Oh, how you're pulling my heartstrings and oh, let's go downtown
For our fifth anniversary, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
spatch and I returned to Waypoint, the only restaurant from which I have ever wanted to steal a neon sign. It makes me think of a Roman dolphin and casts the whole room in phosphorescence. It has the best drowned atmosphere.
By now we have some traditions, like starting with bread that tastes of the sea and finishing with absinthe that looks like it, and the rest is improvisation. This time we followed the salt-sweet of sugar kelp and squid ink with delicate tentacles of wood-grilled octopus over a porridge of farina studded with black olives and scoops of bone marrow, otherwise known as the classiest preparation of Cream of Wheat either of us has ever encountered; then tiny, intensely sweet bay scallops under a glaze of pear juice reduced until it was as sticky, dark, and savory as the thin parchment slices in the tartine of the fruit itself. I was drinking the Professor, which is orgeat and absinthe with enough lemon and honey to make a case for medicinal application; Rob had the Absinthe Cobbler, which made an equally convincing case for quince as an ideal pairing with anise. Despite the ingredient repeat, we ordered the octopus polpetti because it was the most interesting-looking of the pasta we had not already tried—previous entries, squid ink gemelli and uni bucatini—and somehow we had forgotten that the pasta at Waypoint really is two-person eating even without small plates, but it was so ridiculously delicious that we put a significant dent in its long, soft scrolls of spaccatelli drenched in garum and lemon and green chili, tossed with dry curls of ricotta salata and heat-wilting leaves of fresh mint, and crowned with the polpetti themselves, which Rob described as "hush puppies—with octopus!" In honor ofselkie's queer Regencies, as soon as I saw the cocktail made with Batavia arrack, I ordered it even though it was (there was ouzo in it, still not an excuse) called Ouz Line Is It Anyway? Rob had moved on to something called Dans on Chairs, which having been made with coffee liqueur was off-limits to me. We shared the sweet corn spooncake and its various garnishes of chocolate cream, torched meringue, and sugared rice crisp for dessert. We ate well and oceanically.
Having been reminded byshewhomust that five years is the wood anniversary, we visited the load-bearing piano which witnessed our marriage; we are saving the harborwalk for a night that is not so bitterly cold. The cats made piteous complaint that we had not taken them out for oceanic dinner. I gave my husband a reprint of Clayton Rawson's Death from a Top Hat (1938) for the first night of Hanukkah; tonight he gave me the copy of Raymond Durgnat's A Long Hard Look at 'Psycho' (2002) that I had sadly left in Raven Used Books last Thursday. Our candles so far are lit for love, peace, wisdom, and health.
A good way of being in the world. A good anniversary.
spatch and I returned to Waypoint, the only restaurant from which I have ever wanted to steal a neon sign. It makes me think of a Roman dolphin and casts the whole room in phosphorescence. It has the best drowned atmosphere.By now we have some traditions, like starting with bread that tastes of the sea and finishing with absinthe that looks like it, and the rest is improvisation. This time we followed the salt-sweet of sugar kelp and squid ink with delicate tentacles of wood-grilled octopus over a porridge of farina studded with black olives and scoops of bone marrow, otherwise known as the classiest preparation of Cream of Wheat either of us has ever encountered; then tiny, intensely sweet bay scallops under a glaze of pear juice reduced until it was as sticky, dark, and savory as the thin parchment slices in the tartine of the fruit itself. I was drinking the Professor, which is orgeat and absinthe with enough lemon and honey to make a case for medicinal application; Rob had the Absinthe Cobbler, which made an equally convincing case for quince as an ideal pairing with anise. Despite the ingredient repeat, we ordered the octopus polpetti because it was the most interesting-looking of the pasta we had not already tried—previous entries, squid ink gemelli and uni bucatini—and somehow we had forgotten that the pasta at Waypoint really is two-person eating even without small plates, but it was so ridiculously delicious that we put a significant dent in its long, soft scrolls of spaccatelli drenched in garum and lemon and green chili, tossed with dry curls of ricotta salata and heat-wilting leaves of fresh mint, and crowned with the polpetti themselves, which Rob described as "hush puppies—with octopus!" In honor of
selkie's queer Regencies, as soon as I saw the cocktail made with Batavia arrack, I ordered it even though it was (there was ouzo in it, still not an excuse) called Ouz Line Is It Anyway? Rob had moved on to something called Dans on Chairs, which having been made with coffee liqueur was off-limits to me. We shared the sweet corn spooncake and its various garnishes of chocolate cream, torched meringue, and sugared rice crisp for dessert. We ate well and oceanically.
Having been reminded by
shewhomust that five years is the wood anniversary, we visited the load-bearing piano which witnessed our marriage; we are saving the harborwalk for a night that is not so bitterly cold. The cats made piteous complaint that we had not taken them out for oceanic dinner. I gave my husband a reprint of Clayton Rawson's Death from a Top Hat (1938) for the first night of Hanukkah; tonight he gave me the copy of Raymond Durgnat's A Long Hard Look at 'Psycho' (2002) that I had sadly left in Raven Used Books last Thursday. Our candles so far are lit for love, peace, wisdom, and health.A good way of being in the world. A good anniversary.
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It may be my favorite decor in this city. We walked past it for weeks in 2016 wondering about it because it looked so aquatic. The ceiling beams look like pilings from a pier. There's a set of lights not visible like moon jellies behind the slats of a lobster trap. There are bits of seagrass in the shelves and alcoves. There's even a second neon sign (actually right behind me in the photo above; it's the source of the aquarium-tank light you can see filtering through the glass) and it shows a perch in green and blue and gold. I just don't want to steal it the way I want to steal "Au Nid du Doré."
*....the drinks kind*
Good call.
*hugs*