Real love, Fisher-Siegel style

Yesterday, I wore black in protest of the faux holiday. We hadn't made reservations anywhere until a week ago when my "date" decided we'd go to Perry's in Adams Morgan. I really wanted Cashion's, but Perry's has the best sushi in DC, and I've only had wonderful experiences there.

Yesterday was the first time I at the prix-fixe menu, talking it up to my office mate Xtophe. He'd made reservations for he and his girlfriend in Bethesda, but upon checking the restaurant's website, he learned they were closed for water damage. I urged him to make reservations at Perry's--they still had 7pm available on OpenTable.com. But Xtophe decided on El Mexicano, and in hindsight, I wish we had as well.




Birthday dinner at Perry's 06

I'd gotten my date a present a couple days ago, a salt pig from Williams Sonoma that we don't need but that he wanted, along with grey salt. It's got lower sodium than regular sea salt, but it's saltier so you don't have to use as much of it. When I got home from work I was asked to wait outside until he arrived. He came with an armful of long-stemmed roses (NOT RED--he has good taste), telling me that this was "Take Two." Take One had arrived earlier, a small arrangement of white roses from RedEnvelope.com. I loved them and the simplicity, but he noticed that the petals were already dying, so he arranged another bouquet (He got his money back this morning--didn't even have to return them!).

When we got to Perry's, the host nodded to a server: "Love Pit," he said. We took off our coats and handed them to a hostess, and when we turned to follow the server, s/he (I'll explain later) was nowhere to be found. Having sat almost exclusively in the Love Pit on prior dinners at Perry's (with the exception of my birthday dinner, which we celebrated on the roof deck), we headed past tables and chairs that had been brought in from the roof deck and ascended the few steps to one of the three tables behind the half wall of the elevated platform, an ideal observation deck. Nestled above a spread of close-set tables, intimate nook of the Love Pit's had previously lent the perfect opportunity for people watching. This time, however, the couple at the table next to us was loud enough to drown out any observation I could think to make (except about the girl next to us. she was one of those "i want this, but not that," ordering a Grey Goose martini with sweet vermouth and extra olives--six, to be precise).

The amuse-bouche was a nice touch: slices of avocado with spicy tomato sorbet, duck confit on a puff pastry with a blackberry, and lime shrimp ceviche that I didn't try but my date said was tasty.

For the first course, I had the goat cheese soufflé the size of a quarter on a plate too big for the table. It tasted like microwaved cream cheese with some mixed greens, so I traded the soufflé for of my date's cider-braised pork belly instead, which was flavorful, albeit fatty.

The server, who I've since decided is a "she" (smoke-cured voice, rotund and gender-neutral with close-cropped hair; I checked the hands for XX or XY detail and found a masculine watch and smooth hands), was pleasant enough. However, while I can forgive the fact that she gave me a cranberrytini instead of a pomegranatini, the slow-roasted duck was unimpressive, and the chocolate tarte was so bitter and grainy that I had to rely on the whipped cream to get it down (I usually won't eat whipped cream unless it's my own).

Things only got worse after dessert. The restaurant grew louder and our server forgot about us. For an HOUR. We ended our unromantic evening by tipping the valet five bucks to move the car up a whole seven feet and drove home to the pup--who was itching like crazy. We gave her a bath and dried her, and spent half the night with her scratching herself nonstop and the other half listening to her cry because her crate was too small for her to scratch herself.

We woke up tired this morning. He took the garbage out and I got ready for work. We wondered about love and love making, and proposals on Valentine's Day. I wondered where my passion went. And on the way to work, I remembered that it never really left, that it was just hibernating.