Joe and Tricia's Excellent Adventure

Joe and I have been feeling, lately, that our lives are lacking excitement. Our weekends are usually spent cleaning and grocery shopping, watching TV and sometimes going out to eat. We feel like we're kind of stuck in a rut. We've really been focusing so much on fertility treatments and doctor appointments and the future that we've forgotten that we are young and can still go out and have fun and do stuff. Once we have kids we'll probably wish for lazy days like these. So we've been thinking about things we'd like to do and have been trying to be a little more spontaneous and adventurous.

We're already planning a trip to Tallahassee in October to see a Florida State game and we know we want to get over to Tampa for a Tampa Bay Bucs game in December. We've been thinking of little weekend trips that we could take too. But, for the time being, and until I start getting some nice new paychecks we're thinking on a smaller scale.

So, last night, instead of ordering our usual Chinese take-out from our usual (and favorite) local Chinese restaurant and sitting on the couch watching a That 70's Show marathon on Spike TV and going to bed around 10pm, we decided to spice things up and head out into the real world. We're not drinkers so we're not going to head out to a bar. We're not dancers (Joe isn't anyway) so a night club is out. We really weren't in the mood for a movie either. So, we decided on dinner out. I know, it's not really that adventurous but baby steps, right?

So, we decided dinner but didn't want to go to any "regular" place. Nothing in Titusville, not Mexican, not a chain restaurant, nothing that we do all the time. There is a place in Cape Canaveral called "Thai Thai" that I've heard is awesome. They have sushi, which I love, but also cooked food for Joe. We thought, "Brilliant!" something new and exciting! So off we went to Cape Canaveral. Thirty minutes later we pull into "Thai Thai" and find the parking lot packed and people waiting outside. We were both really hungry by this point and starting to get cranky so we decided that we'd skip it and keep driving until we found something else. We headed south towards Cocoa Beach.

Joe thought he remembered a restaurant called Lotus-something so we were looking for that. We never found it but did pass by a restaurant called "Yen Yen" that has been in Cocoa Beach forever. We were even hungrier by then and neither of us had ever eaten there so we decided "Yen Yen" was the winner. We walked in the door and were both a little shocked. The waiters and waitresses were dressed in tuxedos with bow ties and the man at the podium asked if we had reservations. We immediately felt way under dressed, Joe in his t-shirt and shorts and me in my jeans and flip flops. But, there was no wait so we got right in and ducked into a booth before anyone noticed our lack of dressiness.

The decor of the restaurant was interesting to say the least. The booths and the drapes were both made out of pink velvet. There were chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and a step down dining area in the middle of the restaurant with diamond-shaped mirror accents on the walls. The table we sat at had a picture of the "Mona Lisa" hanging above it. It reminded me of a restaurant you'd see on The Godfather minus the mobsters in the corner booth smoking cigars and drinking brandy out of big snifters. But, whatever, we were there and hungry.

The menu had a lot of choices on it so we decided to both try new and interesting things. We both ordered soup, me hot and sour and Joe egg drop, and some Szechuan wontons. The soup was ok but the wontons were not. They were covered in a red goo-like sauce that looked more like menstrual blood (sorry- gross) than sauce. But, again, we were hungry and trying to be adventurous so we dug in. Not good. I have no idea what was inside the wontons but they were not pleasant. Then our dinner arrived. I ordered the beef and scallops and Joe ordered the Beijing trio which was shrimp, chicken, and beef. When I read "beef and scallops" on the menu I thought it would be beef and scallops mixed together in the same sauce with the same vegetables. It wasn't. The beef was on one side of the plate in one type of sauce and the scallops were on the other in a different sauce. It was very strange. Joe's plate was covered in fried noodles and you couldn't even see what was underneath. It looked like a bird had made it's nest right there on his plate. We still went for it though with high hopes that it would be delicious.

My beef was so rare I couldn't even eat it. It was still purple on the inside and the sauce was not good. The scallops were very soft and squishy and the sauce on them wasn't good either. Joe's dinner was a little better flavor-wise but still not great. The steamed white rice was delicious though. We finished our "meal" and were slowly starting to wonder why we'd never heard any review, good or bad, about this restaurant before. Joe's theory was that once you walked in, you could never leave. We said we'd probably walk out the door and be back in the restaurant again like a bad Twilight Zone episode. We were practically delirious by that point. We couldn't tell if it was from the raw meat and bad seafood or if they'd slipped ruffies into our drinks. Then the bill arrived.

FIFTY-ONE FREAKING DOLLARS!! We both almost died when we saw the check. We'd seen the prices on the menu but usually don't mind paying a little more for a good dinner. Now we knew what the smirk on Mona Lisa's face was all about. We could not believe we'd just spent $50 ($60 with a tip) on raw meat and period blood. We payed our check and ran-walked out of that place, thankful that the door did indeed lead outside. We got in the car and wondered how the hell that restaurant had managed to stay open for so many years. We still have no idea.

On the way home we started thinking about our plan to be more adventurous. Maybe we'd already gotten the plan right. I mean, sitting at home is comfortable. We can wear our baggy pajamas and not have to worry about being judged by some Asian man in a bow-tie, we can lay down on our comfortable couch and get up for a drink or a snack or a bathroom break, we can watch pretty darn funny TV and laugh out loud and we can eat GREAT food for 1/3 of the price we'd paid for a crappy dinner. All without the hour round-trip drive, the money wasted on gas, and without leaving our dogs home alone.

I think last night's dinner taught us to stop worrying about what we could be doing and start enjoying what we are doing. It may not be exciting or glamorous but it's pretty freaking awesome, if I do say so myself.