Valentine's Day

Every other year we take turns planning out our Valentine's day. This year, Arlie planned it. I've been wanting to go to Stella's Fish Cafe in Uptown for some time. We thought that we could do that and then go listen to some Blues music at Famous Dave's Blues Club across the street when we were done. When we got to Stella's we discovered that they are famous for their oysters....FRESH OYSTERS! Neither Arlie or I had ever tried a fresh oyster, or for that matter, ever desired to try one. Now that we've had Sushi and loved that, we were feeling pretty brave. At Stella's you can each just try 1 and you don't have to buy 12 and hope you like them. We decided, why now try one and then we can say we did it and if by chance we like them, we can order more. We ask the waiter what kind of oyster he recommended. As with everything, there are tons of different types and they all have just a little different flavor to them. The one we went with was more of a medium size with kinda of a buttery taste. They were called Kamomoto Oysters. The one thing we forgot to ask was if you just swallowed them or if you chew them. We got our oysters. They look like what I'd image the inside of eye balls would look like. They definately are not appetizing to look at! I made Arlie try it first. He just looked at it and downed it. He said it tasted like the ocean with a hint of buttery under taste.

I took a bit longer. I wasn't sure what to do if I didn't like it. Would I be able to quickly swallow? or would I have to spit it out? I figured I'd be able to stomach it and was just hoping that maybe it would be good. FYI: We chewed them. I'm not sure that's the correct way of doing it.

I have to say...we liked them! They are especially good if you don't look at them ;) We later had them with ceviche and those were delicious! On Thursday nights they have Oyster Happy Hour where the Oysters are like $.79 each. I think we'll hit it up sometime and then we can try all the different kinds of Oysters. I totally recommend doing this. It's so fun and I felt so daring :)

After that adventure we decided to go over and listen to some music. We had our babysitter until 11 (it was a school night for her so we didn't want to push it). We got there and discovered that live music didn't start until 10 and then there was a cover charge. Essentially we'd be paying to listen for 20-30 minutes. We decided that wouldn't make much sense. Instead we went to the Mermaid and played darts. I both won two games. Arlie won two games. It's a great game for us because we are pretty much equally talented (or not :)) .

What a lovely night. We gave each other cards when we got home. Arlie wrote me this amazing letter that touched my heart and won him many points :) I found this card that said everything I was thinking. It was as if my heart were writing the words on this card. Minor problem....when I got it home I realized that on the top of the card it read, "Happy Valentine's day to my loving WIFE." I gave it to him anyway. We can't all be perfect ;)