Fancy Dinner During Tornado Warnings

Last night we went to a fancy steak house in Tampa to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary. Funny thing, Jerry was out of town on our 10th so we celebrated big (in Hawaii) for our 11th and I was out of town on our 20th so we are celebrating big on our 21st. Anyway, we canceled our standing Saturday night dinner with the Daiseys (mom & MIL) for a special night for the two of us. With Christmas on the 25th, and my birthday on the 28th, by the time our anniversary rolls around on the 15th it's a struggle to think of thoughtful or useful gifts. Instead, we have decided to start a tradition of DOING something special - no money on gadgets, make a memory.

I made reservations at the premier steak house in Tampa (Bern's) and surprized Jerry with a hired car so that we could toast the occassion. Additonally, the Gasparilla Pirate Festival was starting in Tampa and traffic would be scary due to parades and loads of foot traffic on the narrow streets of the Hyde Park area of Tampa. When I contacted the limo service I asked for a car, not a limo. When the driver arrived sharply at 4:15, it was not only a limo but a white stretch limo! About as flashy as it gets. Oh well, apparently they weren't busy so they thought they would send the limo at no additional charge. I just smiled and said "thank you" but could see Jerry would have preferred a Town Car.

As the driver neared the restaurant we were picking up more and more people with children parking and walking. Turns out the Gasparilla Children's Parade was about to start nearby. I grabbed a photo off the internet of the lobby of this restaurant because it would be difficult to describe. Very ornate, kinda gothic, lots of brick, some velvet wallpaper, huge paintings and lighting fixtures. Apparently there is one window in the place but I didn't see it. Most of the walls were brick - Jerry described it as a bomb shelter.

Dinner was superb. They prepared the Ceasar salad at the table, steaks were perfection, and the appetizer was amazing (a Thai version of California roll with lobster and passion fruit). During dinner we heard a noise and our waiter informed us that it was storming outside and that we were under a tornado warning! We were dining in ignorant bliss while the wind and rain cancelled the Gasparilla Parade. We decided that if we were going to be trapped somewhere during a storm, this 5 star restaurant would do just fine!

On the way to the dessert floor (more on that to follow) we were given a tour of the kitchen and the wine cellar. Our tour of the kitchen was narrated by a waiter-in-training (distinguished by white shirts with bow ties, no jacket) and demonstrated a committment to quality which, ironically, is what I am studing in school right now. Everything was made there - they had a bakery for breads and desserts, a salad dressing making station, meats were being cut and trimmed to order. They were growing sprouts in the kitchen for salads, they had huge wheels of cheese aging and most of the veggies they used were grown on their own organic farm in nearby Pasco County.

Next stop on the way to dessert was the wine cellar holding 100,000 bottles. There is a warehouse nearby used to replenish stock for a total holding of about 1 million bottles. The wines were all categorized with storage labels by the dewey decimal system. Luckily I had a shawl because it was 50 degrees and dark. One interesting component was a locked area with rare wines, many over 100 years old.

Eventually we made our way to the dessert room (small photo from web). Each table is an imtimate little island created by curved walls and individual stereos. The menu was enormous because of the dessert wines, ports, cognacs, etc. I've never seen anything quite like it. I ordered German Chocolate Cake which was served with handmade mocha icecream sprinkled with toasted coconut. Jerry ordered Cheesecake Gert which is New York style cheesecake but made with orange zest, garnished with raspberry sauce, and served with handmade raspberry ice cream topped with graham sprinkles.

Eventually we had to leave our little sanctuary and head out into the blowing rain. It was nice not to have to drive the dark, slick streets in an unfamilar area. We had the limo until 9:15 and it was only 7:30 when we left. If the weather had been better we may have gone for a drive or to an area, like ChannelSide, where we could walk off dessert but Jerry was anxious to get home; however, we needed diapers for Chloe so we asked the driver to take us to PetSmart on the way home. How wierd to go to PetSmart in a stretch limo! The driver says he's now gone full circle because his first professional job was picking up a parrot from an elderly person and driving it to a vet!