Aviary

A few months ago my husband and I went to a friend's wedding and had a marvelous time.  One of the things we loved about this wedding was how gorgeous all the guests were-beautiful of dress and of face. While waiting for  the ceremony to begin we admired all the guests we could see but just before the first bridesmaid came onto the aisle a beautiful couple rushed in and sat in the same row as we were.  I turned to my husband and pointed out the elegant woman in a navy dress and we both silently oohed and ahed over her modern stylish dress and look.  

Once the ceremony was over and we were milling about the cocktail hour continuing to admire and chat with the other couple we knew and mingling I went off to get some noodle dish I wanted to taste and a woman came up behind me and started talking.  Imagine my delight when I realized it was the woman in the cool navy dress!  And to my continued delight she was complimenting me!!  What a lovely way to introduce yourself to someone!  She loved my dress and shoes (ah, my cage shoes!). I told her that I admired her dress too and we just got to talking... and her husband joining in...my husband came to find me-he couldn't figure out why I had left him alone for so long. The four of us hit it off beautifully. The flow of the wedding separated us but I made sure to find them before we left to say good bye and hoped it wasn't too presumptuous of me to offer my card and ask for hers...she was thrilled that I had done that and I was thrilled that she had come up to me in the first place.  

We now email on a pretty regular basis, we have a lot in common and are enjoying our burgeoning relationship very very much.  I've been to her elegant home for breakfast once and last week we met for dinner.

We went to one of the many new restaurants on my long list, Apiary.  I almost went with my glam friend once a few months before that but we ended up at Cheng instead where we had fun and the food was cool and interesting but was it the best ever-no.  

Apiary is hip, glamorous and welcoming, there is a tiny painted bee in a few spots but they don't overdo it with the obvious references.  The main decoration is the chandelier, they hang overhead of course but still not in a too obvious way, they are ringed in a shade of grey fabric with a cream chandelier stamped on one side.  Along the walls near the ceiling are Lucite carvings turned into sconces, very baroque that are clearly inspired by the silhouettes of the chandeliers.  They hold the silver rimmed light bulbs and cast fascinating baroque chandelier shadows on the cream painted walls.  The tables are well sized and well placed with firm but padded leather banquets on their wall sides and very square but generously proportioned brown leather chairs opposite.  It's a very pretty restaurant.

The food is modern Mediterraneanand very lovely.  We shared a morel risotto as a first course and it was just right.  I'm often afraid to order risotto in restaurants given the fashion these days for raw foods the rice often comes to the table with a crunchy uncooked bit which is quite horrid.  But this had a rich creaminess with no crunchy bits and an interesting tang at the end.  Then I had a tuna crudo-tuna covered in hearts of palm and other lightly pickled Mediterranean vegetables which were quite good against the tuna's blandness (which all raw tuna is). My friend had a cod crowned with lovely vegetables and on orange olive tapenade that looked as delicious as she said it was (and I might want to whip up an orange olive tapenade at home-that sounds really good). For dessert she chose the cheese platter that was also very pretty-with one cheese shaved into a mound of ruffles!!  I had a warm chocolate torte that was divine.  Very darkly chocolate.

We enjoyed our evening so much and have already made plans for the next one.