So, as I said in my last post of any substance, takaza and I spent Friday evening off together. He chose the hotel (with some help from steviemaxwell. Thanks Stevie!) and let me choose the restaurant for dinner. I knew exactly what I had in mind, but I wanted to surprise him, so I told him we were going to a good Italian restaurant in Naperville. It turns out that one of his cow-orkers lives in Naperville, so when he asked me which one I was caught flat-footed. LTH Forum to my rescue! Why, it’s Pasta Amore – fortunately, I chose one that actually had a pretty good reputation. Once we parked in downtown Naperville, we walked around a bit then I abruptly turned into a restaurant as we passed. Dan said, “Wait! That’s not the right place. That’s Heaven on Seven.” I replied that yes, it was the right place – that’s where our reservations were 🙂 Dinner was, as expected, completely fabulous. Dan’s country fried steak over garlic mashed potatoes was tasty, though not quite as good as past versions at other Ho7 locations. I had the “Feed Me Jimmy Junior” tasting menu, which included crawfish cake, gumbo, turtle soup, a cheddar-jalapeno muffin, a Voodoo chicken enchilada, beef tenderloin over garlic mashed potatoes, and chocolate pecan pie. Ye gods, that was amazing! Afterwards we retired back to the hotel room to relax.
On Saturday, I let Dan sleep in as I poked at my laptop a bit and got some of the free “breakfast” downstairs. Eh, a bagel works when it’s all ya got. Once we got rolling, we stopped by the grocery store to pick up some things for Stevie then headed over to the LAFF softball game. We hung out there for an hour or so and chatted with friends, then retired over to crim_ferret and wyldekyttin‘s place for Crim’s birthday. We really enjoyed hanging out there, chatting, and the steaks were just delicious! Unfortunately, Dan was feeling under the weather so we had to take our leave on the early side.
Sunday? Sunday was the kind of day where you look at the clock and say, “Huh. It’s 5 PM. I guess we should take a shower.” It was quite nice, actually, and dinner was tasty too (sautĂ©ed pork chops accompanied by potatoes roasted in goose fat. Yum!)
I didn’t sleep too well last night, and we’ve had a bit of surprising news today that has me a bit off-kilter and stressed. Nothing bad, just…wow. More on that soon, I’m sure.
ooohhhh i live a few blocks from Heaven on Seven but just have never made it thru the front door. I take it this is a place I do need to go?! So who does all of the cooking or do you share duties?
You should go to Heaven on Seven NOW – do not delay! Their specialty is Cajun food, and it’s absolutely fantastic. If you’re not into spicy, they have lots of other non-spicy stuff on the menu that is excellent as well. And I highly recommend the hurricanes! Oh, so tasty.
Dan and I split the cooking duties, though I usually wind up doing 2/3 or so of the cooking. His specialty is home-cooked, stick-to-your-ribs stuff (like a killer homemade macaroni and cheese with bacon!), while I’m more of the gourmet approach, leaning to French and Italian cooking.