Fogo We Go

I feel like I'll I've been writing about is food lately.  Well, I guess that's a big part of my social outings.  On the last day of February, M and I went to Fogo de Chao during restaurant week.  We hadn't been there since restaurant week in 2010.  It's not the type of place you can go to very often, due to price and due to excess eating.

I treated Michael this time as he helped me with a financial agreement last July to help accelerate me being debt free (besides student loan) and he joked that after the agreement ended, I would owe him Fogo.  I was very happy to take him here. (especially during restaurant week when it's cheaper. he he)  

It's really hard to get reservations this week so we had ours at 5 pm on a Thursday.  I rocked out on the  salad bar and way too much polenta while M ate piles of meat.  I had a few slivers of meat but not too much.  After our two hour experience we were too full.  Gluttons!

Fogo with Friends

M and I went to Fogo de Chao with Tanya and Chris on a very warm Friday night.  (It was 87 degrees earlier in the day.) It was their first time there and they were going partly to celebrate their 1st wedding anniversary, which was yesterday.  M and I went because we had a celebration of sorts also.  It was the 6th anniversary of M and I starting on the path to what would become our current relationship.  Six years ago, M and I went to a playoff Twins game against the Yankees (They lost...sound familiar?) as friends and we ended up kissing that night which would turn around the friendship as we had known it, forever.

Fogo was great.  It was Restaurant Week again so it was very busy but as always, worth it.  After dinner, we went back to Chris and Tanya's house for a fire outside and a beer before heading home around 2 am.  It was a great night and it had been so long since just the four of us had hung out.  I miss hanging out with these two!

Random Schmandom

As usual, I'm behind on writing about all my adventures which usually means it's time for a Random Schmandom post to catch up on everything that's been going on for the last two weeks!  Let's get started...

The week of August 1-6 was Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine's Restaurant Week.  Participating restaurants offer prix fixe menus for discounted prices for lunch and dinner.  One of the restaurants participating was Fogo de Chao, which both M and I love, however I've really wanted to take my dad there for the past year so I invited him to be our guest on August 5th and he obliged.  It's an expensive place anyways, but the deal for the week was basically a discount of $17 a person plus it included a dessert so it roughly $25 off each person, which if you've been there, it's hard to pass up that discount.  My dad really enjoyed it, which was the most important part for me. I forgot to take pictures of all of us but here's a picture of M's creme brulee.

My car hasn't been driving the best for the past couple of months and I brought it in back in June to be looked at and they determined nothing was wrong.  Two months later, it still doesn't run the best so I brought to the dealership and once again, the diagnosis was nothing is wrong, but I'm the one that drives the car Monday through Friday at least 50 miles a day so I know when my car isn't running right.  Long story short, nothings been fixed but I did buy some items at the store that I thought might help and it seems to be running slightly better.  While my car was at the dealership for two days, I got to drive this thing.

It's a Nissan Cube and they are odd looking but it was kinda fun to drive temporarily.  Underneath the dashboard at the driver's and passenger's feet are lights that change all different colors in the car.  It even comes with a circular piece of carpet on the dash to put stuff on as it is very angled and you wouldn't be able to set anything down without sliding to the windshield.  

Friday, August 6th was the two year anniversary of M's sister Cherrie passing away.  As with last year, we met at the cemetery to say hi to Cherrie and then went out to eat at Friday's.  M put a tribute to Cherrie in the paper again this year, this time a poem that he wrote and read for Cherrie when she was still alive.  The night before she died M and I were over at her house along with other family members and we knew the end was very near.  We said our goodbyes to her at 10 pm, giving her hugs and whispering in her ear, "Cherrie, it's ok to go now" as she lay sleeping as she had for the past three days with little consciousness or words.  We got the call less than 6 hours later that she was no longer with us in body, but forever in spirit. 

As for nature, there was a beautiful sunset but I was driving and I couldn't get a decent shot and this of course does no justice but maybe you can appreciate how pretty it was.

We also had a beautiful bird in our yard.  I came home and drive into the driveway and saw something big and brownish sitting close in the grass but then realized it was big bird the closer I got.  He flew into the tree way back in the yard so I quietly followed him so I could get some pictures without trying to disturb him too much. Does anyone know what kind of bird this is?  Is it a falcon or a hawk?  The last picture is blurry but you get an idea of how long is wingspan is.  Remember to click on each picture to enlarge.

That's enough writing for now but I'll be back soon.  Have a good Thursday!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday usually means stuff your face for M and I. Have you ever been to Yarusso's? It's one of my family's favorite places to eat and our families have eaten there in some capacity for decades. The first Monday of every month they celebrate the birthdays for the month. Monday, January 4th was the day to celebrate January birthdays. Anyone with a January birthday can show up and get a free meal with the purchase of one. Since M and I are both January birthdays, we had to get on someone else's bill so we could eat for free. We celebrated my grandpa's (6th), M's (5th) and my birthday (21st) on Monday with a group of 16 of us that could make it. Even though it was my sister's 7th wedding anniversary that day, her hubby couldn't make it as he is on the city counsel for the city he resides in. You should go to Yarusso's for your birthday too!

So now here's for the stuffing your face part....M's real birthday was yesterday and he turned 36 so we went downtown to Fogo de Chao. We first visited Fogo in June and you can read about it here. The restaurant is just fantastic and it is now one of my favorite places. I would love to take my parents here, especially my Dad as he loves meat, (what guy doesn't) and he has quite the appetite so I know he'd get his money's worth. I have to save some pennies to take them there though. It's not cheap! At the end of the meal, we were stuffed and offered a free dessert for M's birthday and even though we could have gotten it to go, we declined. See, we don't eat at every chance we get! M said he had a fantastic birthday, one of the best he's ever had, which makes me feel happy as I wanted to make him feel as special as I could on his day. ♥

An Awesome Weekend

Despite the unseasonably cold, cloudy and rainy weather, I had an awesome weekend with M. We spent the whole weekend together, something we haven't done for what seems like a long time, at least when it's completely on our own terms and schedules.  On Friday, we went out to Great Water Brewing Company in St. Paul for some micro brew and dinner.  We bummed around downtown taking pictures of anything and acting as though we were tourists.  

On Saturday, we went to the other downtown, Minneapolis, to go to a restaurant that neither M nor I have ever been to but has been on our list for over two years.  Fogo de Chao!  For those that don't know, Fogo de Chao, (chao is pronounced 'shoun') is a Brazilian steakhouse with that has a fixed price.  There is a salad bar with items such as lox, asparagus that I never seen that big before, prosciutto and different cheeses.  Then comes the meats.  There are servers that walk around with meat on skewers serving it you as you want it.  They also serve garlic mashed potatoes, polenta and caramelized bananas.  The bananas were so good!  Everything was delicious.  We really paced ourselves and didn't completely gorge ourselves either.  If you want to read more about the restaurant and a review of it on Twin Cities Restaurant Blog, go HERE!

After the restaurant, we headed home to have a wine night.  We didn't have many this past winter so we have plenty of bottles of wine at home.  We lit the candles and turned on some new music for June (we download 100+  songs a month and listen to the playlist for the whole month and then on to a new playlist for the following month)  and cracked a couple of bottles of wine.  I stayed up late for my standards which made M happy.  I always fall asleep first.  

Sunday we went out to breakfast and then ran some errands and finally to go see the movie, The Hangover.  It was a good no-thought movie for a Sunday.  At the movie theatre they had these funky mirrors so we took a couple pics of ourselves.