Part One:
One of my coworkers is getting married next weekend, up at Tahoe. Unfortunately, most of the rest of us in the office aren’t able to go (even though he very nicely invited all of us). But we all like our coworker, and we all really like his intended bride, and well, let’s be honest, we also all really like any excuse to go out for a nice meal. So to make up for being unable to attend the ceremony itself, we decided to go out for a nice dinner instead.

We picked Mason’s, since our little group hasn’t been there yet, and we went on Thursday night. There was quite a flurry of emails zipping back and forth between my coworkers and I, coordinating for the dinner and for a very nice gift basket full of chocolates and wine and so forth, so by the time Thursday came around, we were all set.

It’s an interesting sort of place – very modern, minimal decor. We started dinner with a cheese platter full of an assortment of cheeses ranging from very hard to very soft. Although they provided a descriptive list in the menu, by the time the platter came out, none of us had any idea which cheese was which, so it was sort of a gamble each time we poked tentatively at a crumbly hunk with a knife. They were all (well, most of them) pretty good though, which is good because we’re all big cheese fans in my office, apparently.

Dinner itself was pretty good – portion size was not overwhelming – although I think maybe I should have selected something other than the scallops. And then we followed that with dessert, which included slivers of dense chocolate cake and mint gelato, or peach tarts, or brownies oozing with chocolate and cream.

Everything was delicious, and it was fun to get everyone together for dinner, to tease the soon-to-be-wed couple, to catch up with various coworker spouses, and to just hang out and have fun.

Part Two:
Technically, the trip to Safari West was our official anniversary celebration this year. But Monday rolled around and we started thinking maybe we ought to go out to dinner anyway (see above re. ‘any excuse for a nice meal’), and then I remembered that there is this place in Sacramento called The Kitchen that’s been on the list of ‘someday we have to go there’. So I called them up and amazingly they had space on Friday. I say ‘amazingly’ only because they have exactly one seating per night, and they only seat 50 people at a time, so somehow we got lucky.

Anyway. Friday night rolled around and luckily we thought to look up directions because it’s not exactly easy to find. Because it’s a reservation-only sort of place, there is no sign out front, and the restaurant itself is kind of tucked in the back of a tiny little strip mall. But we found it eventually, and they ushered us inside and led us to our table, got us something to drink, and told us that we were welcome to wander around anywhere in the place – including in the kitchen – to ask any question we wanted, to talk to any staff member. In short, the feeling of the place is as if we were invited to a private dinner in someone’s home.

Dinner itself took close to four hours, total. The head chef came out and introduced everyone, and then walked us through the six courses we would be having over the course of the meal. All the food is made with fresh, organic, locally grown produce, humanly raised meats, and a few additional amazing ingredients. They stressed throughout the evening that if, at any time, we wanted more of anything all we had to do was ask, and Richard and I both admitted that with nearly every course, we would have been glad to get a second helping, except for the fact that we knew even more was coming and we wanted to try to at least save room to taste everything.

It was an amazing dinner experience. Every single dish was incredibly delicious. There was a break in the middle with sushi and sashimi served outside on the little enclosed patio, and before dessert they rolled out a huge cart full of fresh herbs and you could have them brew you an individual pot of tea with whatever combination you wanted (I got a mix of mint and lemongrass and rosemary that was incredible). All the portions were fairly small, but there were just so many of them that by the time dessert was being served, we weren’t the only ones sitting at our tables groaning. Still, I didn’t see a single plate that wasn’t scraped clean, because when the food is that good, somehow you can always find just a little bit more room to eat just one more bite.