Anniversary dinner and drinks

James made plans for the evening of our anniversary and just told me to be ready by 6:30pm. We walked into the city center even though it was lightly raining, same sort of weather as our wedding night but probably a bit warmer here.

We started the evening here at this wine bar.

We had a few glasses of one of my favorite wines, Coteaux du Layon, to start off the evening.

Then we went to dinner at the restaurant that James had made reservations.

It was a cozy Italian restaurant and we had a fun window table with a view of the rain and trees still all lit up.

The view outside of the restaurant

The inside of the restaurant

I started off with a salad that was really delicious. It had artichokes, tomatoes, basil and fresh mozzarella.

 
James had octopus with some pasta as his starter. I tried the octopus and it had a great flavor. 

Of course wine was in order. The restaurant carried only Italian wine so James did some serious contemplating to decide on which bottle we should have.

James reviewing the wine menu. To make the process easier, he had a whiskey while making the big decision.

  After much contemplation he did his best and made a choice, a great Chianti wine. Now on to the important decision of what to have for our main dish. I was really lost in trying to decipher the menu (more lost than usual when it come to ordering in French). James suggested that we order pizzas and decided on one he thought I would like.

All smiles ready to try the pizza

It was essentially a ham and cheese pizza but with multiple types of ham. Now I don't mind ham and it is very plentiful here in France, but historically it's not my first choice of meats. Back in the states I would choose turkey every single time when it came to deciding on a meat for sandwiches. I had never had pizza with ham unless we are talking about Canadian bacon with pineapple. This pizza wasn't my favorite. It had a variety of different kinds of ham on it, some of which I didn't really care for and was trying to pick off. However, the crust of the pizza was fantastic!

While the pizza that James chose looked a bit strange to me it was really tasty!

I preferred his over mine and he was willing to share a bit (I am sure we would have totally traded but he doesn't eat ham at all).

Looks can be deceiving as it was great but it looks strange right?! I have never seen an egg on a pizza before. I have no idea if this is "normal" in France or Italy but it was a first for me.

 It was a great evening of drinks and dinner celebrating our first year of marriage and reminiscing about what we were doing a year ago and all of the fun we had as we became husband and wife. After dinner we went home and I surprised him with wine and the cheesecake I mentioned in the previous post.

Looking forward to what the next year has in store for us!