Velvety Double Date

********THIS RESTAURANT IS NOW CLOSED.********

Saturday night brought fancy food, lots of laughter, fashion photos, and an ambulance. Luckily, the ambulance was not for us or our dear dinner companions, but it did make for an interesting end to the night.

Do you have many couple friends? The Monkeys do not. Neither of the Monkeys seems to have much in common with the significant others of our respective friends, and outings with other couples just seem forced.

On Saturday, though, we had a great time at Blue Velvet with Diabolina and Mr. Diabolina, whom I shall hereby dub "Jack Sprat." Here are Diabolina and Jack Sprat at my birthday party last year.

Jack Sprat is my former co-worker from my first firm. He is everything I am not at work -- rather serious and pensive and very savvy about interpersonal relationships with powerful people, which is precisely why he continues to thrive at the firm and will likely be a shoo-in for partnership in a few years. When the office persona is shed, however, Jack Sprat is quite the delight. Another former co-worker and I called this side of Jack Sprat "Fun [Jack Sprat's real name]," unbeknownst to Jack Sprat. We like Fun [Jack Sprat's real name].

As some of you may know, Diabolina is my blogging buddy and favorite fashionista. I find her posts fresh, fun, witty, and inspiring. When I shop these days, I sometimes ask myself, "What would Diabolina do?" Hee!

The four of us got along swimmingly while dining on teeny-tiny food.

After positive reports from friends, I must admit that I found Blue Velvet a tad disappointing.

This is not to say that our food wasn't good. It simply wasn't mind-blowing. Something was just lacking in almost every dish. I feel like everything needed a little kick in the pants to make it go from good to excellent. Nevertheless, we had a lovely experience, and we all agreed this would be a great place to take summer associates for happy hour. The poolside area is quite hopping.

My point-and-shoot was being a total butthead, so Diabolina came to my rescue and took pics and e-mailed them to me! Love her!

Amuse bouche. Crabby. Mayonnaise-y.

Appetizers of frog legs (!), crispy kurobuta pork, endive with cheese and nuts. Kermit really does taste like chicken. Teeny-tiny little chicken. Pork was indeed crispy. Yummy. Salad was the least impressive.

Entrees of scallops, lamb, Japanese sawara (a kind of mackerel), and striped bass. We were unable to sample the lamb because Jack Sprat was on a mission to prove us wrong about his non-eating ways. Among the seafood dishes, I liked the bass the most. It was mild and tender. The scallops were my second-favorite. Too bad the Japanese sawara was my dish!

Best part of the meal -- dessert! Berry shortcake, baked Alaska, berries and cream in a light pastry shell, and chocolate and peanut butter cake with caramelized bananas and ice cream.

We talked and talked for nearly four hours. Whee! All was well until an old woman missed some stairs and totally fell right on her head on the hard floor. SMACK. Within a few minutes, we heard sirens, and the paramedics were outside.

Feeling sort of uncomfortable in the restaurant with all the commotion, we exited and headed to the well-lit lobby of the adjacent apartment complex, The Flat, to take some photos to memorialize the night.

First post-dinner photo? Jack Sprat's bacon band-aid.

The boys. Cozy. On a swing. Hilarious.

The girls rock their prints.

Shoes.

Bags.

Diabolina made the very apt observation about a common problem with couple friends. Often, you like one member of the couple so much more than the other. So true! Lucky for us, all four of us like each other without such a variance. Yay!

That's all folks!