This past weekend my good friend Bob got married. He arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday. Usually while in Atlanta, he would stay at his fiancée’s (Christine’s) parents’ house, but there were too many out-of-town guests staying there, so he stayed a couple of nights at our place (we live very close to Christine’s family, so it was a relatively convenient place for him to crash).

Also this weekend was our fifth anniversary (Malin’s and mine). That was on Friday night – more on that in a minute. Most folks coming into town for Bob’s wedding were not going to be around until Friday. Since Friday was our anniversary, I knew I couldn’t visit with all of them that night as Malin and I already had plans. So I tried to organize something Thursday night. There weren’t many of Bob’s friends in town on Thursday night, so I chose to augment the gathering with a couple of other people. Both of the additional folks I invited knew Bob and wanted to wish him congratulations, too. So we had a group of six of us out in Decatur. Most of the night was spent talking and shooting pool at Twain’s after which we walked around, ending up at a place called Trackside Tavern (we tried the Brick Store Pub, but it was closing).

Friday night was our wedding anniversary. We had a very nice evening, and have since discussed extensively what we thought about our restaurant of choice for the evening: Trois in mid-town Atlanta. Overall, it was a nice restaurant with a menu that looked great – to the point where it was difficult to decide what to order. In the end, though, there were some aspects we didn’t care for about the crowd eating there, the service, and the price. So we probably won’t be returning. The crowd was a very yuppie-trendy crowd that gave us the distinct feeling that they were there because it was the “in” place to be – not because of the renowned menu and chef. The decor was of a very fine, white-tablecloth restaurant, but the service was much more casual. Also, the wait staff stole some of our food: we were brought complementary flutes of champagne and very small glasses of watermelon gazpacho when we sat down. After we placed our orders for dinner, we noticed that while ordering someone had decided to clean up the table – and they took our unfinished cups of gazpacho. Unforgivable! The price was not outrageous considering the fine food, but it was far from a value. For the same kind of money we could have had dinner at Bacchanalia and enjoyed ourselves a little more. The food, overall, was very good. It was very nice, quite modern, with a lot of French influence. The execution wasn’t perfect though – for instance the duck breast dish was served over what appeared to be an eggroll (which neither made much sense, nor did it taste that good). The high points were the lobster knuckles, the snails, the wine list, and the desserts. The entrées – duck breast and braised beef oxtail – were good, but unfortunately not spectacular (although the braised oxtail omelet I made Sunday morning was fantastic).

So there you have our restaurant review of the week!

Saturday was the wedding. It was in a church just outside of Atlanta’s capitol building on MLK. The reception was right across the street in what used to be an old train depot. The ceremony was very nice (though long: it was a Catholic mass after all). The reception was awesome, and Malin and I had a lot of fun. A lot of Bob’s friends from New York and New Jersey (whom I had met before while traveling up there) were there, as were many of our college friends. The food was very nice too – dinner was nice (several of the side dishes were fantastic), and the cake and dessert were very good, too. Overall, I think Bob and Christine did a great job of getting married – all of their guests really enjoyed themselves!

We respected the sabbath the old-fashioned way: resting. I had a large deficit of sleep over the past week, and I needed to catch up (part of it from going out a couple of nights, and part of it from staying up late several nights in a row to finish the seventh and final installment of Harry Potter).

All is finally back to normal. Although this morning I had to take the Camaro back to the mechanic: the rear end started making a loud and high-pitched whine on Thursday night. The mechanic did agree to fix the speedometer for me (though he never said when – he is waiting to receive a part is all he can tell me), but now there is potentially another problem… So I am extremely frustrated (one might even call it fury). As soon as this episode is complete I will finally be able to sell the Blazer. Unfortunately, I can’t sell it yet or else I’ll have no reliable commuter vehicle (seeing that the Camaro is back in the shop again).