planned spontaneity

last night... randomly... i decided to take andrea out to dinner since we hadn't been out for awhile. my dad was nice enough on one hour's notice to watch stella, which i said was good practice for a future granddad (this is not a hint, i mean future).

for dinner i chose salem's greek restaurant the macedonia. i'd eaten there before but it had been some time. it's located in the reed opera house, which is one of my favorite downtown salem buildings.

not only was the food great and in my opinion fairly priced... but our waitress/hostess kept bringing us stuff "on the house." we wanted to try some greek wine but weren't sure about committing to a full bottle when we'd never had it before... so she brought out a sample. this may seem like a normal thing to do... but i've noticed not very many restaurants offer this up front... usually you have to ask. she also brought out some pita bread and tiziki sauce while we waited for our meals. and after we ate, andrea asked to sample the desert wine and the lady brought us each a glass for free (normally $6.50 a glass). in addition to the great service... the food was awesome and anyone who's been out to eat with me knows... if there's lamb on the menu, kevin's getting lamb.

one of the highlights was also the dolmas. what i like to call mediterranean spring rolls. very good even if they kind of look like a green poo.

i also love hummus. but we didn't have any at the restaurant... but i plan on making some tomorrow for the debate. if you like hummus and want to try making some... here's a quick and easy recipe. my advice though is make sure you have a food processor or that your blender can really destroy the garbanzo beans unless you like your hummus chunky.

all in all a great experience and i highly recommend it to anyone in the salem area.

when we moved to salem i was convinced there was nothing to do here... but with a little searching, andrea and i are discovering some cool attractions (i.e. the northern lights). the thing with salem is you have to do some research and testing to find the hole in the wall cool places unlike eugene and portland where every corner has something to offer. it makes going out almost more fun because of the unknown adventure that may unfold.