Back when Emery and I first started dating, he took me to a very nice place in Birmingham called Bottega Restaurant. It was Valentine’s Day so he wanted to impress me. I remember looking at the menu and the first thing that I saw was oxtail. Ummm, no thanks. I don’t remember what I chose, but it was probably just the steak. And I say just the steak not because steak isn’t delicious, but because that was before my adventurous dinner days.
There was another young couple sitting at the table beside us. The girl asked the waiter if they had chicken fingers. I secretly wanted chicken fingers too, but I would never have asked. Of course the waiter snickered and said no and her date laughed at her. How embarassing! I’m glad I didn’t ask. When E ordered, he asked for the veggies to be left off. He is allergic….. Our waitress told him that his parents probably wouldn’t like that. I’m glad I didn’t ask for no veggies.
I guess that’s just the kind of treatment you get when you are too young to know better. It’s such a shame.
We went back to Bottega a couple of weeks ago for our 2 year anniversary. I’ve heard great things about the chef and since we’ve gotten older, our tastes have grown up too, even though E is still allergic to vegetables. For appetizers, we had the parmesan souffle with mushrooms and proscuitto and fried oysters. Both were great choices. For the main course, I had the venison with quinoa and roasted carrots. Emery had the seafood pasta with a light tomato basil sauce.
I can’t believe we missed this last time we were there! It was so so so good! We finished off with coffee, creme brulee and pecan biscotti. We will definitely be back soon. They even have a cafe if you just want a casual meal.
Before dinner, we stopped by Birmingham Botanical Gardens because it was such an awesome day outside. They have a ton of acres with different gardens: rose garden, herb garden, vegetable garden, southern living garden, crape myrtle garden, and many others. The conservatory housed tropical plants like banana, coffee, cacao, and desert plants. There are so many paths and sculptures that we could have spent all day roaming around. 
Our favorite was the Japanese Garden. It even had a little tea house and a koi pond.
The flowers were blooming too.
E was so sweet to walk around the gardens with me. We had a great day! Happy anniversary to us!
