A zillion years ago, I wrote a post here entitled 70 At Home Date Nights Ideas On the Cheap.
It is, to date, my most popular post on this blog. By a LOT.
It is also slightly ridiculous.
This is not to say that we’ve never done some of these — we have. But at home date night with a 5-yr-old tends to look like, “What’s on TV tonight?” “Nothin.” “Wanna binge watch something on the laptop in bed?” “YES. Let me put on my jammies.” (At 7:30pm.)
What can I say? We are old, and we are tired, and we really like watching bad TV on the laptop in our jammies.
It is a little hilarious to me that I was more ambitious about date night when I had a 2 yr old than a 5 yr old.
BUT we do try to actually go out — without the kiddo — at least once a month.
And in February, I noticed that they were going to be playing The Maltese Falcon on the big screen for its 75th anniversary. And I knew what we were going to do.
(You like how I consult my husband about what he wants to do? Yeah, me too.)
It only sealed the deal when we were invited to check out the new Rewind lounge at 1515 Restaurant in Denver.
We took in the matinée downtown at the Pavilions theater on the 16th Street Mall. How do you describe seeing Bogey on the big screen? It was amazing. I’d forgotten how funny bits of it are, and how clever the dialogue. It stands the test of time well, with a mystery just as intriguing and engaging now as it was then.
After the movie, we wandered down the 16th Street Mall, something we rarely do, and ended up at the opposite end at the Tattered Cover bookstore, where I promptly bought a copy of The Maltese Falcon — the original novel by Dashiell Hammett.
At the appointed hour, we wandered back up a few blocks to Market and 15th and took in the lovely new Rewind lounge on the first floor of Restaurant 1515.
The lounge combines the old and the new, the classic and the modern. It’s a brand-new, green-certified, modern space on the first floor, right below the more traditional fine-dining atmosphere of the restaurant above.
The menu is mostly classic French cuisine with some exciting small plates and molecular gastronomy thrown in for fun. They also have an award-winning wine list — with plenty of bottles around $20 (all the way up to hundreds of dollars), and an innovative bar manager who likes to play with molecular techniques.
A perfect mix of classic and modern.
I chatted with the chef as he warmed chunks of fresh mozzarella in slowly simmering water, then placed them over a CO2 canister and blew them up with garlic-scented air to create a pillowy, ethereal centerpiece for a caprese salad sprinkled with balsamic vinegar “caviar.”
Next to him, another chef deftly seared Japanese wagyu beef on hot stones for delicate, perfectly cooked bites of heaven.
We sampled classic escargot and Dover sole en papillote and sipped cheerfully unusual cocktails, including a raspberry “lemonade” with shattered raspberry garnish, and an orange basil “old fashioned” that was decidedly not.
Maybe the best part of the Rewind Lounge is that it’s an easy way to have an elegant meal. Here’s what I mean:
While the Lounge has its own, very accessible, menu of tasty small plates and Asian-inspired bites, you can also order from the full 1515 menu.
And you can get a table there at the last minute, without a reservation.
Which is just about the perfect recipe for a date night for me at this stage of the game.
