Seastar Restaurant

A few coworkers from the Florida office were visiting for various meetings, and they invited me to dinner. I'm always up for a nice dinner, especially when the chances were good it would be expensed by somebody else. They selected the Seastar, which I had never been too. Even better!

The restaurant was very nice, and I felt a little underdressed as I was very casual. We were seated at a round table that could accomodate six. Kathryn, who was originally my boss, and then my boss's boss, and then was moved to a related but different position, examined the wine list. She couldn't decide and the restaurant sent over a lady who apparently was the in-house wine expert - she made various suggestions until we made the final choice. I'm an fairly unsophisticated wine drinker so I just mostly nodded sagely as though I had a real opinion to offer.

The wine arrived on its own tray, and the wine expert opened it and poured a bit for each of us. She then smelled the cork, swirlred the wine in a glass and smelled the "nose", and pronounced we were victims of "cork taint", an apparently grevious condition in which the cork didn't seal properly and thus the wine was possibly spoiled. She whisked away the wine and replaced it with a similar one, brought fresh wine glasses, and this time the sampling went well.

Eventually we ordered our entrees, and I selected "Mahi Mahi with Cucumber Macadamia Nut Relish" which (from the description) is flash-seared with Thai chili, yellow curry and lemon grass served on sticky rice with sweet chili sauce and cucumber-macadamia nut relish. It was delicious and I'm pretty sure I didn't speak for a while because I was too busy eating. Another coworker Donna let me try a piece of her Seared Ahi Tuna, and it was also wonderful. All the food was delicious, and I made sure to leave room for dessert, "Malted Vanilla Ice Cream". After this, I was quite stuffed and content.

Four of the six at the table were based in the Florida office, so they asked about my relocation plans, and I summarized for them: the exact date depends on when I sell my house, but soon... Another interesting conversation was coworker Darryl telling a story about his son who is taking flying lessons, at age 14!

The group wanted to hang out and socialize more, so we decided to visit the lounge/piano bar at Daniel's Broiler, another excellent restaurant. We found seats at the piano, and listened to the pianist work through several Billy Joel and Elton John songs. He was actually really good, taking requests from the crowd. The piano had a thick glass cover, so you could see the hammers and strings move as he played.

Eventually, after a... little more to drink, we left. My Florida coworkers were flying out at various times on Friday, and I was looking forward to crawling into bed.