impulse

Me, in bathrobe, lounging on the couch yesterday morning, skimming the entertainment section of the paper: "You know John Scofield's at Yoshi's this week, right?" "No." "Wanna go?" "Okay." "Wanna go tonight, since you're off today* and we wouldn't have to rush?" "Okay...I'll buy tickets (online)..." And with that exchange a night out was hatched.

(*He drove to work first thing yesterday morning, but it was raining heavily with no sign of letting up, so he bagged it and came back home.)

I'd read about a restaurant in Albany a couple of weeks ago. It's an unusual hybrid, featuring a menu that consists of Thai and Laotian AND soul food. It's called Lao-Thai Kitchen and it's owned by a woman who's a Laotian chef and her African-American husband. I figured that would be a perfect spot for us--Jeffrey could get a heaping plate of his favorite comfort food and I could have some spicy Thai. We mapped out the directions to the restaurant and found it easily on Solano Avenue in downtown Albany.

It's a great find and Earl Daniel, the owner, is very friendly and quite a character. He stopped by our table to chat several times. Business seemed good and I can't imagine that the full-page write-up in the San Francisco Chronicle's "96 Hours" supplement didn't give this little neighborhood spot a shot in the arm. We told Mr. Daniel we'd read about him in the Chronicle and driven down from Davis. He told us he has a daughter attending UC Davis and that we'd definitely come the farthest. "Had somebody come from Napa..." I felt like the winner of the mileage lottery. Jeffrey had the ribs, with candied yams, collard greens and cornbread. He practically licked his plate. I had a spicy red curry that was delish and polished it off along with a big bowl of rice. We ordered two slices of Mr. Daniels' white potato pie to go. He's a trim man, but told us his doctor had told him to cut back on fat, so he came up with a vegetarian collard greens recipe (and they were great--I tasted them) and a pie recipe that doesn't require sugar. The pie slices are still untouched as I write this, but Mr. Daniels brought us a sliver smothered in whipped cream to sample before we left the restaurant. Yummy, and it certainly didn't taste sugar-free.

After our leisurely dinner, we headed south to the show in Oakland. Since we'd bought our tickets at the last minute, we didn't have reserved seats. Even so, we found a great spot on the left side of the room. The show was wonderful, and it made me realize for the umpteenth time how very much I love to hear live jazz. They announced at the end of the 8:00 show that they were going to re-admit 50 patrons from the first show to the 10:00 show. We briefly flirted with the idea of staying for the second show, but decided that what made this such a perfect night out on a 'school night' was the fact that we were home and in bed by 11:00. As we were leaving Oakland, Jeffrey said, "We really need to do this more often." Yes, we do.