Thursday=Almost Friday

Thursday was delightful.  Work went as well as it possibly could (despite a 6 AM conf call).  I got a pedicure.  I ate at a great little pizza place and went to the botanical garden.  This is what most men would probably call a 'chick' evening.  I am comfortable with that.

Starting with the pedicure, my friend Amber and I went to a little place, called Beautiful Nails on Big Bend.  They do a fine job.  Not the best pedicure you will ever get, but a mani/pedi is about $30-not bad.  My feet look beautiful.  I then convinced Amber to give Katie's Pizzeria www.katiespizzeria.com on Clayton road another shot.  She had a bad pizza experience there consisting of too much salt and goat cheese.  I love Katie's.  It is kind of a shabby sheek place with a bunch of mismatched tables and chairs, a bar made out of wood floors and super modern light fixtures.  We sat down in the back of the restaurant and proceeded to peruse the menu.

After about two seconds the waitress came over to take our drink order.  She also explained that you can get ANY pizza as a 1/2 and any salad without seafood as a half too.  What does this mean?  Amber and I could order one pizza and she could get whatever pizza combo she wanted on her half and I could get whatever I wanted on my half.  This is absolutely delightful as Katie's isn't one of those places that you go in and order pepperoni and mushrooms on your pizza.  They have amazing things like pancetta and apple or squash blossom and goat cheese.  We looked over the salads and they have delightful options, such as a fried artichoke salad.  The one that made us both drool was the Watermelon with Shaved Ricotta, pine nuts and balsamic dressing.  We ended up ordering the Watermelon salad to share and a pizza that was half Apple and Pancetta (for Amber) and half Burrata (yes I am obsessed), arugula and cherry tomatoes.

Watermelon Salad-Katie's Pizzeria

We got our salad very quickly and proceeded to devour it.  It probably sounded like a porn movie over by our table with all of the moans from how good it was. I should note that although this photo looks dark and slightly blurry a lot of effort went into this shot.  I have the wood-burning Iphone (3Gs) with no flash and 4mps so Amber held her fancy Iphone above the salad with the flashlight app to illuminate the salad, while I took the picture.  Note, the picture below was taken with her phone and sent to me.

We then received our pizza, which we both found equally delightful.  I have had the pancetta pizza before and it is amazing-that perfect sweet/salty thing.  My side was fresh and salad like and the sauce was slightly spicing, offering an amazing contrast to the smooth burrata.

Lantern Festival-MBG

We had a bit of a time constraint as we were heading to the botanical garden for their lantern festival and had to meet people by 7, so we rushed out of Katie's immediately following dinner.  We made it to the botanical garden quickly and parked in our secret spot so as to avoid traffic jams (it is a mob scene in the evening for the lantern festival).  After meeting Amber's friends we went out into the garden to enjoy the lanterns.  As I stated, it was busy and VERY crowded-think Six Flags crowded.  It was still very enjoyable.  The lanterns are beautiful at night. I think just having the pleasure of walking around the garden in the evening and enjoying the ambiance is well worth the $15 price tag.  Overall a delightful evening.  Not to mention it is almost FRIDAY!!