Blog of Bermanism

My wife and I celebrated our four year anniversary last Friday. It is seriously hard to believe that we have been married for four years, let alone that we started dating nearly 12 years ago. We have been together for so long and from such a young age, that we had the unique opportunity to grow up together, to learn to change and adapt to the other’s experiences and needs, and to communicate with each other as best friends would, all before we got married. These last four years have gone by very quickly and it really seems that we got married only last week. As with all types of relationships, our marriage has had its ups and downs, but overall, it has been spectacular. I’ve got one of the greatest, most intelligent, most beautiful, down-to-earth, independent women on earth. Plus, she’s a lot of fun. I’m very lucky to be a part of her life.

Normally, I plan something very elaborate, and wholly extravagant for our anniversary or for Valentine’s day or days of that kind. I have been unable to plan anything elaborate for the past two years because friends of ours were getting married on our anniversary. Apparently, we picked a very common wedding date. Anyway, with an impending move, the amount of work I have to do right now, and the crazy schedule that we’re keeping, we decided to keep it low key this year and just go out to a nice dinner. So, for once, that is exactly what we did. Some of our friends had recommended this restaurant in central Austin called Zin Bistro. It is a lovely little restaurant that is nestled right next to Kerbey Lane Cafe, an Austin favorite. Zin has a classic, contemporary American atmosphere complete with the softened industrial feel of finished concrete on the floor, brushed metal track lighting, and splashes of finished wood throughout the restaurant. The walls were decorated with large plasma screens that were showing a rotating display of photos from Webshots, probably from the Scenery and Nature category. Needless to say, being an ultra geek, I loved the touch of the plasma screens. Why buy one, stagnant painting or a framed photograph when you can have an endless supply of art and photos that change every 30 seconds? Rachel enjoyed them also. We spent a lot of time identifying various shots that popped up and wondering whether we had been there before.

Anyway, the menu was replete with contemporary American cuisine, definitely gourmet. We ended up not getting any appetizers because most of them had fish in them, and Rachel doesn’t like fish. Besides, we wanted to save room for dessert. So, we each started off with a drink and a Caesar salad. The salads were very good. They featured a very large amount of shaved Parmesan (nothing bad can come of putting more cheese on anything) along with polenta croutons, which were a surprisingly nice touch. For dinner, Rachel had chicken (she was in a safe mood) that was fabulous. Her chicken was topped with a portabella mushroom, a mound of warm goat cheese, and finished with a balsamic vinegar, olive oil drizzle. It was served with fantastic mashed potatoes and asparagus spears. For a standard chicken dish, this was extremely good. Since Rachel had ordered the least expensive thing on the menu, I, of course, had to order the most expensive thing off of the menu. I ordered their veal special. This dish consisted of a veal chop, done medium, topped with a black truffle butter sauce and surrounded by a veal demi-glace. The veal was served with asparagus spears and potato fingers. This dish was to die for! It was so good you almost couldn’t believe that you were eating a veal chop. For those that don’t know, veal chops are incredibly difficult to cook correctly. They either end up being over or under done leaving them chewy and stale in either case. This chop was cooked to perfection, which allowed by butter knife to cut through it as if it were butter. The veal melted in your mouth. It was phenomenal and worth every penny.

Finally, we ordered dessert. For Rachel, there was only one dessert listed on the menu, and that was creme brulee. Their creme brulee was perfectly done. It was slightly fluffy and tasted light, while the sugar coating was cracked nice and thin on top. The dessert was served with very fresh and perfectly ripened raspberries. This dessert was gone very quickly in Rachel’s hands. I ordered the dessert named The Zin Sin. This dessert consisted of a slab of chocolate torte that must have had a mass equivalent to a small moon. It was so think and so rich that you almost felt that you were eating a giant, slightly melted chocolate bar. The torte was surrounded in a raspberry sauce, topped with fresh raspberries, and finished with a chocolate shaving. It was to die for, but it was definitely enough for two people. The dessert hit your stomach like a ton of bricks. I could have eaten only this dessert for my entire meal and been full afterward. Needless to say, I couldn’t finish it, but it was fantastic.

Overall, Zin bistro was a great dining experience and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a romantic dinner. The prices are not outrageous and the wait staff and host were fantastic. This place was a perfect way for us to spend our fourth anniversary. The simple, small, and intimate setting (only 11 tables inside), made it very easy for us to talk to each other and reminisce about the last four years. It was a great experience.

We finished off the night by coming back to our house and keeping up with our tradition of watching our wedding video. It was fun to see again. Both Rachel and I have lost a lot of weight since then, and it was interesting to see that. It was also good to see some of the people that were in our wedding and who came to it. For all you married couples out there, I highly recommend that you adopt this tradition. It tends to bring you back to your roots and to help you remember how it all began. By the end of the video, we were both very happy and felt very warmly towards each other. It is a renewing experience, which is what an anniversary is supposed to be anyhow. So, here’s to another year, one that is destined to be filled with adventure and change and I’m looking forward to every minute of it. Thanks to Rachel for being you!

I just got back from a fantastic lunch with a bunch of my friends from a place in Austin called Hoover’s. Man, this place is great. It is in East Austin, right near The University of Texas, and it serves traditional down-home style southern cookin’. Ummm, this stuff is heart attack on a plate with a side of crack. It is so good, but so amazingly bad for you. It is one of those restaurants that is neatly nestled into a strip mall, but has grown to encompass the majority of the building, there’s only one other tenant and I couldn’t tell you who it is. You walk into this relatively plain foyer area where the hostess (who looks like she eats the food regularly) abjectly greets you and marvels briefly at the power she holds over you by telling you she’ll call you when your table is ready. You just know that she sees that you’re shaking with hunger/bad-for-you-food-withdrawal.

The rest of the place is divided into two rooms, one very large room with a full bar in the front and a smaller room through the alternate doorway from the foyer. There is a gamesh of tables from picnic type tables to booths. It feels like you’re just hanging out in the mess house of some large ranch in south-central Texas.

Once you’ve sat down, your eyes neatly skip right over the salad section to the solid arteries section. Naturally, I ordered the Chicken Fried Chicken Platter with fries and macaroni and cheese today. You should have seen this plate. It was a deep-fried monument to high cholesterol and type II diabetes. Just looking at this dish made you full and want to crawl into bed and take your food coma nap for the afternoon. Oh, but I dug in anyway. The chicken is amazing, it is so well fried that the meat literally melts under your knife. The fries aren’t the best, but they still satisfy that fry craving that all true-blooded Americans feel. Ah, now the macaroni and cheese is a delight like few others. I think that they put a double dose of crack into this dish. It is narcotic and you can feel each macaroni noodle quietly lodging itself into your coronary artery. Ah, the life of an American eater.

Anyway, this place is heaven on a plate for sure, but a tribute to the downfall of American health. It’s a good thing that I work out 6 days a week or else I’d be even fatter than I am already. Sadly, I know exactly how bad these things are for me to eat, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it. I suppose food is my addiction. Time to start a support group!