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.

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Cute Kitty Thursday!

This week's cute kitty is Jeffrey. Isn't Jeffrey super cute?

Oooo, caught it in the sink!

Do you mind? I am trying to nap.

His momma owns Pound Puppies Pet Sitting in Portsmouth, VA. If you want your pets cared for like you do call Christie or click on the words above.  She's the best! Jeffrey is pretty cool too.  Thanks for submitting!

If you want your cute kitty pictures posted  email me pictures at twocatsandacradle@gmail.com.

♥ 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!

Dragging My Feet

I am totally lacking motivation to revamp our adoption efforts. I got a great response to my "Survey Says" post*. Thanks ladies!  My mom is all settled and doing great. Everything seems to be under control and usually I am on to the next thing.  Maybe it's the lazy days of summer but procrastination is not my usual MO. Updating our adoption look book, creating a personal website and networking to find a birth mother seems rather daunting.  Honestly, I'd rather play Words with Friends right now. 

I was hoping to have this all done by the end of July.  There is still time. Maybe I'll actually jump into action last minute instead of laying in bed thinking about what new pictures we should use or should we put the crib in the 2nd bedroom or in ours.  I am hoping my confession of procrastination will give me that push that I need.  Or I might just follow Mark Twain's words, "Never put off till tomorrow what may be done day after tomorrow just as well" and give myself a little break.

*Since I am procrastinating, there is still time to respond to the questions in the Survey Says post. It will help us great deal in focusing our adoption efforts.

♥ 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!