Day 26

We ended up not going out for Indian last night. We thought we might hook up after dinner with this guy Barry works with and his wife. Their kids were sick and they wanted not to go all the way "downtown". So we went to this restaurant called Mark's Bistro recommended by the waiter from the Sushi place. Coincidentally that is where Barry's friend and his wife ended up eating.

Mini-Review of Mark's Bistro
Not in a Strip Mall = 10
Atmosphere - 10 (had a beautiful outdoor patio that reminded us of Bistro Aix in SF)
Service - 5 - extremely slow and not in a good "I don't want to rush you" way, in a I ordered a glass of wine that took 10 minutes to show up way. They were not busy
Food - 6 - Nothing special. It was ok. Barry had Local grass fed lamb so they get points there. I tasted it and it was good, but not die for good. I liked his cumin sweet potatoes that it was served with, though it seemed the wrong season for sweet potatoes and also the pomegranate sauce. I had almond encrusted tilapia. The almond encrusting was a bit thick and seemed more like breading obscuring the flavor of the fish. The mango salsa on top made the breading soggy and it wasn't as tasty as I would have liked.

So over all it gets a 6.2 though grading on the curve for Omaha we give it an 8!

I really liked the area Dundee where the restaurant is. We looked at three houses there and it made me second guess my decision not to live in a cooler area where we could walk to a cute little street. I had to go over my thought process again as to why I chose not to live there. 1. The school district is not very good and I didn't get a good vibe from when I visited the elementary school. 2. The lots were tiny and for the money the rooms were kind of cramped especially the kitchen 3. There were some kind of sketchy looking areas around it. So the positives a really pretty neighborhood and a little street with restaurants (that was smaller even than Central Street in Evanston) didn't really offset the negatives enough. Plus, we can always drive there to eat/hang out etc.

Ended up not hooking up with Barry's friend. We tried one bar where there was supposed to be live music at 9, but at 9:15 he wasn't even there or setting up or anything and the bar had a weird vibe to it and was really smokey. They are trying to get rid of smoking here also and some bars have already complied like the trendy English pub theme place called Parliament Pub. It was fun to see the night life of "trendy West Omaha". Kind of like North Shore lite.

We were home by 10, but it was a really fun evening and so nice to have a great date night with Barry.