An Amazing Meal

My husband and I just celebrated our twelfth anniversary this past weekend.  We love food, so it was very fitting that we ate at a wonderful restaurant for dinner.  We were blessed to have dinner at the Kitchen at Rock Hall in Rock Hall, Maryland.  I posted my review on Yelp.com HERE

Later that night, we made a list of the excellent meals we've eaten over the course of our marriage.
This is what we came up with:
1) a steakhouse on our honeymoon (can't remember the name)  My husband was sick our entire honeymoon, so neither of us remember much except that we enjoyed the dinner we had at the restaurant in the hotel.
2) a french restaurant in Dallas (can't remember the name again)  It was a little hole in the wall and I'm not even sure how we found it.
3) Eastside Cafe in Austin, Texas  This is a vegetarian restaurant that has its own garden.  I had the mushroom crepes (which are still on the menu twelve years later).  
4) Goldfish in Atlanta, Georgia is owned by a company that owns several chains in the area.  Chris and I don't usually enjoy chains, but we loved the fish and sushi at this restauarant.  I wonder how it would be now.
5) Ruth's Chris in Baltimore, Maryland  The steaks we had that night were wonderful.
6) A Tapas Restaurant in Ithaca, New York  I tried to google and find the name of it, but 
7) Simply Red Bistro in the La Tourelle Inn in Ithaca, New York.  One of the best breakfast's we've ever had.  We stayed here on our anniversary two years ago.
8) Eaglesmere Inn in Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania.  The breakfast was wonderful.  The dinner was very good, but not excellent.  We really enjoyed our stay here last year for our anniversary.
9) Oyster House in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  Happy Hour is the time to go.  We also had the octopus, which was wonderful!  The turtle soup is worth passing up, though.  We made the drive up to Philly around Valentine's Day this year just for this restaurant.
10) Mason's in Easton, Maryland.  We ate here with our kids and were pleased to actually have real vegetables included with their kids meals!  I can't remember what we had, but I do remember loving it.
11) The Kitchen at Rock Hall in Rock Hall, Maryland.  This was a wonderful dinner and we loved the venue.  Small so that they could serve people well.  The chef doesn't take on more customers than he can cook for excellently.  You MUST make reservations.  We watched people turned away on a Sunday night when the town was dead and hardly anyone was around!  I called the day before and was able to make a reservation.  

So, that's our short list of excellent meals we've eaten together.  They were more expensive meals for us, but ones worth saving for.  We've eaten at a lot of really good restaurants, too, but these were excellent.  Some of the good ones were Food for Thought in Williamsburg, VA; Zen 16 Sushi in Bel Air, MD; the Bees Knees and California Dreaming in Augusta, GA; BuonTempo Brothers Pizza in Bel Air, MD; Carmine's on Penn in Denver, Colorado; and Jonathon's in Salem, OR.  

We've also had our share of horrible meals out during our marriage.  I still remember one place near Atlanta (which thankfully isn't there anymore) where we ate during the first year of our marriage.  The food arrived cold!  Chris didn't want to send it back, but I never, ever wanted to go back there.  When we ate in Williamsburg, Virginia at Red, Hot, and Blues, some of our food arrived cold as well there and my daughter ended up throwing up later that night unfortunately.  So, there have been some bad meals as well.

I came home on Monday after our short trip and excellent dinner wanting to be a better cook.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to cook excellently?  My problem is that I'm usually doing too much at one time.  So, I've been trying this week.  I made pickled beets yesterday and baked my cookies just right!  They were soft and chewy and not overbaked.  I made sure I got to the oven when the timer went off and didn't wait.  We'll see what I can do.  I'm going to try!