Divine Dinner @ DiVino

This week marks the UCT conference which E's company puts on each year. It is held in downtown Houston at the George R Brown Convention Center, and ideally, everyone from her job stays at the Hyatt for the duration. This involves ordering room service or eating at the hotel dining rooms, or otherwise eating out and being reimbursed for expenses. There is a cocktail party on Wednesday night which we usually go to at least to make an appearance, but this year, she decided to pass on all the above.

However, she does allow for us to have a lovely dinner out on her expense account. Since everyone with a spouse has them down for dinner, it seems an ok thing to do, and the bossman has always reimbursed her in the past, even though she does not eat with everyone else. This year we decided to go to DiVino.

I. Am. So. Full.

We started with the shrimp on rosemary skewers served over grilled polenta with a spicy marinara sauce. Yumm. The challenge on such a dish is to remove the shrimp from the skewer (4 shrimp, 1 stalk of rosemary) without wearing the spicy marinara. We appreciated some success.

E followed with a caesar salad. I passed on salad, because the description of my entree included mixed field greens.

E chose the veal scallopini which was crusted with Parmesan and had a side of grilled rosemary potatoes. Very delish.

I chose the beef tenderloin. The waiter was confused and I ended up with the filet mignon. Same basic cut of meat, so I kept it. They also cook to order, so I did not want to have to wait another 30 minutes for the correction to be made. It did not hurt that the Parmesan mashed potatoes as my side item were fabulous.

The waiter corrected the order by fixing the bolll to reflect the lower price of what had ordered, and he then brought us out a slice of heaven. They have a desert that is a layer of the best chocolate mousse I have ever had sandwiched between two layers of extremely moist chocolate cake with aq dark chocolate layer of icing on top. I think it all melted in my mouth. We eill likely add them to our dessert list of places to go with desserts that are primo which also serve wine.

We do the wine and dessert excursions as often as we do dinner out.

It's a good thing.

My Aunt just messaged me and was telling me my mom was moved to from the hospital to the rehab facility. The doc told my mom 20 days there, but my aunt thinks it will be more like a few months. But don't repeat that to mom. She also gave me her cell phone number and told me it is best to call between 8-12 pm. Like, I should be on the phone to her right now.

I love my mom dearly. She's my mom. But calling her requires preparation. At the very least, the mindset that I will be talking to my mother. Same with my father, but my mother a little more acutely.

Tomorrow, I will call her tomorrow.

I am listening to a new cd I got last week at Sloan/Hall. It is called Music For Cocktails part 2 and is a 2 disc set. Very urban loungy and I really like it. It is great for writing or working otherwise on my laptop because am not distracted by the familiarity of lyrics. Also, it is a little uptempo, so there is a groove going on with my typing which is nice. Easy.

The song I am most ennamored (I amreally missing the spell check feature in blogger wehich I am sure is a mac thing that it is gone) is 'Wait Til You See Him' by Ella Fitzgerald. It is unlike anything I have ever heard from her, and it sort of reminds me of 'History Repeating" (lovelovelove itt) which Shirley Bassey did with the Propeller Heads. Not that it sounds similar, but the way it is a departure stylewise for the artist.

It is the first time I am using iTunes. I am pretty sure there is no compatability with my Dell DJ, which is sucky, but I am still going to try it. I read on the Dell site that there are drivers to download and workaround solutions, so I will attempt it sooner or later, but I am not pressed to do it immediately. I have no problem ripping what i want onto my laptop and using my Dell DJ with the desk top. What I do find curious, though, is that thesound is excellent with a pair of ear buds, but the cd driver is very loud and there is crappy soundwithout the ear buds. Again, no big deal.