Date night
happy corn day!
September 30, 2011
Here at the Mertinso household, we celebrate all sorts of special days. To differentiate between the various “anniversaries” we simply give them fun names. One of these just so happens to be Corn Day, the anniversary of our first date (September 29, 2006). Why label it Corn Day? Because we went to a corn maze for our first date (we had gone to Chili’s for dessert after the corn maze). Since Las Vegas is lacking in the corn maze department, and we couldn’t find even a parking lot pumpkin patch open yet, we just went to Chili’s for dinner and got donuts for dessert.
Some people choose to eat their donuts with a wine glass of milk
Others choose to steal the whole box bc they’re told they can’t have any
This is us 5 years ago on our first date with a handful of corn:
And look at us now:
date night
June 4, 2011
We decided to try the Pasta Shop Ristorante & Art Gallery. The location seemed kind of strange. It is kind of just a regular storefront location and a bit too small (in my opinion).
Once you get inside, the decor is pretty cool and all of the artwork on the walls is for sale. Too bad it is “artwork” (which means it is expensive). Otherwise, I may have just been tempted to buy something other than just food. But food is what we went there for, and food was what we got.
We started out with caesar salads. The fresh parmesan on top was excellent. The salad itself was comparable to any other caesar.
They also brought us some garlic bread, which fortunately was not too garlicky since I’ve had issues with the smell of garlic for the last several months.
Luis ordered the Chicken Davida. It was sautéed chicken breast, fried eggplant, sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella with fresh vegetables. He said he liked it. For $18.95, I wished they would have given him a larger portion.
I ordered the Pappardelle Alfredo. Just a classic fettuccine alfredo with chicken. Boring, I know. But that was the only thing that sounded simple enough for my stomach that evening. It was good. Especially after I doused it with fresh parmesan. But I could have gotten close to the same thing at Olive Garden for half the price. Sure, it wouldn’t be fresh pasta, but you know what? I’m not a pasta snob.
date night at pin kaow
May 28, 2011
Luis and I love eating out. There is just something about the combination of a great atmosphere, good food, and one another for company that just makes eating out one of our favorite things to do.
Last time we went to Pin Kaow was in celebration of the pregnancy (pre-morning sickness). After all of these months, we’ve finally been able to go back. We had our favorites:
Pad See Ew
Masaman Curry
We also added the Cream Cheese Shrimp Tempura this time around, and it was delicious!
As always, we ended our meal with sweet orange slices :)
date night at shobu
May 21, 2011
From the outside, Shobu isn’t much to look at. In fact, I probably would have never set foot in the establishment if it weren’t for the fact that we had a Groupon that we had already purchased, so we needed to use it.
It is a little better once you’re inside.
But like I said, we had a Groupon we needed to use. We bought the Groupon for $20 and were able to get $40 worth of food. Nothing on the menu was off-limits as far as the Groupon is concerned. As we searched the menu for what we wanted to order, the waitress brought us some spicy soup.
Luis liked the soup. I only managed a sip, and it made my insides burn.
Fortunately, by then we were ready to order, and we started with some egg rolls. To be honest, these were kind of run of the mill. They tasted about the same as the store-bought kind.
After that, it was on to the good stuff. I ordered these cream cheese and crab filled shrimp. They were delicious and I almost didn’t want to share them with Luis. But I decided I should be nice and let him have one.
I also ordered the tempura shrimp roll, which had a really yummy sauce that was a tiny bit on the sweet side.
My only complaint (other than the egg rolls not being that great) is the fact that I was really limited in my sushi choices since I’m really not supposed to be eating raw fish. There were so many kinds of sushi I would have loved to try, but I couldn’t. Some day, when I’m not pregnant anymore, I’ll go back and eat all sorts of delicious raw fish :)
Luis (who is not pregnant and can eat all the raw fish he wants) ordered the Dragon Roll and the Vegas Roll.
As we were getting ready to leave, 2 couples showed up together. They were seated and commenced ordering their sake. Turns out they had Groupons too. Each couple had one. But you’re only supposed to have one Groupon per table. So one of the girls made a huge fuss about it and was really mad at the staff for telling them that they couldn’t both use their Groupons. While the other girl was trying to be accommodating and told the waiter that she and her date would just move to another table. Eventually the rude girl got her way, and they were all able to sit together.
Now, I understand how someone may be a little annoyed, but it wasn’t the waiter’s fault that the restaurant has a policy of only using one Groupon per table (that actually seems pretty normal to me). It really bothers me when people aren’t nice to staff, especially when they are trying to go out of their way to please you.
date night
November 28, 2010
It has been a while since our last real date night. Last Friday night, Luis and I had gone out to dinner and I was complaining about not having date nights. I told him the reason we didn’t have them anymore was because I have always had to plan them. So you can probably imagine my surprise when I walked in the door following dinner to find this:
Luis had planned a slumber party date night. He brought the extra mattress down from our guest room, made sure to have snacks and goodies ready to go, and even had our pajamas laid out waiting for our return. There was just 1 rule to follow: no laptops. I was a little bothered by this at first since I had gone straight from work to dinner and hadn’t had a chance to do my nightly blog surfing. But once I started winning Mario Party on the Wii, I completely forgot about my laptop :)
date night
August 28, 2010
Following the counsel of our bishop, Luis and I have been trying to be consistent about doing more than just going to Chili’s and coming home to watch TV. But after trying to get some yard work done last week in 105 degree weather and feeling like I was going to either VOMIT, FAINT or DIE, I really didn’t think we would end up venturing outside of our cool house EVER AGAIN! (Ok, so I’m being a tad dramatic… but I really wasn’t feeling very good).
But by 7:30 p.m., having spent most of the day in my bed, Luis asked if I wanted to go take a dip in the pool before going out to get something to eat. I was game. So off to the pool we went. We enjoyed the next couple of hours cooling off and visiting in the pool with our neighbors/friends, the Bindrups. Eventually, the topic of conversation got to foods… more specifically frozen yogurt and good places to eat it. By then my mouth was salivating, so off we went to Yogurtland.
Mike kind enough to patiently wait for Luis to finish trying the flavors so he could get down to the tart yogurt he apparently always gets.
And after all of his taste testing, Luis ended up getting chocolate fro-yo with bananas, oreos and mini peanut butter cups
I got taro (I know, sounds nasty, but it was surprisingly delicious), peach, lemonade-passion fruit, and blueberry fro-yo with strawberries, mangoes, and white chocolate drizzled on top
Mike got the same thing he always gets: tart fro-yo with strawberries, coconut, and almonds (I think)
Suzy was more like me, choosing several different flavors and toppings including kiwi, white chocolate chips and mango
Looking through these pictures makes me want to run out and get some more right now!
date night
August 2, 2010
This past weekend’s date night featured a double date with some friends we’ve met down here in Las Vegas. We started off by experimenting with making panini’s in our George Forman grill. We then packed up our sandwiches (along with chips, watermelon, candy, and some water) in one of my cute purple baskets (which Luis wasn’t too excited to use) and headed off to The District for the Outdoor Picture Show.
The featured movie was Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Next time we do this, we’ll have to buy some chairs to bring along with us, because, let me tell you, by the end of the night, our backs were so sore. I felt like an old granny trying to get up and straighten my back out again.
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