Finally got the chance to take a few friends up on their offer last Saturday.

You remember a while back when a few friends here in San Saba told me about that Bob Dylan concert? One of the ladies that works in the education building out there, Sue Shuford, had found out about it from her kids. They'd gotten tickets for themselves, but not for her. John wanted to go but had to work his guard shift that night. Well, I told them that I'd try to make it to the show, and as I left that day my buddy John joked that if I made it to the gig, I should bring them each back a t-shirt.

Anyway, Denise and I went and had a great time. When I showed up to work the next day with a fist full of t-shirts they were all a flutter. They wanted to pay me for them but I wouldn't take any money. I felt like I was just payin' them back for tellin' me about the gig. Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to have that good time.

Well, Sue and John got their heads together and came up with something cool to pay me back. It turned out to be much better than havin' them just give me the money I spent on the t-shirts. It turns out Sue has a daughter and son-in-law (the same folks who had the tickets) who work at a swanky Italian restaurant in Austin. They set it up so that I could take Denise out to eat and it'd be on them.



This last weekend, the weekend with all the friggin' rain, turned out to be the best time for us to go. We've got plans to be somewhere else every weekend for about the next month or so, so it was now or never.



The place is down on the northwest side of Austin, in a new, very high tone community called The Domain. It's one of those places with expensive apartments, expensive shops and fancy restaurants, all crammed together in a pretty little nook off a big highway. In this case it's all off North Loop One, or MOPAC, if you're a local.

The Restaurant is called North, offering "modern Italian cuisine".



We got the idea we were in a swanky place for the first moment we strolled in off the rainy sidewalk. It reminded me of some of the places, very full of themselves, that I've experienced in cities like Dallas. You order a Blue Moon and they bring it to you with a fat wedge of orange in it, in a chilled glass. But it's a fancy, tall beer glass with a stem. Very cool. I was impressed. They got a HUGE thumbs up there. I can't tell you how many friggin' times I have to ask for that wedge elsewhere when I order a thick, wheaty beer.



We decided to go with a few appetizers to start off. With Denise and I, there's always the issue that she's not into seafood. I LOVE shrimp and calamari, so we can find ourselves at an impasse when we go to fancy places that put on a lot of spicy, fishy dishes. In this case I looked over the menu and asked for a few different things, normally side orders, so we'd have something to choose from. The dish you see there above is the Crispy Italian Potatoes.



Beginning with the bowl, you see the Zucca Chips... very thinly sliced and fried zucchini chips, like potato chips. They were great! The other dish is their Garlic Bread, with a wonderful tomato and parmesan dip to spread over it. Wonderful!



For lunch, both of us had the Angus Burger. Yea, I know, not really Italian, but it did have a fancy tomato sauce on it, with the provolone and bacon, and a fancy pasta salad on the side. We both loved it.

In retrospect, I'm not sure if we'd go back. Those kind of high tone places really aren't us. We like things a bit more proletarian. If I had a date, and I knew she was into fancy food, it'd be a cool place to go. But I think they're so popular, we'd have to get a reservation. I'd rather go to a place where I just have to sit and wait for 20 or 30 minutes, and then I'm sure I cam shovel in the wedge fries with my bacon cheese burger. That's just me. We loved it! But I don't know if we'll ever go back. Maybe. Hey, for free food, it was two thumbs up! Cheers!