Serendipity

Friday night I had a mystery date planned, but it's an outdoor thing and the weather wasn't really right. Fortunately, we can reschedule. That left us with no plans for the night, so Josh suggested we draw out of our Bowl of Fun. He drew Lucia's Wine Bar in Uptown, and away we went.

As we came in to Uptown we noticed all sorts of roads blocked off but couldn't figure out why. Turns out there was a crit ride – the Nature Valley Grand Prix or some such. I had never seen such a thing and so it was a happy accident that we came upon it. It was fun to get a glimpse into the whole bike culture thing.

It took some maneuvering, but we got to Lucia's and found a table. Just outside on the street was a bicycle ramp where people were performing tricks, so we got a free show. Their menu was pretty limited, but we got the cheese platter, which had a blue cheese, a marinated goat cheese and a gouda. They were all gouda ☺ I got a carafe of the white sangria, which I'm pretty sure was just lemonade. Josh had a fantastic tempranillo and then a barbera. Good stuff. I don't know what it is about Lucia's – it's not like it's my favorite place in the world to hang or anything – but I felt very urban sitting there.

After Lucia's we decided to walk over to another wine bar in Uptown located on the other side of Lyndale, but we got distracted on the way and hit up Moto-i instead, a fairly new sake brew pub located in the former Machu Picchu space. My experience with sake is limited and unfavorable so I got a glass of wine, but Josh picked a sake that was really quite tasty. Very light and almost had a honeydew taste to it. Our bartender was nice and friendly, chatting us up, so we asked him for food recommendations. We ended up getting the sweet potato croquettes, a chicken bun and Thai basil meatballs, all of which were good. We decided if we ever open our own wine bar in E.P. that we would hire him to bartend for us.

We decided to walk over to the wine bar afterward since we were so close, but it turns out it is no longer a wine bar. It is now a little restaurant called Risotto. It's cute inside, small, and we stopped in to peek at the menu. Several delicious looking risottos on it – I think we'll be back!

Saturday we met Chris and Melissa for Famous Dave's BBQ Ribs and Blues Fest down on Peavey Plaza. Perfect day to spend outside and lots of people were out and about. We camped by the bands for a while, had a few Sam Adams and some pulled pork before snapping up an outdoor table at Brit's. We could still hear the music and were much more comfortable. It was good to see Chris and Melissa again as it has been a while.

Sunday we took the motorcycle out for a while, and then set up our front yard as a bistro with table and chairs and wine and snacks. Even took a nap on the lawn for a while – I love summer!

I finished out the day at Bibelot Book Club at Sarah's house. We had a great discussion and I'm looking forward to seeing what the next book will be!