elsaf, judiang and I are stuffed to the gills tonight thanks to Opera, a very upscale (read expensive) Chinese restaurant just a few blocks down the road from Judi’s apartment. Elsa had a $50 off coupon, which is telling in itself. But we made good use of that coupon, I’ll tell you!

We started with drinks. Elsa, as our Designated Walker, stuck with diet Coke. But Judi and I got our usuals: Amaretto Sour. The sour was perfect. Which means that Judi had to dilute hers a bit. Heh. We got two appetizers: pork & ginger dumplings and beef & asparagus crepes. (I misheard the waiter and was trying to figure out how in the hell they stuffed all that stuff into grapes.) The appetizers were excellent – even the garnish was good.

For the main course, we tried Tiger prawn noodles with a curry sauce, scallops, and pineapple chicken & cashews. All three were excellent – they even served up the scallops in 3 separate dishes to make splitting the dishes easier. (We love to share – get to try more things that way.)

Despite being full, we ended up all ordering dessert. The waiter plonked down the dessert menus – we had no defense! Elsa got a Trio of Brulees. Since I’m VERY trad regarding creme brulee, I couldn’t order that dish. Judi got a Trio of Sorbets that the Iron Chefs would be proud of. (One was red wine & red pepper!) I stuck with the Trio of Chocolate items. Good lord! I now know what free-basing chocolate must be like! They had a flourless chocolate cake that was HEAVENLY. They also had a chocolate mousse cake that was decadent (but no match on the flourless cake). And an ice cream with chocolate somethings in it that was really just there so you didn’t OD on the chocolate. *sigh* I shall be remembering Opera with much fondness for years to come, I believe.

Now we’re back at Judi’s for our last night before returning to Detroit. We’ve been working on Judi’s new PC all day – and it’s been a real lesson in computer work. Elsa noticed a nice correlation between our computer building and another old tradition. You can read about that here. Perhaps I’ll go into more computer detail later. But for now, I must go blow up Judi’s old HD to reinstall Winders XP. Wish me luck! 🙂