the wine kitchen

At some point on Friday Evin mentioned that we should go out on a date that night...I got all excited, and by the time date time came around we even had something to celebrate--the fact that I got offered a full time job!  More on that later...this post is about this delicious Friday evening.
I've been dying to visit The Wine Kitchen for months.  Ads in magazines (namely, the one I'm about to start working for!) and brochures had me dying to visit.  We called during the day to try to get a reservation, but they don't take reservations...the place is pretty small.  It was a bit of a drive over there and I was really nervous we'd have to wait outside in the chilly drizzle for awhile before a table became available, especially since we arrived right at 7 (I work in a restaurant.  I know that 7pm on a Friday night is typically a pretty crazy time).  But, we walked in, were told it might be 5-10 minutes and sure enough we were seated at a cozy little table before we knew it.  We both enjoyed wine flights (one of the things I was most excited about--here's why) which were 3 small glasses of wine delivered on wooden paddles with an info card describing each one.  The descriptions were witty and fun and the wines were tasty...my flight was entitled "Whites of Fancy" with a Pinot Grigio, a Sauvignon Blanc (I'm more than a little in love with that grape) and a Chardonnay, while Evin had "Hills of Italy" with a Trebbiano, a Barbera (or as he called it, Barbara) and a Chianti.  Our dinners arrived with lightning speed, his a bowl of Thai mussels and mine a plate of shrimp and (DELICIOUS) scallops on top of crispy risotto cakes and Swiss chard and drizzled with a wonderful sherry sauce.  I'd read that their mac and cheese (a side dish option) was fantastic so instead of dessert, we shared that...typical.  It came out sizzling hot on the skillet shown above and was sooooo good.
Our meal was enjoyable, reasonably quick, and didn't break the bank, and I'm so glad we finally got to try it out.  We'll definitely be back!


Oh, and here's an absurd photo of Finley I took right before we left...this dog is a nut.