After I picked up Amanda from work and a stop at Group Health, we tried to go to Lark for our anniversary dinner, but it was closed. Amanda decried my lack of foresight in calling the place first. We then went to Osteria La Spiga at its new (to us) location.
The new location is much bigger, and has quite a different atmosphere than the original which was smaller and more homey. I think the new space is very nice, but for some reason it didn’t really match the food for me. The food overall was good. We had a selections of olives, a beet salad, and a fava bean, pea, lettuce, fried artichoke salad to start. The artichoke salad sounded and looked good in theory, but in practice was bland and uninteresting. I would have added salt if they had it at the table. We then got two small pasta dishes: an asparagus ravioli and pasta (I forget which kind) with white truffle butter sauce. The ravioli was good; the truffle sauce was awesome. We skipped the second meaty course (of course) and had dessert: a chocolate torte thing for Amanda and cookies and dessert wine for me.
Overall, the everything was fine. Unfortunately, I really really liked the old place and the new incarnation is fine, but I would not go out of my way to return to the new one.
On July Fourth Amanda slept in. I think she is still quite sleep deprived from the past few weeks, but she was unsure. Afterwards, we went downtown to check out the newly remodeled Seattle Aquarium. I did not really see a lot of examples of remodeling, except for the new entry and quite nice cafe area. Otherwise it was alright… not in the same league as the aquariums in Long Beach or Monterey or Vancouver really. We also had lunch in the Westlake Center as Amanda did not want to deal with wandering about the hordes of people in the Market.
Back at home, Amanda relaxed while I did some gardening.
We went over the Eve and Karl’s for dinner. James and Karl’s newly-arrived-in-Seattle friend Randy were also there. We had thai curry, asparagus, potato chips, potato salad (made by Amanda), rice, and noodles. It was good.
Later we walked to the Hamilton Viewpoint Park to watch the the fireworks over Elliot Bay. We could also see the fireworks display at Gasworks Park over Lake Union, and it looked more impressive than the one over the Bay. I guess Wamu sank more money into their sponsorship than did Ivar’s. I suppose that is not surprising since they are like a large financial institution.
On our walk back to Eve’s house, I kept thinking we would get nailed by one of the mortars and rockets people and kids were setting off in the streets and their yards and whatnot. I am surprised there aren’t more deaths than there already are.
Traffic was nuts on the way back home, but we eventually made it. Amanda passed out immediately even though people were still setting off all kinds of fireworks nearby. In our neighborhood they did not seem to be doing so in the streets, though, and choose more open areas, like the big field in front of our townhouse.