Date Night

I like doing Aly's hair. Love having a girl!
She was busy trying to put a shirt on in her crib when she was supposed to be napping...

Aly's always up to something...

Now Saya can pretty much go anywhere she wants to go by scooting

Well, our Saturday revolved around the date night and Sunday revolved around the play off games!



On Sat, we focused on getting the kids tired and running on schedule so that by the time Amy came over at 8, the kids would be conked in bed. We came pretty close, the only baby up was Saya when Amy came. We decided to try two places in China Town, "Maekawa" and "Maneki", both Izakaya style Japanese joints. I've been wanting to go to Maneki for a while, so I was pretty excited to try. Since the wait time for Maneki was 1hr 30 mins long, we went to Maekawa first. Izakaya is Japanese tapas where they serve many varieties of small plates and have wide selections of alcoholic beverages. We had a lot of fun trying out different dishes with our favorite beer, Kirin. Mike liked the grilled rainbow trout and my favorite was stir-fried squid with kimchee.



Maneki was just up a few blocks, so we took a quick walk to get there. China Town at night is not the safest place. But of course I was with a 6ft 2" big white guy, so there was nothing to worry about. At Maneki, we sat at the bar and befriended the regulars there. They were a group of Japanese American middle aged guys (and a woman) and they were hilarious! Sort of reminded me of the crowd at Cheers, except they were all Japanese. Turns out, Maneki is the oldest Japanese restaurant in Seattle. They opened its door in 1904 and has been a popular joint ever since. The owner, Jin Nakayama, is a well-known figure in the restaurant business in the area and she even appeared as a judge in Iron Chef America recently. She's modest though. She's a lot of fun to talk to and I understand why people return to Maneki, apart from the delicious food they serve. Next time, we'll make the reservation in advance!



We had a lot of fun!! I am glad we had ventured out of the Eastside. We sort of needed that "away" feeling. We'll try to do this once a month!!