I had a great time at dinner. Mercer Kitchen was delicious. As mentioned in the comments, this dinner was sponsored by Intuit’s TurboTax. (Not particularly a product I enjoy, but I do love my Quicken, which is an Intuit product.) I had the butternut squash soup for appetizer and the seared scallop with pea green ravioli entree. I shouldn’t have ordered dessert, but my eyes were bigger than my stomach so I got the Valrhona chocolate cake with toffee crunch ice cream. The only bad part of dinner was being too full to devour the whole cake, and the vinaigrette on the ravioli was so acidic it hurt my lips! After a little chapstick, I was A-ok though.
Service was funny. I had a waiter pour some water and I could see his tattoo on his inner arm. I found it distracting while I was dining, but I have friends who wear full sleeves. I guess it was unexpected with the clean look all the other servers had. Plus it drove me nuts that I could quite make out what it said!
I suspect that in the spirit of frugality, we were shown an abbreviated, but still delicious menu. I passed over the figs with prosciutto and the shrimp over salad appetizers for the soup and I was not sorry. The other entrees offered were chicken and a cut of fish, which ultimately did not feed my eyes the way the scallops did. (The greens were verdantly bursting through the ravioli dough.) Oh this will be a memorable meal for quite a while.
I even enjoyed the beverages of a gingery fresh soda for happy hour, a vodka lemonade with dinner and an Elderflower Cosmo for nightcap.
Now that the food stuff is out of the way…
In attendance were:
-Dan from Everyday Finance – An interesting investment blog. (I’ve bookmarked but I think it’s over my head for investing.)
- Shawanda from You Have More Than You Think
- Pinyo from Moolanomy – Who is moving to DC soon! Yay!
- Kelly from The Centsible Life – Looking very elegant. (Loved the neckline on her dress, but never got to tell her that.)
- Jon from Betterment – Whom I never got to meet.
- My Journey To Millions – Who sat on the other side of someone so I barely got to speak with him either, but a clear family man.
- Vilkri-He and Vilkri-She from Money Obedience – A new blog I’m excited to read. A wonderful pair.
- Mary Pilon from the Wall Street Journal (She writes a lot for The Wallet and other features.)
- Chelsea Marti and Ashley Kirkendall from Intuit TurboTax – Chelsea was a peach with some good advice for me about Quicken.
- Emily Johnston and S from the PR firm
And our wonderful host, Flexo!
I talked myself hoarse on Saturday night and I’ve been drinking tea all morning today. If there’s another dinner like this, I encourage everyone to go and make a new connection! There was a lot of sharing going on about spam-catching, shopping for boots, software tips, etc.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It was good to see you! I’m glad you had a great time.
It was nice to meet you. I can safetly say I have never been called a Family Man – kind of nice!
That cake was bad ass! Oh, and the Waiter’s ink said “Pride” I noticed that too and thought woah if I was his employer I might have asked him to cover up the 12 inch block letters
I really enjoyed meeting you, and everyone, and the food was amazing. My frugal heart was glad I didn’t have to pay for it too.
Thanks for the compliment! I wore it when I was on the Today Show, too. Had to get dressed up, because when else do I get the chance?
My throat was sore too, but some cough drops did the trick.
Hope to see you live again soon.
Can you share any of the tips on shopping for boots? I’ve been looking for the last few years but still haven’t found the right fit.