Last night, as we were approaching the restaurant that my wife selected for our weekly “Date Night,” my wife began to worry that she had made a mistake. She felt a gnawing hunch that we had gone to this particular restaurant before, potentially violating one of the basic rules of the “Date Night” tradition. By definition, it has to be a different restaurant each time – no repeats. The whole purpose is to try different places, in search of favorites to recommend to others or take them to when they come to visit. Wednesday nights were originally set aside for this purpose, since at the time we were both working, so it provided a mid-week opportunity to share some time together and compare schedules. On occasion, “Date Night” was moved to Thursday nights, if a meeting or travel interfered, but for the most part it was designed to be a “Hump Day” activity for just the two of us lovers. (See Date Night Poem in Post #55). 

As others became familiar with our “Date Nights,” I would gladly share our plans, as laid-out by my wife months in advance. As we discussed last night, it started because my “favorite foodie” would collect reviews and articles related to restaurants and stick them on our refrigerator, saying “we need to try this place.” We were living in a cramped apartment in Austin, Texas at the time, so it allowed us to escape any kitchen responsibilities, and enjoy quality time together. After a few months of doing this religiously, co-workers in both of our offices began to ask where we headed on that particular Wednesday night, and I began to print a schedule, including feedback on the restaurants we had already tried. It also became a popular topic of conversation with our friends and family, as my wife continued to add to our growing list.

Just recently I inadvertently deleted the list of over 1500 different restaurants all over the world that we’ve tried in our near-20-year relationship. I do, however, as the family “diary keeper” have a record of each one we’ve been to during this time frame. Yes, I’m a bit obsessive in the interest of a poor memory that is now retired. My wife, on the other hand, remembers most of these dates, including what both of us had to eat. She’s one of these people that has a special “chip” that allows her to remember dance steps, song lyrics, and food. My diary comes in handy on those rare occasions where she can’t think of the name of a restaurant where we dined ten years ago. As you can tell from the variety and quantity of restaurants that we’ve “frequented,” we’ve always been “frequent” diners-out. As a side note, I recently secured a hard-to-get table at the French Laundry in Napa that has always been on my wife’s bucket list. We’ll get a chance to critique it in a few months.

With my wife’s eidetic memory, it surprised me when she started to doubt our dining reservation last night. Would we break our streak of new “Date Night” restaurants, and accidentally return to a repeat situation? Instead, it turned out to be just a familiar location. We had, in fact, been to the building twice before, to restaurants with different names. In this case, we’d dined there a few years ago when it was Gustav’s, and then again when it was called Small Bites. This time it had just been renamed Bistro Agnes. Gustav’s was a very good German Restaurant, but now French chefs controlled the menu. Small Bites, a short-time occupant, was comparably unmemorable. Nonetheless, our “Date Night” streak remained intact, as it also inspired a conversation about how long we’d been maintained this dining tradition.

Once we got home last night after a great meal, I consulted the diary that I’ve kept through the years. “Date Night” started over 6 years ago (5/16/2012) at a restaurant called Foreign & Domestic that still exists in Austin. For the most part, the non-returning aspect of “Date Night” is not necessary a good thing for restaurant owners. However, in this case, we did return to this particular restaurant on “Non-Date Nights,” for special occasions and a celebrity chef event. Bistro Agnes may get second life as friends come to town, although there a several such “go-to” restaurants that we’ve found in our four years here in Portland.

I’ve estimated that about 325 Wednesdays have passed since our very first “Date Night.” We’ve probably missed no more than ten weeks of doing this, if you don’t count vacations where you’re always trying new places. That means that over 310 restaurants have benefited from our dates. My weekly “Date Night” budget is $150 for the two of us, but we’ve well-exceeded that investment on many an occasion. Overall, you could say that we’ve spent in excess of $50,000 over this time period. It’s hard to believe when you put it in that perspective – all for the sake of our stomachs! In defense, I’m also glad to say that we are regular contributors to food banks and the homeless, among other important causes.