lovely evening.  We used our gift certificates within a $1.97 of the full amount, so it cost us nothing.  You know I love a deal! We even got a few decorating ideas for the bedroom. Now that's what I call a good date!

P.S. My pictures didn't turn out so well from the restaurant. They were too dark. I used a couple from Yelp and one of my own.

♥ Our puzzle piece fundraiser is still going! Click on the fundraiser tab to get your puzzle piece! Or if you simply want to make a donation, click on the Donate button to the left. Thank you!