Date Out

Last Saturday night we decided to have a special date night. We were going to celebrate the anniversary of our “coming out”. I came out Labor Day weekend three years ago. E came out two weeks later just before Yom Kippur. We walked downtown to find a nice restaurant to have dinner. We tried to go to a new Italian restaurant but it was booked and had at least an hour wait. We then decided to see if we could get in to Café Fino. We had eaten there a couple times but not for many months. At 7:00 pm there were a several people at the bar but we were the only ones there for dinner. Nevertheless, they were scheduled to have a jazz trio start at 7:30. We figured it would probably fill up soon. The place is like a small, dapper supper club from the 30’s or 40’s.

We started with cocktails. E had a dry vodka martini and I ordered a Cosmopolitan. For Starters E ordered a Caesar Salad and I had the Caprese. We ordered a nice bottle of Chianti to go with our pasta meal. E ordered Putanesca (anchovies, Calamata olives, capers in spicy tomato sauce) and I had the Pasta Limon (chicken and spinach with pecans and sage). It was delicious. For dessert we ordered coffee and Cherries Jubilee. It was prepared table side on a special cart with a burner on it. The maître d' prepared it in a grand, showy fashion. Flames everywhere! After that we sipped port. All the while we listened to the jazz trio. They mostly played Gershwin, Berlin, Porter and Rodgers and Hart tunes. The pianist had a beautiful Mel Torme type of voice. We stayed for all four band sets.

We were going to leave around 10 pm but a couple came in that E knew. They were on the town celebrating their 22 wedding anniversary. They insisted we share a bottle of champagne with them. By this point we were feeling no pain. E and I even got up and danced together with the half dozen straight couples on the floor. We pretty much closed the place up and then walked home.

We were signed up to run a charity 10K the next morning but we blew that off and spent the morning in bed.