Some Like It Hot

If last night's date was all about the literature, tonight's was all about the music.

He was craving spicy and suggested Lemon. I countered with Curry Craft since I hadn't been since practically the first week they opened.

You have to appreciate a guy who asks you out and then lets you dictate the destination.

It was our first date, although not our first conversation and although it had been a while, we picked up where we'd left off.

First he cracked wise about being intimidated about my superior food knowledge but I assured him eating was the surest way to learning.

"You have the best job in the world," he told me.

Well, maybe, unless you like expensive houses and jewelry but fortunately I like neither.

Although now he's a banker, he's been a musician for far longer so we had loads to talk about.

Our waitress suggested we order an appetizer to tide us over since she'd already picked up on the fact that we had much to discuss and weren't in any hurry to order.

We asked for Juhu beach-style chaat (puffed rice, potatoes, green chili, red onions and pomegranate and spices), requesting it medium-hot, plenty of heat for me but my date was left wanting more.

Twenty minutes into the date and I already know he can handle more heat than I can.

We talked about some of the music we'd seen at the National, his years as a sound engineer and why 21st century bands are lucky to have decades worth of influences to pull from.

In one of those "we know we're the same generation" moments, we discussed the pleasures of album art and liner notes and how reading them can lead to discovering other musicians.

His tangent about "X" was exquisite.

After the third time our server came back to take our order, we took a minute to look at the menu and choose.

He went with chicken-mushroom dhaniwal, a Kashmiri-style chicken stew, while I got chicken khubani-zafrani for its spicy sauce boasting saffron, iris essence and apricots.

After enjoying tender chicken morsels with the sweetness of the fruit over basmati rice, I used garlic naan to sop up some of the beautifully fragrant sauce.

It didn't take us long to discover some of our shared soapboxes - iPods, photographing food, people not willing to pay for music - and I teased him that we sounded like fist-shaking blue-hairs.

Where we differ from true old folks is a shared passion for new music and smart-ass attitudes.

"I've always liked older women," he tells me.

I recognize a kindred geek when he tells me about his upcoming trip to Las Vegas and his intention to visit the neon museum, a place I would surely go should I ever end up in Vegas.

We talk about Chicago, a city we both enjoy, agreeing that walking it and looking up is enough to occupy entire days there.

I was impressed to hear that he'd made a record with a group of British musicians and he was impressed to hear what my first concert was.

He kept making obscure music references and I kept getting them while our poor server kept stopping by unnecessarily.

Eventually we let her box up our remains, mainly to give her something to do, but we continued to camp out.

Fortunately, it's the second night of a three-day weekend and the restaurant wasn't full, so we had no guilt about taking up space.

We did get mango kulfi, a creamy ice cream studded with cranberries and two kinds of nuts, a decadent ending to the meal, if not the conversation.

That didn't end until we looked up and realized four hours had passed.

Now he knows. Older women can go on and on.

Fortunately for the newly-dating, some men seem to like that.