In lieu of our usual Christmas tacky party, we went in the complete opposite direction and celebrated the season with our friends with a fancy-dress up progress dinner party. We missed seeing everyone decked out in their finest tacky knitwear, but I must say our friends clean up pretty good.
We started off with appetizers at Anne + Locke’s, progressed to dinner at Bernardin’s and ended with dessert at Chad + Caroline’s.
It was my first time eating at Bernardin’s, despite having heard so many good reviews about it before. I’m going to double this as a “dining in the dash” entry since that was one of the places on our list. I’m not entirely sure when they moved into the Zeverly House location but I loved it – it just such a cozy little spot for a restaurant. The downstairs has a living room like feel to the front room with the bar, and then there’s one dining room downstairs, a main one upstairs and a smaller private room. Because we were a group of fourteen, we were in the small private room upstairs. It felt as cozy as eating in one of our own homes. Except, someone else did the cooking and dishes. Win.
And the cooking! I rarely order steaks when I’m out to eat (not because I don’t like them, but I try to make it a point to order things I don’t cook very well like fish or risotto) but Jamie had told me that they had the best steaks in town. Jamie’s not a big steak eater either, so when she laid down that proclamation I simply had to follow through. Filet mignon with melted goat cheese on top? Done. I don’t even remember what the side was. Was there a side? Don’t know, don’t care. It certainly was the best steak in town. (Okay, in all fairness, I just told you I haven’t really had any of the other steaks in town… but suffice it to say, this was a great one.) My husband, usually the steak eater, ventured on to the wild side of the menu and tried the evening special – kangaroo. Truthfully, when I give him a few bites of my filet, I think he was pretty jealous he went with the roo. (His summary: like a tough pork chop.) My meal was excellent, the service was top notch, the ambience lovely and the company – well that was the best part.
It was a wonderful evening with friends and I felt like it put me in the holiday spirit for the coming two weeks. Or maybe that was a food coma. I’m not sure, but I liked it.
And I definitely owe a special thank you to Matt’s parents who came up for the evening and baby-sat our little munchkin, so we could go out on the town with our friends. That in and of itself is a Christmas present we’ll remember!
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