Going Out

Last night we met up with an old college friend for dinner. Josh was in town on a business trip and had emailed me earlier asking if we wanted to meet up with him.

The answer was an enthusiastic yes. It has been nearly a decade since I've last seen him. He was like a little brother to me in college, albeit a six foot plus little brother that towered over me, but he is a total pussy cat. He had attended Larry's and mine wedding and five years later we in turn had gone to his. I paid him, with Jake in tow, a brief visit the summer following his marriage to visit friends in the Midwest. He is the proud papa for two boys and a girl. The youngest being a little two year old little devil that does what he wants with a smile on his face.

We arranged to met up in Asheville at a reasonably well regarded barbeque joint. Unfortunately the place decided to close early even though I had called a day earlier to confirm that they would be open for dinner.

Argh, now what would we do.

Luckily Larry and I both showed up early and Larry went off to prowl the streets for another restaurant. When Josh showed up I called Larry and he had just found a place that was open, the Ironhorse. We headed on over to get some dinner.

The place was mostly empty, which was good since we were a big party.

We were warmly greeted and shown to a table with a crisp linen tablecloth topped with a sheet of white paper. The place was not at all geared towards children, but they didn't even bat an eye over our crew of four. In fact that bent over backwards to accommodate us. There was no children's menu, but the waitress told us they did have chicken tenders and the kitchen could whip up some grill cheese sandwiches. I asked if they had pasta and she went to check with the chef. She soon came back (all she had to do was walk ten feet over to the low wall separating us from the kitchen) and said yes, but she didn't know what form. That was fine, the older boys can be flexible about pasta and the dynamic duo settled on grilled cheese.

The kids food came out in a flash and they all happily tucked in. well except for Max. He didn't like the bread and peeled apart his sandwich and ate just the cheese. I didn't let Max complain about it (they had already done so much for us and it really was fine, he can be a bit fussy about bread), instead I told him he could have ice cream for dessert along with his siblings. The rest of the dinner was marvelous. I had a shank of lamb and it was terrific, very tender and flavorful.

If we are ever up that way again I wouldn't mind going back.