Tall Tara

I’m married to a foodie. There are many restaurant moments that come right out of my kitchen.

Also? I live in a town recently profiled in the WSJ and called “the best small city for great meals”.

So when I say it’s hard to pick the best restaurant experience of the year, I really mean it. I’m extremely fortunate to live in a place with such amazing food because I know what it’s like to live in a place where those choices don’t exist. (Hello, Wyoming…I’m looking at you…)

However, when thinking about my best restaurant meal of 2009, my thoughts leave the Boulder scene and head west. Not to the foodie capital of San Francisco, but to a certain dinner I had in Sin City. Yes, Las Vegas.

Seriously.

It’s hard for me to believe as well. My family went on many a summer vacation to Vegas and all-you-can-eat buffets were seared into my memory. It was always more about quantity than quality. Cheap food just seemed to go hand in hand with Vegas.

But, something happened on my last trip there.

Maybe it’s the fact that it was my first time with a celebrity chef?

Photo credit: Reality TV Magazine

Or that I was slap-happy after a long weekend working the booth at Blog World?

Photo credit: Grace

Maybe it was my dinner companion? (Hello, Grace, I’m looking at you…) Or the fact that we had been reassured, on our way to dinner, by a young man going the opposite direction on the escalator, that “we looked good”?

Photo credit: Grace

Whatever the reason, the meal that I had at Todd English’s Olives restaurant was to die for.

Okay, perhaps this had a little something to do with it?

Photo credit: Grace

I did not know until that meal that free range chicken really does taste better. And don’t even get me started on the hand-rolled butternut squash tortelli. Did I mention the olives? Because there were lots of olives.

There was only one thing better than dinner. No, not the banana tiramisu, although it was phenomenal. The conversation, laughs and bonding that went on between Grace and I. Big hands and small hands “literally”, as Grace would say, came together that night. Between the tasty food and the delicious subjects of discourse, this was definitely my best restaurant moment of 2009.

See?

Gen X and Gen Y can get along.

As long as good food is involved.