Anniversary dinner

After returning back from US, its been some kind of a ritual for us to go together for a dinner at some place in the city. No kids, only us. Its something to keep the flame alive, as the saying goes. In that 6 years, we've been to ASL in Raintree, Hip Asia in Taj, Sea crest at MGM and much more. 

Last year we chose Benjarong as J loves Thai food. It was a rainy day and I was lost in the maze that is TTK road. After almost giving up on finding it, we found it suddenly. And had some amazing food.

So, when we tried to find a place for this anniversary's dinner, it was a bit frustrating as we've been to most of the good places. The discussion was long and many a calls were made to my lovely brother, who kept suggesting places and I was finding excuses to avoid. We almost finalized on 'Vasco's' at the new Hilton, when I asked J "Do you want to try Italian?", she replied "Why not?". We chose 'Bella Ciao'.

J does not like Italian food. Its bland, undercooked, no great flavors or aroma and looks unappealing. Nothing will make her step into an out and out Italian restaurant. Even if she does, its almost next to impossible to make her eat anything.

It all goes back to our first anniversary. We were in the La-La town and we decided to go to for a nice place for dinner. She left it to me to figure out a place and I chose 'Olive Garden'. J was all ready to try Italian (or rather Italian-American).

We ordered some pasta and I started digging in. After sometime, I saw that J was staring at her plate in some kind of disbelief. She could not figure why would people eat something, that is full of cheese, no eye-candy, bland, has no taste. I checked and told her to finish it. She found it hard to eat and after some difficulty managed to eat. When we returned to home, asked me to pull over in the highway and threw the entire dinner out. Not the anniversary one will forget!!

Flashback over, We decided to celebrate that disastrous first dinner with a visit to 'Bella Ciao', the restaurant that calls itself the first Italian restaurant in the city. Tucked into the Kottivakkam beachfront, the location is awesome. We chose the open-air part, there was candlelight and some fantastic food. 

It was drizzling, The flickering lights and distant lightnings made the night to something special. And this J loves pizza (although still hates pasta) and no untoward incident happened. By the time we finished, it started raining heavily. We parked the car in the lonely beach road and watched the rain pouring down furiously. Taking pictures of the lightning which was showing the crest of waves rushing, it was a night to remember. Although for very different reasons...