Accidental date night

Inexplicably, in our apartment stuffed with books, the Old Man found himself on the verge of being without anything to read. Since Armadillo's Pillow ended up being a total bust, I suggested an E-town book jaunt. Yesterday was Arctic, tomorrow could be blizzardy (the authorities are changing their minds every hour about that), so we struck today. As a bonus, it gave me an excuse to leave early.

The plan was to meet in the café at the Foster stop, since it's a half block from Howard's, but the café was closed. There used to be another one just round the corner, but it was closed as well, forcing monshu to walk all the way downtown for stale coffee at Panera. On top of that, my perfidious cellphone declined to register his text, so I was none the wiser until I reached the bookstore. No matter; we browsed, bought for books, and moved on.

Of course, by now I had my heart set on a café stop so we popped into Unicorn for a latte and a "dirty chai" (Oregon chai with a shot of espresso--a choice I'm regretting about now). Then it was on to Market Fresh and--at my request, since he'd fully loaded up by then, Amaranth. My final haul was:

1. McCann, Colum. Everything in this country must--Short contemporary fiction for Irish Month, this time from the North.
2. Trevor, William. Felicia's journey--More of the same (although Trevor is from Cork and the action is set in England, where he's lived most of his life; also, it's a novel).
3. Schreiner, Olive. The story of an African farm--Hmm, need some diversity. How about a 19th-century female Anglo-German author from South Africa? Is that one checkbox or two? (niemandsrose knows what I mean.)
4. Tomizza, Fulvio. Materada--Identity fiction from an Istrian writing in Italian? What the hell, could be good.
5. Jones, Edward P. Lost in the city--Short stories from the African-American side of DC. Colour me interested. And if I like it, I can go back for the sequel.
6. Woodrell, Daniel. Tomato red--FINALLY! Some ducklovin' Woodrell shows up used (and in pristine convention). Now I can strip it from my wishlist.
7. Hamid, Mohsin. The reluctant fundamentalist--"New York Times Bestseller" is normally poison to me, but "Man Booker Prize" is like catnip. Which kneejerk judgment will rein supreme?

Afterwards we decided to check out the spendy new Northern Italian café next to World of Beer. In short: recommended. I was concerned about the hard surfaces, but it wasn't too noisy even by the time we left (which was still early and most of the diners were older). The chairs were super uncomfortable, however, and fit awkwardly under the small tables. But if you don't like those, you have a choice of (a) loungey chairs around coffee tables; (b) backless padded benches and stools around coffee tables; (c) distressed wood banquettes; or (d) the same chairs at highboy height. All things considered, I think (d) might actually be our best bet for next time, unless that's just for drinks and a snack. The Italian motorcycling-inspired decor mostly works.

We walked in on the staff finishing up their meals, so service was somewhat casual at first, but they hit the golden zone of "attentive and friendly, but not too much of either". Knowledgeable, too. When monshu ordered a caffè corretto, our second server admitted "I don't know what that is, but I'll ask [the bartender] if he can do it." "He's a paisano, he'll know!" I declared. And he did. While waiting for our appetisers, I abandoned the GWO to scan the bottles behind the bar and got into a lively chat with him. He knows his booze and it looking forward to debuting a cocktail menu shortly. They had Nuphy's favourite grappa, Banfi, but what he used for the coffee was the Il Poggione grappa di brunella, which neither of us had every heard of before (for the very good reason that, sadly, it seems unavailable for purchase in Chicago). I longed to have him mix me a drink, but I can't be lush two nights in a row without paying a stiff fine.

We started with prosciutto-wrapped asparagus and a Romagnol dish called piadina. Our server described it as "a kind of flatbread" but folded over. When it arrived I exclaimed, "It's an Italian quesadilla!" "But better!" he retorted. Different, to be sure; there's a soft, almost doughy quality to the crust, which comes only lightly browned. Inside was spinach, chard, and some very good cheese. Then monshu had an excellent lasagne made with fresh pasta and genuine bolognese and I had some meat-filled cappelletti in chicken broth. I'm an al dente man all the way, but these were a bit to hard for me, at least until they'd been allowed to soak for several minutes.

Among the standbys on the dessert menu, a couple dishes stood out, one of them being "gnocco frito". Despite the singular, this is most definitely plural: A plate heaped with puffed-up strips of fried dough sprinkled with honey and powdered sugar. "Italian beignets!" I said, but airier. In fact, halfway through I began stuffing the hollow interiors with the gianduja gelato I'd ordered as a side. (One of the things I liked about the place is that it was informal enough I didn't feel self-conscious doing that.)

It was, in retrospect, an almost perfect date night. I mean, a man who takes you book shopping and then buys you dinner at a fine Italian restaurant? A keeper for sure.