I Saw the Crescent, You Saw the Whole of the Moon

When people ask me for some of my favorite restaurants, I never fail to mention Aziza's on Main.

So when I'm getting together with a couple date plus one, Aziza's comes to mind as an ideal place to suggest.

Terrific food, well-priced wine, easy-going and friendly staff, and always a surprise or two on the menu.

So it was that I ended up there tonight with three friends, where a familiar server greeted me by saying, "I went to M Bistro and you were right about the lobster roll. It was great!" Well, duh.

The four of us took over the tiny bar and began with a Chilean Sauvignon Blanc to get the party started. Aziza's wine prices are hard to beat.

After my friend Holmes had given me sufficient crap about the recent Lemaire incident, here, by greeting me with, "Please don't steal my soul," we moved on to first courses.

Everyone was intrigued by Fontina fondue with caramelized onions, thyme and grilled bread, plus we got the summer squash salad with fried squash blossom, tapendade and buffalo mozzarella, watermelon gazpacho with cucumber, onion and parsley and Old Chatham "Nancy" Camembert, a Hudson Valley sheep's cheese.

I'd give top prize to the Fontina fondue with the Nancy (which I knew from Secco that I liked) a close second. Perhaps I was just in a cheese frame of mind.

Or make that cheesy. My friend Holmes continued to tease me about being targeted by strange men when out and about.

He's known me for years, so it's probably hard for him to imagine me as the object of someone's desire. And frankly, I second that.

The music tonight suited Holmes, who enjoys vintage tunes from the 60s, of which we heard plenty.

Neil Sedaka, the Righteous Brothers and Gene Vincent all reared their moldy, if melodic, heads.

As far as dinner goes, it's silly not to go with pizza when you have the city's largest brick pizza oven a few steps away.

The couple got the pepperoni and mushroom and the girl and I had onion and pepperoni.

Both pizzas were red, which is never my first choice, but any Aziza's pizza is good, so I didn't complain about the unnecessary tomato sauce.

But give me  a choice and I'll always take a white pizza.

We were talking about my friend's impending visit by her out-of-town boyfriend who will make his first trek to RVA next week.

She was teasing our mutual friend Holmes about being well-behaved in front of her beloved.

It's enough that he's wearing his vintage tux, wide-lapeled and black with white nubs and a ruffled pink shirt to the VMFA party they're attending that night.

I say it's a good way to introduce her boyfriend to Bygones and its treasure trove of vintage clothing.

As it is, she's planning to wow him with Sally Belle's, the VMFA, Chiocca's, Maymont, Amour, the Byrd and the Jefferson brunch.

If that's not a sampling of Richmond, I don't know what is.

One in our group wanted to have dessert at Stella's tonight (baklava was calling her) but we outvoted her and stayed for cream puffs.

It seems a shame to me to eat at Aziza's and not partake of one of their stellar cream puffs, if only to eat the chocolate ganache off of it.

Honestly though, we ate the entire thing and she stopped whining about baklava.

By the time we finished, it was only a little after 10, so while the couple was happy to head home and my friend had to be up early to travel tomorrow, I was nowhere near ready for bed.

Instead I continued east and stopped at M Bistro for a drink.

On my last visit there, the bartender had highly recommended  a tequila new to Virginia, Espolon.

Just as mine was set down in front of me, the guy next to me turned from his date and said, "Straight tequila, that's impressive."

It's not really, not any more so than drinking single batch scotch straight, and I explained to him why I drink it and how I got started (yes, the same radio station story I've shared here before).

I did like the Espolon, though; it had a soft mouth feel and a nice spiciness that made me wonder why anyone would pay for Patron when so many better sipping tequilas are out there.

The couple next to me were celebrating her birthday with a whirlwind evening: Can Can, Secco, Water Grill, the Boathouse and finally M Bistro.

Secco aside, that wouldn't have been my five choices, but it was a very sweet date and he was quite proud of himself for the evening.

His desire to make her happy was unquestionably charming.

Driving back toward the city, I couldn't help but admire the sliver of a crescent moon hanging in the night sky. There's just something about the potential of a crescent moon.

Too high, too far, too soon.