Simply Amazing

Last night could be described with one word. Amazing!

Caleb and Audria came over to watch the boys around 7:00 while Mike and I went to dinner in downtown Fort Worth. (Brody was really excited about this. He had Mike call them beforehand to make sure they were bringing their swimsuits. Since we see Caleb & Audria so often, Barrett didn't even cry when we left. Yay!!!) I didn't know where we were going to dinner...I just knew that Mike had made reservations for 7:45. When we walked into Simply Fondue...I wasn't overly excited. I'd never had fondue before and thought, "We're gonna eat a whole dinner dipped in cheese?!? I don't really even like cheese!" Little did I know that fondue is much more than just cheese.

We were seated in a secluded booth and every person that waited on us wished us a happy anniversary (I guess Mike told them it was our anniversary when he made the reservations).We ordered the dinner for two which was really a 4 course meal. We started off with a cheese fondue (Mediterranean: A blend of sharp cheddar, garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes) in which we dipped fresh breads, crisp veggies and fruit.

Next came salads. I had the Gorgonzola Greens (mixed field greens, juicy tomatoes, diced cucumber, California chapped walnuts and herbal croutons tossed in a house raspberry vinaigrette dressing topped with crumbled gorgonzola cheese) and Mike had The Greek (crisp romaine lettuce, kalamata olives, sweet red onion, crumpled feta cheese, and herbal croutons tossed in our homemade vinaigrette dressing).

For the main course, we got to pick six different meats that we could batter and cook in a soybean oil in the fondue bowl at our table. We chose bacon wrapped beef, honey almond chicken, beef tenderloin, rosemary garlic chicken, smoked beef sausage, and black tiger shrimp which were served along with veggies, cheese ravioli, stuffed mushrooms, jalapeno poppers, and broccoli cheese bites. There were 5 different dipping sauces to experiment with too! This is when I realized that fondue is WAY more than just cheese!!

It was so fun to pick the different food and cook it ourselves, but we finally had to stop so that we had room for the dessert course! There was a list of 16 different chocolates to choose from. Mike left that choice up to me and it was hard! I finally decided on Pecan Caramel Swirl (rich creamy caramel, delicious imported milk chocolate, and crunchy pecans). When our waitress brought the chocolate to our table, she asked us to get a marshmallow on our fondue fork. We watched as she lit the chocolate on fire and told us we could roast our marshmallows until the fire went out!

Along with marshmellows, we had numerous other things to dip. There was pound cake, triple chunk brownies, rice crispy treats, plump strawberries, pineapples, cinnamon cheese balls, maraschino cherries, rolled cookies, and tasty banana chunks! I think because it was our anniversary, they also brought us glasses of champagne.

Simply Fondue was more than just dinner, it was an experience! The dinner took over an hour and a half to eat and we definitely didn't leave hungry! I also have a brand new perspective on the word "fondue".

We walked around downtown for a little bit and then we headed for home. The boys were in bed and Caleb and Audria watching tv in the media room when we arrived. After they left, we headed to the backyard to do some stargazing and late night swimming. Around midnight we finally headed to bed...wondering how late the boys would let us sleep.