An Early Valentine's Day...

Last night Ryan and I celebrated Valentine's Day early! I hate fighting with the crowds on the actual holiday, and I can only imagine that on a Saturday it'll be even worse than usual. Eek! So we decided to do it this week! For our 3rd wedding anniversary in October, my parents gave us a very generous gift certificate to the Brown Palace Hotel & Spa which we decided would be best spent at their very swanky restaurant, The Palace Arms. My parents had taken us there in celebration of our 30th birthdays back in August and we loved it.

So I picked Ryno up at work at around 6:45 and we scooted downtown to the BPH and what an amazing experience! The valet met us at the door and took our car, then the maitre'D greeted us "Mr. & Mrs. Williams, yes?" and took our coats and seated us in a booth where we could both sit on the same side of the table and look out to people-watch... fabulous ;) Then they do kind of a team-waiting thing, so we had about 4 or 5 servers... so first they got us water and then brought us the wine list, and then the wine guy came by to help us select between 2 pinot noirs... we went with one from the Willamette Valley in Oregon and it was fantastic. Then the bread-lady came by and offered us from an assortment of rolls and crackers on a large tray... yum. And then they brought us their menu and explained all the foods to us... mmm... we made our selections... we both got the 5 Course Taste Sampler where we each got to choose an appetizer, soup, salad, entree, and dessert.

Ryan chose the Beef Wellington appetizer, which was very different from what you're thinking. it only sat on a small piece of puff-pastry, and there was fois gras and pate ... divine. I got the crabcake appetizer which was a small crabcake setting in the center of a delicious citrus cream sauce that had a little kick to it... just amazing. Then the soup du jour was a cauliflower soup, we were both skeptical, but it was phenomenol. It was followed by an arugula salad, and then we both got the same entree, the famous Bison Filet that sets upon some kind of a little cake/bread of some kind, with a smear of fois gras and then there is the most amazing sauce drizzled overtop. Good GRIEF, people. I have no words to describe how delicious this is. No words. I mean, it's fan-freaking-tastic. Orgasmic. There, I said it. Then for dessert they came and made Bananas Foster table-side. OMG. What a menu.

I loved how all of the courses were "tastes" so they were much smaller than a full portion and thus though we were very satisfied at the end of the night and couldn't eat anything else, we took our salty chocolates with us to-go, we were by no means stuffed and uncomfortable or sick or anything. It was just perfect.

And quite a treat, not something you do everyday, or every month, we discussed and we'd like to treat ourselves once a year. Perhaps we'll get another gift certificate next year that we can use :)

Thank you Mama & Papa Dward! What a WONDERFUL Valentine's Day!