I Will If You Will

My timing was impeccable tonight.

A friend had suggested we have dinner at Six Burner and since I had no definitive plans, I agreed.

Food? Yes, sir!

We're fairly well matched in terms of our food taste, so it's usually a good time when we dine together.

With the raucous Tech fans screaming across the street at Home Team Grill, I found an oasis of calm when I walked into Six Burner.

My friend soon arrived, commented on my parking job and suggested libations. I started with Broadbent Vinho Verde and he had a vodka martini (sorry, purists).

Chef Philip had several interesting offerings (hello braised honeycomb tripe) so we ordered deviled eggs with ham to tide us over while we perused the menu.

Friend is a deviled egg fanatic and I probably haven't had one in five years, so we came at these eggs from wildly different perspectives.

We both loved them with a capital "L"; their peppery sass with just the right amount of thin-sliced ham elevated them to so much more than a picnic side dish.

Next up was house smoked eel with local muscadine grape unagi-style sauce, wasabi peas and sesame powder over local lettuces.

Our libations long gone, we got a bottle of 2002 Domaine du Viking Vouvray Cuvee Aurelie, a rich and slightly sweet golden-colored wine with an incredibly long finish.

It met its match in the foie gras-stuffed pig's foot with roasted red pepper and roasted eggplant sauce that followed.

Sadly, I couldn't talk him into the tripe (but then he doesn't like lentils, either, so he's far from perfect) so we had the Rappahannock oysters.

The selection of Old Salts, Stingrays and Witch Ducks came with a blueberry mignonette but my friend insisted on also getting a more traditional tarragon mignonette, only to prefer the blueberry.

As an ex once told me, it's not just a woman's prerogative to change her mind.

We closed out the meal with chocolate mousse although I was tempted by the house-made waffles with roasted peaches.

The problem was that I'd had a peach earlier today and my allergy probably wasn't going to allow for two in one day without my tongue blowing up like an eggplant.

I wasn't going to push it because I now had plans after dinner.

The girlfriend with the visiting boyfriend had called just before I left and invited me to join them for an after-dinner drink at Amour.

"Call first to make sure we're still there," she'd foolishly suggested. Call? As if.

How about I come by and if you guys are already gone, I'll just enjoy myself at Amour without you?

But there they were in the front window enjoying the last of their dessert and cheese plate, so I pulled up a chair.

Magically a glass of Lucien Albrecht Brut Rose, a personal favorite, arrived and my friend offered me a bite of her dark chocolate creme brulee (to-die-for good).

They told me about their day exploring Richmond, stopping at the Jefferson and Maymont, as they biked around the city.

I heard tales from the VMFA Richard Branson party the night before and raves about their meal and pairings at Amour that night.

Next on their agenda was Stella's because it was on their way home and they tried to convince me to join them there.

Awkward.

All I could think of was that if my out-of-town boyfriend was finally visiting RVA, I wouldn't want to share him with my talkative friend all evening.

I begged off and they went on their way just as a girlfriend walked through the door of Amour.

This was turning into a seamless sort of an evening.

She was coming in for a glass of wine, so I decided to stay for some girl talk and perhaps more wine.

We moved to the bar in the back, out of the glare of the bustle of Carytown on a Saturday night.

Sometimes you want to see, sometimes to be seen and sometimes neither.

As if Brut Rose and an unexpected friend weren't treats enough, owner Paul brought over a plate of little multi-colored macarons for our sampling pleasure.

They were from Petites Bouchees, a local company that's giving Richmonders a taste of a classic French cookie one small bite at a time.

I tasted chocolate with espresso butter cream, hazelnut with slated butter caramel, pistachio with bittersweet chocolate, and almond with passion fruit milk chocolate as we chatted.

We moved on to Lucien Albrecht Blanc de Blancs Brut to accompany our macaron fest

Every now and then, I'd stop and ask myself if I really needed to eat another bite and usually the Brut convinced me that I did.

The later it got, the more we kept on talking, both of us savoring the unexpected pleasure of meeting up.

I knew my dinner companion was long asleep and hopefully the lovebirds were reveling in each other's company, so I'd totally lucked out in running into a friend with her late evening free.

Recently a friend complimented me on my busy-ness and I'd made the comment to her that "Anyone could do what I do." She'd insisted that most people didn't have my stamina.

Hell, I'm thinking stamina feeds on things like Alsatian bubbles, macarons and unexpected friends.