Eating Out

Our niece and nephew helped us out a few weeks ago and we offered to take them out for dinner. The first place that came to mind is Niki's West in Birmingham. Niki's is a seafood restaurant extraordinaire. They serve seafood in a lot of ways, but our favorite is Greek Style. We get the Seafood Platter which has amberjack, crab claws, oysters, shrimp, scallops, and stuffed crab. It is scrumptious. The service is always excellent and the beer is cold. What more could you want?
We've had seafood that was almost as good only a few times in our lives. Once in Ireland as I mentioned in a previous post...once at Red Beards on Santa Rosa Island in Pensacola....and once in San Francisco in a small restaurant in the Castro district.
It's interesting how you change over the years. When we were young, we gauged the appeal of a place by how good the "party" was. "OH Man WE PARTIED DOWN' which was always said in a Ceech and Chong voice. Don't get me wrong, I still love to party...as long as I can get home by bedtime.
As you grow older and mature, your tastes change. These days, we have much different interests and we schedule vacations around things like museums, natural beauty, places conducive to practicing Yoga, places where fly fishing is good and of course places with good restaurants.
Jilda has always been a really good cook and perhaps it's because I've grown to appreciate food more as I've aged, but she has gotten REALLY good. We have friends over for dinner and they want to move in. My friend Steve has told me more than once that he would never have played in The Overalls group with us had it not been for Jilda's cooking.
She will get a night off tonight. If you live in the Birmingham area and have never tried this place, I suggest you meet us there tonight.