Between Us

My good friend Mary, whom I've known for 15 years, got married last month, on my husband's and my first anniversary. The wedding was amazing, and even more amazing (even though I wasn't invited, although I'm sure that was just a miscommunication) was their three week honeymoon in Greece and Italy.

So.

Jealous.

Now that they're back (looking tan and gorgeous) we got together with them and another couple (Mary's sister Jennifer, whom I've known for a bit longer than Mary, and her husband) for dinner at a gem of a restaurant that we stumbled onto called Entre Nous. French tapas? I didn't even know that was a thing.

Oh, but is it ever. Course after course after course of amazing French tapas - I think we ordered 80% of what was on the menu. Our waitress was delightful and they brought out only two items at a time so the table was never overwhelmed with food. Duck, lamb, beef, parma wrapped asparagus, "Barely Stuffed Tomatoes" (which was the source of a heated debate at our table: half of us were convinced it was a typo and should have read "Barley Stuffed Tomatoes", the other half taking it literally but then that devolved into another argument: how can you barely stuff something? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?), sausage stuffed onion, scallops, mushrooms (PASS!), zucchini fritters, pomme frite with aioli, blue cheese stuffed endive...I wasn't kidding when I said we ordered most of what was on the menu.

And the wine. Good god, the wine. I stopped counting after five bottles.

The restaurant itself is tiny, but so quaint and darling. The chef's wife is the hostess, and she had their 3 month old son strapped to her chest in a baby sling while she seated diners. The baby was darling and didn't make a peep all night. And towards the end of our meal, the chef came to our table to introduce himself, and naturally, he too, was darling. Such a character. The walls are all covered in beautiful black & white photographs of their family, and black and white French films are projected onto the ceiling (no audio). They even turned on subtitles for us so we could stare up at the ceiling between courses and sips of wine. Oh, the wine.

I'm not sure what I was expecting out of this restaurant when we first sat down, but whatever it was, this place far exceeded it. We decided that we are going to try to follow through on a new tradition of getting the same group together every six weeks for a repeat performance of last night's dinner, each time a different person gets to select a new restaurant. I'm really hoping we follow through with our plan and that it wasn't a product of all that damn wine.

And maybe I'm PMSing, hence the sap that is about to spew forth from my fingertips, but it was such a great night, I wanted to write it down to remember. I truly value my friends. I really am very thankful for them.

And Jennifer...if you happen to read this...

...we won't mention The Incident after we left the restaurant, and I hope your finger heals quickly.

But that's between us.

Heh.