Thursday night John and I met friends, Will Skelton and Kim Robinette at Soccer Taco on Market Square for dinner and lots of catch up conversation. Will and Kim have been doing such exciting things (together and/or independently) as skiing in Utah, paddling in the Everglades and exploring Jordan and Israel. Whew, those of us who work can only enjoy the stories and wonder what travel will unfold for those two in the coming months.
We had agreed to meet the Will and Kim at 6:30 PM and were running marginally late. As we hurried in the cold toward the south end of the Square, (Market Rectangle as noted by Norris Dyer in this week’s Metro Pulse), we glanced through the windows of several popular restaurants. Most had only a handful customers seated around a few tables. It was after all, a winterish Thursday night and most folks were warm and cozy at home. But as we opened the door to Soccer Taco (our first visit), we were greeted by a totally different atmosphere. Every table was full. Fresh faced, young professional chatted over drinks and dinner. The restaurant literally hummed with activity. Hmmmm, this is fun.
Will and Kim arrived about the same time and we were ushered to a booth in the back. Perfect! For first 1/2 hour, John sipped on a Doseki while the rest of us drank water (tea), worked through a bucket of warm chips and spicy salsa and talked. I am sure our waiter would have appreciated our order much earlier but we finally got around to the menu and our selections, fish tacos for me and shrimp quesadilla for John.
I don’t know if it was the company, the conversation or the lively atmosphere, but the food was delicious. John spent a lot of time transferring fish taco tangy cheese sauce from my plate to his quesadilla but I pretended not to notice. Will and Kim seemed pretty happy with their fish tacos and vegetarian buritos too. We sat and ate, talked and talked…a waiter’s worst kind of table.
Finally around 8:40, some 2 hours after we walked in, I started to get sleepy. We broke up the conversation, paid our check and the four of us walked back to the State Street garage. John and I headed home to get ready for work, while Will and Kim headed toward Gay Street and the Rivera Theater to catch a 9:00 PM film. Another great night in the books with a couple of our favorite people.
