A Friends' Night Out

Today was a great day. Brandi kept Preston so we could all go out for the night. We started the evening by meeting Elizabeth at the West Side Market in Cleveland. I'd love to go back again sometime earlier in the day. Many shops were closed or closing, but it was still a great experience. We bought some fudge and some beef jerky (Michael Simon's favorite). Then we found some amazing dried fruits and vegetables. Let me tell you dried green beans are wonderful!We had quite awhile to wait between the time the market closed and our dinner reservation, so we wandered over to Great Lakes Brewing Company for some drinks. We went down into the cellar and sat near the fermentation tanks. Their website describes it as The Beer Cellar: a beautiful turn-of-the-century “rathskeller” complete with stone walls, brick floors, fermentation tanks and a wooden bar. Beautiful doesn't quite describe it... it's a pretty awesome place with great beer and an amazing artichoke dip that I could have eaten on anything!So we got to Momocho a bit early, it was a nice walk from the brewery, and our table was ready for us. Dinner was amazing. We started with the guacamole sampler - smoked trout and bacon, spicy pineapple with habanero peppers, and tomato with goat cheese. Wow, were they good (in fact even their plain old tomato salsa was wonderful!) Then we ordered amazing taquitos. Dustin and I each got one that had been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives. He tried the coffee crusted brisket and I got the duck confit. Both were amazing. We especially loved the green sauce that they simply call their "salsa verde", but is so much more than salsa verde that you've had anywhere else. Dustin even got a cucumber margarita that we all had to sample (so yummy!). We decided since we don't get to do something like this every night we'd go all out and we even got dessert, 2 in fact. Their gingersnap and jalapeno bread pudding was the most amazing desert I've ever eaten (don't forget I have an addiction to bread). But everyone else thought the horchata rice pudding with almond brittle was the best. I think we made two very good choices!

We passed all of our dishes for everyone to sample, we passed our phones so everyone could get pictures of food and friends, and it was just a perfect evening. We could go back and have another amazing dinner, but it wouldn't be the same as the first time shared with wonderful friends.This isn't the best picture ever, but it will be a great reminder of that evening.