We had a great St. Patty’s day outing on Tuesday.  Probably the best that I can ever remember, simply because it wasn’t a St. Patty’s Day adventure, it was just a night out with friends.  We started at The Nook, which is the new restaurant taking the old Prince of Wales space on Piedmont right on the park.  The Nook isn’t open yet, but our good friend’s family had an invite to a special pre-opening happy hour event.  They don’t have their liquor license yet (or at least they didn’t on Tuesday) so they gave us a glass of wine each and put out plates of sample menu items, of which we tasted all.  The space has been redone beautifully, all wooden and cozy, so much nicer than the old PoW shaggyness.  The food was quite good, I will absolutely go there when they open.  Good cheeses, cured meats, hummus and wings.  Also some sort of meat on a bone that is supposed to resemble a caveman-like leg of meat.  I can’t eat meat on the bone but others said it was good.  Sadly we did not get a chance to try the totchos, which are nachos made with tater tots instead of chips, but I will totally be trying those next time we go!

After the Nook we went to Six Feet Under for more patio time and more appetizers.  SFU is almost always crowded, enough so that some members of our party (I won’t say who but his name begins with T and rhymes with “him”) state that it’s too crowded to be comfortable anymore.  I’m not quite there yet, but it is true that you always have to wait, and sometimes you can’t even find a seat at the bar while you’re waiting.  But I’m still reserving judgment for the time being.  We still enjoyed a mountain of fried appetizers and many more drinks before packing it in for the evening.

Last night, not wanting to stay in, we went to the Glenwood for dinner.  We didn’t get there until amost 9:00 because we’d had a late night at the gym, so the non-smoking side was pretty much deserted.  This is disappointing because it’s impossible to convince Dice to sit in there when there aren’t any other people in there.  He’d rather risk lung cancer and sit in the smoky side.  Next time, however, I’m putting my foot down.  Anyway, I had the black bean burger with tasted cumin and it was about as good as a black bean burger can get.  I also had the fries, which are f-ing delicious there.  We usually order the hush puppies as a starter but didn’t this time due to Challenge B.  We’ve now spent $90 of our $200 allotment which is just fine considering Friday night we’re staying in and Saturday night isn’t included in this week’s challenge because we have a previously scheduled fancy dinner that’s being grandfathered in.  Doing well so far!