The Riverview Wine Bar

I checked the mail at work this afternoon and found this post card advertising the photographic talents of some guy named Randal Ford. While I'd rather not focus on exactly which rung I'm on at this agency's ladder, I'm going to guess it's not near the top enough to be picking out various photogs for our shoots. Still, I liked this thing I got. It's a side by side photo inspired by Normal Rockwell of a lady and man (with ridiculous lips) waiting for a marriage counselor. He's got a black eye and she's got a "Well, it's nothing to get too bent out of shape about" look on her face. The adjoining photo is the woman looking slyly into the camera, one gloved hand at her cheek. The irony and the iconic style add a bit of whimsy to battery. Naturally, I kept it and it's now adorning my bulletin board next to my Film Noir picture of me at Matt taken at the Turf Club.
Spousal abuse turned my mind to spousal neglect, which in turn reminded me of my Saturday night this past weekend. Matt had taken off for Duluth to spend some time with his buddy Nick and a few other dudes playing cards and practicing flatulence.
Thankfully, dear Andy didn't have any plans for the day. We met at 4:30 at the Riverview Theater for an afternoon showing of the last Harry Potter movie. We were seated in a nearly capacity theater with a lot of sneezing, coughing, fidgeting children, but the movie was really fun. Afterwards we walked ourselves across the street to the Riverview Wine Bar. I've only been there a couple of times before and each was with my friend Stacy. I hadn't sampled enough of the food to know whether I could recommend it or not. I can say that the menu is a wonderful thing. The first page is full of different wine flights that you can try. The rest is all various wines. I'm talkin' three full pages of wines to be poured by the glass or guzzled by the bottle and one piddly insert full of tasty food options.
It's a rather small room and always seems to be full. We were lucky to find a couple of seats at the window bar. I consulted the one page insert and we decided to order one of the pizzas. I got a cabernet and I can't remember what Andy ordered. Both glasses of wine were superb as was the service. My wine was a hefty wallop of chocolate, cherry, blackberry and leather. It was a sturdy winter wine and I absolutely loved it. Hers was a little lighter and less fruity, but also really, really tasty.
The pizza we ordered had about nearly everything on the menu on top of it. There was cheddar cheese, blue cheese, bacon, pepperoni - it was OUTSTANDING. Really, the crust was super crispy and the blue cheese flavor changed the wine I was sipping, making it a much more interesting flavor (and I'd liked it before!)
Another food thing that I tried was an appetizer with three different spreads. That one wasn't as good as this, although it wasn't really bad, either. One of the spreads was blue cheese and roasted bell pepper and I loved that. Oddly enough, I didn't like the tapenade. It was briny in a cheap olive kind of way. The third was an apple and brie spread that I was also surprised to find that I did not enjoy. It was too agressive of a brie. They didn't pair well as apples and cheese are supposed to. Bad brie!
This is such a little neighborhood gem. I wish I lived in one of those adorable little bungalows right off the river. I'd take up gardening! I can see me now, knelt on a tidy little gardener's pad - one I'd stitched myself from oilcloth, nifty little bandana tied over my head, working steadily on my prize wining dahlias. Matt would watch me from the door, coffee cup cradled in one hand, tattered blue robe blowing in the morning breeze and a fresh new shiner darkening his eye.