Dinner and Dancing on Amber's Birthday

Last Saturday was my best friend Amber's birthday. You may recall that I knit some socks for her (they fit!) a couple of months ago. Anyway, she came to Dallas to celebrate her birthday with Sara and me, and we had a great time!

Sara's fiancee Brandon and I both recommended eating at Pappasito's Cantina (independently) because it is the best tex-mex food ever. James and I had taken my sister Mandy there for her birthday last year (my only prior visit), and I was really, really impressed with my fajitas. So much so, in fact, that I even broke down and got chicken AND beef fajitas this time, too. I don't feel too bad, though, because James got ribs and bacon-wrapped shrimp.

After eating a huge dinner, we drove into downtown Dallas and went to Sambuca, where the local Beatles cover band Hard Day's Night was playing. After standing in the bar area for a while (for there were no empty seats at the bar), we decided to ask for a table and figured we would have a little coffee and dessert. Our table ended up being one of those large 3-sided booth tables in an area behind the main dining room and it was completely secluded from the rest of the restaurant. I couldn't even see any other people in the place except for those at our table, so we felt very 'V.I.P.' The desserts and coffee were delicious, and I hear that the chilled Amaretto shots were pretty good, too. Our waiter was nice and took this picture of us.

This picture of Amber drinking her Amaretto shot is pretty hilarious because of the expression on Brandon and Sara's faces in the background. They look like they just dropped some poison into her drink and are eagerly awaiting her demise. We really didn't plan this photo, so that makes it even funnier.

The bathroom at Sambuca is pretty unusual because all of the walls are completely covered with mirrors. Even inside the stalls (eek!). We tried to take pictures (not in the stalls), but it was kinda dark, so they didn't turn out well. It was kinda cool and also kinda creepy.

After having our fill of Beatles songs, we left and went to the Mambo Cafe, where most of us were going to dance to Salsa and other Latin music in public for the first time. Amber was the only one who was not new to this, and to be honest, I was a little nervous. There was a live band playing out by the spotlit dance floor, and I was really enjoying the music, though not how sparsely populated and brightly lit the dancing area was. (I really didn't want to have any extra attention drawn to myself--being one of only a handful of non-Hispanic people and being a crappy dancer would already be drawing enough attention, I thought.)

When the band took a break, the lights went dim and more people went onto the floor. Good, right? No, not really...because now the music was weird Latin pop music and not Salsa. I couldn't really imagine dancing to that, so we sat back and waited for more appropriate music. Finally, one came on, so James and I went down to the floor and tried to do the steps Amber had shown us earlier...hmmm...it wasn't working so well. I was embarrassed and when the spotlights came on after just a couple of minutes, I quickly hustled off the floor with James and sat nearby while Amber danced with some of her friends from Waco.

I felt like I was in a catch-22 with the dancing situation because I wanted to dance to the band music in the dark, but that wasn't an option apparently, though those options were available separately. After a little while, I simply suggested dancing near the table where we were sitting (in the dark, far away from the dance floor and far away from most people in the club) and that seemed to work best. I felt like James and I finally did get the hang of it, and we had a lot of fun. In fact, there are rumors that we are all going again this coming Saturday, though to a different (dark, crowded, closer-to-home) place in Addison.

Thanks for getting us to experience this, Amber! It was a lot of fun!