italian dishes and indoor putt-putt

a couple of weeks ago now (i know, i know - late again!!), jon and i spent another exhausting monday wedding planning (less than 5 months to go!), and we needed a solid break to just hang out. so even though jon had hoped we'd go to the uw's distinguished lecture series, i put in my request to hang out with jon and jon alone. i mean, i can enjoy a good lecture most of the time, but i enjoy jon and jon alone all of the time (ooh, brownie points).

so jon rearranged his plans and drove us out to tutto pasta in middleton for a classic italian dinner.

my memories of tutto pasta are limited to first dates at their location on state street - big portions, small tables, and flirty smiles and conversations (i swear, if you weren't watching a game in the bar there, you were on a first date).

contrast that to middleton's tutto pasta - same big portions, but much larger tables and booths, and, well, it's middleton, so your customers are much more varied in age; and though i couldn't spot any first-daters from our vantage point in the the aforementioned ginormous booth, this is not to say that an older customer isn't on a first date. i just want to make that clear. god knows who for, i just don't want anyone taking issue with me (i had a long day yesterday).

but back to the point, so jon and i are sitting in this huge booth that felt like it could have been a private room all on its own had they just strung a curtain rod across the top or added on a dutch door. i love huge booths because they feel totally unnecessary to me. the rest of the room is relatively small (i admit, i was raised in the burbs, so i'm used to "big"). i'd say you'd max out at 125 in there (more if everyone squished into a booth?). the lighting was just right with candles glowing a warm orange and the crooning 50s era tunes suggested you enjoy your time and order another glass of wine. oh, the power of musical influence.

our college-age-ish waiter seemed pleased that his tip for the night would be taken from a bill including a bottle of wine, so he was really cool with us all night. i, for one, love a good waiter who interacts with his customers. i always like to ask waiters what they'd recommend from the menu (i think they really should know it best), and was pleased with my mozzarella, garlic, tomato penne (i have to admit that it wasn't a mouthwatering recipe and didn't thrill me, but, to be frank, i haven't been to very many italian restaurants that do create such masterpieces). jon ordered some sort of pesto penne, which i think would have tasted better had it not been such an unappetizing shade of green (yes, i know pesto is green anyway, but it was REALLY green).

after our leisurely dinner, we raced over to dick vitense's new indoor mini golf land. sadly, the course closes at 9 pm; happily, the golf attendant charged us half since we came about 15-20 minutes before close.

the new course is created to represent all of madison's major landmarks. if we hadn't been racing through there, i might have enjoyed reading about the creation of capitol building, or spending more time in the black light back hallway where vitense recognizes rhythm and booms. lakes mendota and monona are both prominently featured, each offering a distraction of remote controlled boats should you be playing a particularly shoddy game of mini-golf.

the staff at vitense was unusually gracious, allowing us to finish up our game a few minutes after 9. but with such an early finish to our dinner & mini-golf, what was there to do next?

and herein lies another reason why i enjoy dating jon so much: there's so little lag time between his ideas. so off we went to barnes and nobles for a few games of cribbage (it's officially beat out my love for euchre, i admit). we appreciated seeing the couple at the table next to us pull out their own cribbage board. if we see them again next week, maybe we'll invite them to join us ...

so we officially ended date night with that, since at 10:30 pm, jon had to be at breakaway playing a late game with his soccer team. i joined him, since it feels rather schoolgirlish to watch your boyfriend from the fan stands (and is a whole lot cooler than being a lame-o and going to bed before letterman even gets on the air).

*just a side note, i did feel pretty sick to my stomach later on that evening - which may have partly been due to the fact that huge chunks of mozzarella are probably not a good idea for my sensitive stomach. if you might lean that way, i suggest staying away from the cheesy selections on the menu.

why gift cards make for good date nights.

i know, i know. i'm late to post. we had tried making a new year's resolution that date night couldn't happen unless the person responsible for the past week's post had actually posted. but last night, we still went out. i played the "i've been sick" card, and so - perhaps because it was my night to pay? - we did date night anyway.

but here's the follow up from february 5th:

as much as gift cards can seem like the ultimate cop-out present, they provided an imaginative date night for us a couple of weeks ago. with an envelope packed full of thin plastic cards to all sorts of places (though, to be honest, coffeeshops dominated the bunch), jon and i drove towards the east side. on our way, jon laid out the two rules to the evening:

1) we have to spend all the money on the gift card.
2) we can only spend 10% over what's on the gift card.

our first stop was at family christian bookstores to which jon had received a $5 gift card. among the plethora of gadgets and gizmos imprinted with fish and jesus logos (this is a whole other subject for another day and another post; i will certainly make an abnormally long and passionate tangent if i don't stop writing now), we found a box of chocolates quite quickly, and exited. fast.

so we took our box of chocolates (which cost $0.23 over our $5 - woohoo!!) and hurried through the cold to the cool beans cafe just next door.

i love the vibe of cool beans. i love the orange lights (pictures to come) and the alterra coffee served and the tables and the chairs. and i love the fireplace. and i love the people-watching. if i didn't live on the near west side, i'd be there way more frequently.

with $10 to spend at cool beans, we did quite well staying within the total. sort of. i'm not counting the pound of coffee jon bought himself since buying things for ourselves is hardly date night protocol. but we enjoyed our medium chais and lattes and chocolates and played a couple games of cribbage (or which i lost all the but the last game - and then only by one point).

dinner was at paisan's, a restaurant i haven't been to since it was located at university square during my college years. its new location, on lake monona over by the monona terrace, is quite large, which meant is quite empty for our monday night excursion. we were seated in a booth overlooking the veranda which overlooks the lake. a fire at the end of the 6 booth aisle warmed us up on the cold night while we looked through paisan's extensive menu.

jon's gift certificate to paisan's was plentiful at $40, so we debated a bit with our beers at our side (three cheers for capital brewery's maibock!) and finally decided on the medium deluxe combo pizza, hopeful that paisan's claim to have famous thin crust pizzas would prove that famous = delicious.

so first the bread came (always yum - i will never be a no-carbs girl), and then my iceberg lettuce salad, and then our pizza.

it was good. i mean i don't know if i'd go around telling people about our pizza, so i'd not advocate for using the word "famous" in relation to paisan's, but it was good, and i enjoyed it. but mostly i appreciated that they were open till 11 pm on a monday night, and that the service was friendly and not intrusive.

and the best part? keeping close to our rules of not going far over 10% over the gift card. man, it feels good not to drop a lot of cash ...

so i take back my initial claim of gift cards being a cop-out gift. i would gladly accept them. it makes for a great date night.

and if you want to send me one, i'll gladly email you with my address :)