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The latest offering of the Davis Musical Theater Company (which we saw Mother’s Day weekend) was “Don Quixote”. It’s a play I’ve never seen before, and I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, since it’s been a few years since I read the book. Unlike most plays, all the action takes place in exactly one set, so for a change they’d actually created quite a nice one (lately their sets have been a little sparse and uninspiring). The play requires a number of good singers, and for the most part, they succeeded. The guy they had playing Don Quixote was marvelous, and the woman who played Aldonza/Dulcinea was marvelous. She usually ends up playing the ditzy blonds (and quite well, too), so it was nice to see her get a chance to play someone a little less blond and a lot more intense. ******** This past week Richard mentioned in passing the name of a restaurant in Davis that neither of us had been to in a very long time. I’m not sure why we never think to go there – maybe because it’s tucked away in the not-so-nice part of town next to an abandoned grocery store. But for whatever reason, we both immediately thought of it when we decided to go out for dinner Saturday night. So off we headed for some Greek food at a place called the Symposium.
As I said, it’s been years since either of us has been there, and in that time someone decided to paint the entire little run-down shopping center in a palette of extremely unfortunate shades of orange. The grocery store is still abandoned, but the little ethnic food store (where I used to occasionally go to get huge samosas when I lived in Davis) is still there, although some of the other stores have been replaced by a series of second hand shops. The restaurant is at the very end of the little strip, looking rather unrestauranty in its sheer orangeness, but once we opened the door and walked inside, everything looked just as it should again.
They were very nice and gave me a chair on which to prop up my stupid possibly-broken toe. We ordered an appetizer which was a wedge of some kind of vaguely parmesan-like cheese lightly breaded, spritzed with lemon, and then set on fire because when the waitress described it I knew I had to give it a try. It was divine (although how could anything involving lightly breaded flaming cheese *not* be?) – in fact everything was wonderful. We ate far too much and couldn’t finish our dinners, yet still ordered desserts (pear torte and Kailua cheesecake) which we couldn’t finish either, but had to at least try.
It was a lovely dinner (although with the richness of the food it’s not something we should do very often – alas), and it served as a little reminder to us that we have lately gotten into a bit of a food rut, only going out to the same small circle of places when we’re in the mood to go out to eat. Our usual selection is at least a varied circle of food styles (sushi, Indian, Mexican, Chinese, Italian, and lately Korean because a new place opened in town that’s pretty good), but there are other things to try and places to go. There’s a new little Afghanistani restaurant in Davis that we passed when walking around town recently, for example, yet we continually forget that it is there when having the rather predictable discussion of ‘what do you want to eat? I dunno, what do you want to eat?’
It’s good to expand our horizons every now and then, especially if the opportunities are right out there within driving distance. One never knows what one might find.
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