5 years gone by... My wife and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary this past weekend. The traditional gifts for this event are wooden items, and I spent quite some time looking for just the right thing to express how wonderful the past years have been. I gave up after two days.
In place of a gift, I decided that we would go out for a night on the town instead. We started the evening by driving to my wife's parent's house and dropping off my daughter (after all - it's not her anniversary). We then proceeded into "the city" to begin the night's festivities. After a wonderful 50 minute drive for our 8 mile trek, we arrived at a parking garage near the restaurant we would be dining at. What a wonderful place "the city" is, where it only costs $45 to park for 3 hours.
For our honeymoon, we had stayed at the Four Seasons in Bali , which I highly recommend as a destination for any couple! Our first wedding anniversary was celebrated at Aujourd 'hui, to continue the Four Seasons theme. So for our 5th anninversary, we decide to continue the Four Seasons them and celebrated by going to Fifty Seven Fifty Seven.
Our dinner reservations were for 6pm and we had arrived by 5:30pm, so we waited at the bar as the tables were being dressed. My wife ordered a mixed drink and I had a glass of the house Merlot - a bargain at $31. As we absorbed the ambience, I realized that either my eye sight was going or the room was really dark. I am glad to say that my eye sight is still quite good, and if have enough to drink, you don't really need to see that much.
We were seated at 6:15 and informed the waiter that we need to be completed with the meal by 7:15, as we had plans to go an 8pm theater show. The meal started off with two spoons of caviar which was neither good nor bad, it just was. The appetizers were a bit bland - my wife had a mixed greens salad and I chose the risotto mixed with shredded duck. The funny thing is that the descriptions really drum up exotic imagery which make you think you'll be getting something that you'll never forget. At least the main meal did stand out for me, as I had one of the finest steaks I've ever had in my life. Unfortunately my wife's meal continued the ho-hum experience for her, having ordered a rigatoni dish with pine nuts that was a little too al dente. Well, by 7:05 we placed our dessert orders hoping to a) redeem the rest of the meal and b) reestablish the need to finish the meal in the next 10 minutes. By the way, did I mention that we were one of three patrons of the establishment? It's 7:15 and I ask the waiter to bring the bill and check on dessert. 7:25 rolls around and our desserts finally show up - now given that we were already 10 minutes lates, the desserts would have to be something extraordinary in order to justify the amount of time it had taken. Well, my "finger ladies" like cake and my wife's ice cream didn't quite reach those extraordinary levels. The waiter apologized several times, at which point, he was just delaying us more.
We left the restaurant disappointed and in a rush to get a cab to the theater. My wife knew where the theater was, so when we got a cab, she provided him with directions. We arrived at 43rd and Broadway, and begin looking for the theater. It turns out that the theater is on 53rd and Broadway, according to a friendly NYPD officer, so I am on a 10 block mad dash. My wife says she'll catch up with me at the theater as she can only walk briskly in her high heels. As I weaved in and out of crowds that apparantly had no place to go, I could hear my father warning me as a child to "wait at least 30 minutes after eating before doing anything strenous". I reached the theater at 7:50 and picked up our tickets, and it looks like we have time to spare. My wife shows up a couple of minutes later, which makes me realize that I'm not as fast as I used to be.
The show we have decided to see is Bombay Dreams. It is essentially an English version of a Bollywood movie with a hero, heroine and villain. There were several popular Hindi songs that were made into a mix of English and Hindi lyrics, which I was greatly impressed by. As a person who normally doesn't like Bollywood movies, I can say that the dancing and singing was wonderful. I can also say that the plot was true to that of Bollywood movies, which means that it was cookie-cutter lame. The first half of the show was much better than the second half, mostly because the end of the story seemed to be cobbled together to meet a deadline. All in all, it's worth seeing if you've ever wondered what a Bollywood movie is like, and just didn't want to watch a movie where you'd spend most of your time reading subtitles.
The show ended around 10:30 after which we walked back to where the car was parked. As we were walking, we passed the Fifty Seven Fifty Seven lounge and decided to go in a get a drink before going home. I think we were looking for some redeeming quality that would want to make us come back again. We were seated after a few minutes, as there is a waiting list to be seated in the bar area. My wife and I both order a mixed drink, and start to gaze at the appetizer menu - we're both still hungry. After our drinks were delivered, we placed an order for some popcorn shrimp. The waiter comes by with a tray of mixed nuts and olives to snack on while we waited for appetizer to arrive. Well folks, the mixed nuts were really good. So good in fact, that we had little room for the popcorn shrimp by the time it had arrived. My wife and I had a few pieces of the shrimp, and we really liked it. There it was, the redeeming quality.
We left the lounge around midnight and headed back to my wife's parent's home, ending our night on the town.
9:18:52 AM 
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