Monday's Dinner

Ugh, I wrote this all last night and then lost it by an accidentally push of the wrong key! Frustration and fatigue drove me to quit and try again today.
Monday night Mark and his lovely wife Ilene took me to a wonderful restaurant. I would have never found it by myself, as is the case with many cool places around here. It was near the downtown campus and we walked up some stairs and knocked on a wooden door and went into a dark small space with a bar and a few Japanese-style seating/tables near the window in the front. I think the place was called "Regallato", and it had an Italian feel to it. In fact, the poster on the wall above the outside door was that of the "Mouth of God" relief that I saw in Rome in 2001. It is the big sun-like God relief with an open mouth. It is said if you put your hand in the mouth and you tell a lie it will close on your hand. Ouch!
Anyway, the man behind the bar created many small beautiful dishes for us all prepared on uniquely beautiful pieces of pottery. I cannot remember them all, and I had no camera as it was being charged, so I can only describe a few of them. We had a salad with baby corn, tomatoes, cucumbers with a ginger sauce, I think. We had penne pasta with avocado and prosciutto ham with an egg mixed in, we had grilled pork, I think some sushi, green tea cake that was very light and some wonderful fresh fruit with fresh fig in it. Each dish was a work of art, almost too pretty to eat. We also drank a fizzy spritzer with black currant flavoring, and later had espresso with our dessert.
Afterwards we went to their favorite "night-club" which was down a flight of stairs, through a florescent-lit hall to a door that had a neon orange sign that said "snaks". Mark and Ilene had me walk in alone and say "good evening" in Japanese to their friend behind the bar, and he was shocked to see a Western woman come in there alone! Then Mark and Ilene popped in and we all had a good laugh. Mark keeps a bottle of Chevas Regal there, along with other people's bottles of various liquor, and so he and I had a drink. Ilene was the DD, so she did not drink the Chevas. The bartender has never missed a day there in 25 years, including Sundays! He fixed me a snack of rice, ginger, and vinegar. I liked it, but not too much of it. We also had a corn snack, tofu with ginger, and soy beans. Mark and Ilene sang along with the Karaoke machine, I tried a few songs but couldn't get the key right and gave up. Good thing, as I was horrible! I guess I will keep my day job, as they say.
Ilene made me some absolutely beautiful Japanese paper sleeves for chop-sticks. They are very intricately done and have fine workmanship. Mark gave me a CD of himself (he has a wonderful voice) and a CD of their daughter, who sings professionally in Tokyo. She has a great voice, too, nice and low like I wish my singing voice was.
Here are two pics of us at the nightclub.