For Valentine’s Day, Drew and I went to The Melting Pot in Somerville, this unbelievably awesome restaurant. We got engaged at one down in Orlando, so I thought it would be nice to spend our last “single” V-day there. Evening started great, since we left work early. Even with 2 weeks notice, the best reservation I could get was for 4:45, unless we wanted to wait until 9:30. This turned out to be a good thing, since we were nearly the only people in the place and got to leave work nice and early. We ended up arriving at the place at like 4, so we settled into the bar to wait. The bartender was great, very nice and made a mean rum and coke. By the time we got to our table, I was feeling the alcohol and ready to dig into some tasty food.
They had a fixed menu for the holiday, starting off with a jumbo shrimp cocktail. Then it was time to dig into the fondue. Appetizer was a spinach/artichoke/swiss cheese dip, with tons of bread, apples, and veggies to dip. For those who haven’t been here, the food is all prepared right at your table in the fondue pot, so we got to watch her stir in all the fresh grated cheese and see it all melt into amazing fondue goodness. I was skeptical at first, since I’m not usually a fan of any of the ingredients, but it was fantastic. We didn’t quite manage to finish all of the dippings, but we came close. Next was a tasty salad with some kind of raspberry vinagrette (sp?) dressing and crumbled cheese on top.
Already stuffed, we settled down to the main course. We chose a Mojo broth for our food, which was this Caribbean thing with loads of garlic. While that bubbled in the pot between us, we got the awesomest plate of raw meat. Yay! Little skewer-sized pieces of lobster, scallops, ravioli, filet mignon, salmon and duck, along with a plate of vegetables with mushrooms, broccoli, squash, and potatoes. With the simple instructions that everything needs to be in the broth 1.5 minutes (except 2 minutes for the duck and filet mignon), we set to work skewering and cooking. They also brought us about 6 dipping sauces for after the pieces were cooked. My favorite was this gorgonzola cheese dip, which was amazingly delicious on the ravioli. Teriyaki dipped salmon was a close second, though.
We actually finished every single piece of food, and as we sat there stuffed to the gills, it was time to choose dessert. This was by far the toughest decision of the night, as choosing your favorite chocolate fondue is like choosing your favorite child. We ended up with a cookies and cream fondue, which had milk chocolate swirled with marshmallow and cookies. We then were given an awesome plate of things to dip: pound cake, strawberries, pineapple, banana, marshmallows, and cheesecake. The best was the oreo-crusted marshmallows, which were unbelievable in the hot chocolate goop, and about as close to heaven on earth as I’ve ever been. The waitress even brought us extras when we said how much we liked them. Again, we managed to finish everything. We even got a little split bottle of Rosa Regale, this beautiful strawberry sparkling champagne.
The Melting Pot is a fantastic restaurant, and I would highly recommend it to anyone. Only caveat is the price, which is pretty steep. The holiday meal was $125 per couple (included the shrimp cocktail, salad, cheese dip, main dish, dessert, and champagne). The normal price for two is quite a bit less, although you’d have to check with the particular restaurant. Check ‘em out! It’s absolutely worth the price!
OK, time for the weekend update:
DDR: played about an hour (1/2 on light game mode, 1/2 on lesson mode)…light mode is a lot harder than beginner in workout mode. For those who are unfamiliar with DDR, the workout mode has 3 difficulty levels; beginner, workout, and standard. Game mode also has 3 levels: light, standard, and heavy. I naturally assumed that beginner mode with correspond with light mode, and so on up the ranks. However that’s not true. Who knows why, but the exercise mode is dumbed down a bit from the game. Looks like I have a lot of practice to go before moving up to standard!
The lesson mode is kinda cool. You have 3 lessons and 8 sections w/in each lesson. An example is shown on the left side of the screen, and the right side has a person doing the moves. Then you go through it twice, and if you do well enough you’ll be prompted to move to the next section. Section 8 of each lesson is like a cumulative test, when you go through the whole song (pieces of which you’ve done in previous sections) without the guide person. While a little boring in the beginning, it is really helpful to see how they suggest placing your feet for certain standard moves. I found some combinations of arrows are really simple once you see the dance pattern behind them. For anyone new, I suggest checking it out!
Non-DDR: Well the upside of shoveling a foot of snow on a huge driveway was the workout. We were out shoveling for about 2 hours yesterday, and I don’t think my heart rate was below 120 bpm the whole time. And check it out, on this calorie counting site, it says for my weight, shoveling snow for 2 hours equates to a whopping 762 calories burned. Holy Toledo! And for Drew, it says 1,442 calories for that same 2 hours! Now I don’t feel so bad about eating Olive Garden for dinner :) We probably still came out ahead!
The downside of course is that we’re sore as hell and it hurts to move. Rar!
Yes! DDR finally arrived at the house yesterday and we tried it out last night. Woohoo! It definitely gives a good workout on the tougher songs, and it’s much more fun than running on a treadmill (although granted not as heart racing either, but I’ve heard once you get to heavy songs it’s nuts). So from now on, DDR time will be included with other workout stats.
2/9/06
~30 minutes on light (mixed workout mode beginner and game mode)
2/10/06
20 minutes beginner level workout mode
5 minutes workout level workout mode
If you’ve been reading Muy Caliente, you know that Drew and I have been working on getting in shape. I was thinking of keeping a journal of progress, but then I thought, why not just put it in my blog? Words of encouragement or suggestions are great, but no saying how weak I am! Hopefully soon I will be less weak. So here’s the tally for yesterday 2/8/06
Cardio: treadmill for 15 minutes:
2 minute warmup at 3.0
5 minute jog at 5.0
1.5 minute rest at 3.0
2 minute jog at 5.0
1.5 minute rest at 3.0
1.5 minute run at 6.0
1.5 minute cooldown at 3.0.
stairmaster for 3 minutes: my god those things are tough!
Strength: Lower body and abs (15 reps each except abs)
Quads: Universal Leg Extensions (20 lbs)
Hams: Universal Leg Curls (20 lbs)
Calves: Calf raises
Thighs: outer and inner leg lifts
Abs: 30 crunches (10 middle and 10 each side)
I went to create buttons for the new zamoose blogs, Expect the Extraordinary and Journal of Brewing, but I hit a snag. Their names are too long to fit in the buttons I was using :( That means I’ll have to actually sit and make original buttons myself. Sorry, your buttons will happen eventually!
Yay, I’m much less sick than yesterday :) As it turned out, I think our old mercury thermometer is broken, since it never goes back down after shaking it. So we bought a new crazy digital thermometer and it sucked b/c the results would range a whole degree each time we tested. And since humans have like a 6 degree livable body temperature range (that’s not a fact, just an estimate), that’s not a lot of help. So we used Drew’s parents good old reliable mercury thermometer and found out that my temperature definitely was a bit on the fever side, 100.7 degrees. Blah, no wonder I was miserable! But on the up side, I then took some tylenol and viola! no more fever this morning: a perfect 98.6 on the thermometer. So just a little sore throat which is fading, and I think I’ll be completely better tomorrow. Weee! ::kyonpy kyonpy::
In other news, we found out that Drew is cold-blooded, with a consistent temperature of about 97.5 degrees. Brrr!
Blah I know I deserve this but it still sucks. I called out sick to work Friday when I probably could have made it in but I was just a little under the weather. So of course, Sunday night I actually start to feel really sick and now I’m stuck at work while my throat hurts, my neck aches, and I’m light-headed. Oh and I think I have a fever but I’m not sure since Drew and I couldn’t figure out how to get the thermometer to work right. Grrrr I know this is punishment for my laziness.
And time is going by sooooo slowly today. I swear it’s been between 3:30 and 3:40 for at least an hour; am I stuck in some kind of wormhole? I hope not…it’s only Monday!!
Oh boy, I didn’t know blog chain mail existed! And I just have to say that Brad, thanks for linking me! :) I am a happy bunny.
Four Jobs I’ve Had
- Pizza girl (Villa Pizza)
- Cashier/Customer Service Rep (Best Buy)
- Human Resources assistant (Princeton Healthcare System)
- Merchandising intern (Walt Disney World)
Four Films I Can Watch Over and Over
- Labyrinth
- Coyote Ugly
- Monty Python/Holy Grail
- Beauty and the Beast
Four Places I’ve Lived
- Parsippany, NJ
- Ewing, NJ
- Columbus, NJ
- Princeton, NJ
Four Current TV Shows I Enjoy
- American Idol
- Simpsons
- Family Guy
- Globe Trekker
Four Foods I Like
- Baked Ziti
- Tiramisu
- Penne in Tomato Cream
- Aljon’s Pizza
Four Places I’ve Vacationed
- Hermosa Beach, CA
- British Isles (England, Scotland, Wales)
- Bermuda
- Alaska
Four Websites I Visit Daily
- Yahoo Odd News
- All my email accounts (2 yahoos, 1 aol, 1 college, 1 work)
- Zamoose.org blogs
- Yahoo Comics
Four Things I’d Like to Do Before I Die
- Marry Drew and have kids
- Win the lottery (and before I’m old, too)
- Drive cross country and hit every state in the US
- Build a kick-ass custom home
Four Things I Miss From College
- Staying awake and walking to 7-11 at odd hours of the night
- Not having bills to pay or 40 hours of work a week
- Having friends down the hall
- TW candy runs
Four Video Games I Love
- HoMM3 WoG
- Civilization 1
- Katamari Damacy
- MarioKart (all versions)
Four People I am Tagging
- Muy Caliente!
- Something Wicked
- Spicy Metaball
- uhhhhh i already cheated a little and the other blogs i know have been tagged already
Hey fellow zamoose-ers! I made a bunch of buttons for my links for you guys from this cute site by Adam Kalsey. Tell me if you like yours or you want different colors or you hate it completely and want it gone. Thanks!
Uh oh — something….frightening has happened at work. I, the new IT member, have been put in charge of the helpdesk phone. I am officially the lone twig stemming the tide, the only defense the department has to being completely inundated with pointless calls.
I’m so excited :)
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