Third is the Fairy Princess

Yesterday was our third anniversary.

We celebrated by going out to a very nice and very expensive restaurant called The River Cafe, located just south of the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side of the East River. We new that it would be wonderful and expensive, that the view would be to-die-for, but neglected to check how expensive. Between booking the reservation over a month in advance, making sure Theo was wearing a jacket (required) and sitting down to look at the menu, we didn't realize until that moment that the entire menu was prix fixe. Wow. It was a bit of a shock but we both played it off beautifully and were able to wait until the waiter left before we realized the price. We weren't going to walk out because we had been thinking about it for way too long, plus it included the appetizer and desert each so we were pretty set and decided to order a bottle of Chilean Syrah instead. It was a good decision.

Theo wanted to take pictures of my 4 marvelous oysters in the half shell doused in a light hollandaise sauce, sprinkled with pancetta, and topped with wild sturgeon caviar, all presented in a deep boat-like trough filled to the brim with black peppercorns. (They were marvelous by the way.)

At this point I could tell you play by play what we ate, how we ate it, etc. etc., but I'll spare you the absurdity of it all and skip to a moment at the end of our dining experience reflecting on a simple delight which signified to us the grandeur and planning that the establishment was undoubtedly involved in: After clearing our dinner plates two waiters came in unison, one for each of our place settings, and with swift and sure movement swept all the little crumbs from the table. (Did I mention that all the bussers were wearing those very jaunty short white jackets?) The precise timing that they had and the quickness to which they applied themselves and then vanished was astounding and almost laughable; it could have been choreographed. A while later they brought out our deserts. On each of our plates they had cleanly affixed a single lighted candle standing strait up illuminating a hand made chocolate plaque resting on the desert reading Happy Anniversary ... we blew them out in unison. After the waiters had left of course.

We talked about it, it was marvelous, and we will probably never do it again.