March’s Date Night brought us to Macku, one of my favorite restaurants in Chicago- formerly Kaze, which had the distinct honor of being the sushi joint down the block from our Roscoe Village apartment. (It moved and changed names. Then again, so did I.)
We always get some sort of super white tuna appetizer. We always order drinks- my choice has never strayed from the lychee mimosa, each sip prompting me to implore P.J. to pick up some lychees somewhere- and Peej either gets a Manhattan or a Japanese beer or just water is fine, thanks. We always get “our” soups- they have a dozen fabulous ones, I’m sure, but we always stick to the two we randomly chose during our first time there in 2006. (His is a ginormous urn of spicy sweet potato something-or-other, mine is a carrot and crab puree in the teensiest demitasse cup you’ve ever seen. It’s small because of its utter richness, but I dig using a miniature spoon and feeling like a giant.) We always get a handful of makimono- it doesn’t matter which ones, they’re all wicked good. And we always get the crazy-goodest dessert we’ve ever had; a sweet asparagus pudding swirled with chocolate and strawberry dipping sauces. (The first time we ordered it, we were surprised too.)
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| I love everything about you. (This is to my carrot soup and my husband.) |
The meal was terrific, although our conversation never strayed far from the odd argument we seemed to be having regarding the Nicolas Cage flick The Family Man. (Our fight got really heated, despite the fact that P.J. had only seen the movie once and I never saw the thing at all.)
We agreed to disagree and drove north to Lakeview. P.J. asked if he could surprise me with the second part of Date Night. I said sure, fairly certain that he wasn’t going to do anything crazy like propose, so I didn’t worry about how my hair looked. [Awesome.]
I knew exactly where we were, however, once we turned onto Addison. Since I was pretty sure he wasn’t heading into Wrigleyville, that left Guthrie’s Tavern. The home of fabulous hot winter drinks and walls and walls of board games. Creature of habit that I am, I ordered the Hot Apple Pie, a wicked combo of cider, cinnamon sticks and Tuaca liqueur. (Peej got some sort of spiked cocoa, surprising no one at all. For I am married to a consistent eight year-old.)
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| Everyone looks sassy sippin’ with straws. |
And we played Last Word, a board game for which we understood roughly a quarter of the rules. I still won. Because I don’t care if it’s a board game, a novella, or a smoke signal- if it’s called Last Word, the female’s gonna have it.
Which P.J. obviously knew (and knows). Making him the best date ever.
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