Friday, May 2, 2008

Nini And The Cat

We had a little Birthday get together Friday for Kelly. For the occasion we went to what has fast become one of my favorite restaurants: Nini's in Easthampton.



It's located on Cottage st., one of the two main roads in Eashampton.



Walking in, there are several large vases, filled to the top with wine corks. Many happy nights must have been had here...



Tom Daponde and Judy were there first, and we had a drink before the dinner...



Meanwhile, the staff put three tables together for us in the main dining room. The rest of the group arrived and we sat down to eat. We were already half full and feeling pretty good by the time we finished off the appetizers. Kelly ordered salmon for her main course; I'm not sure what the others were eating, as my attention was given wholly over to my clams over linguine in white cream sauce. Oooooh, momma.

It was a great dinner for all, with lots of laughs, more boisterous the farther into dinner we got. Maybe a little too boisterous, as I noticed some couples around us would occasionally glance over. The service was excellent again; they went out of their way to help us set up with a high chair when a couple more friends and their two young daughters showed up. The staff also made sure dessert had a candle on it for Kelly, and we all broke into a joyous, half-buzzed rendition of "Happy Birthday". More glances.

After dinner, we took a short walk in the cool, rainy evening air.



We headed for some cocktails at the Brass Cat nearby. On the way, we passed a biker bar with the nifty name of Whiskerz. We'll have to check that out some time, when we're feeling biker-ish...



The next building housed the famous Brass Cat. This monk greeted us at the door of the 'Cat', as it's known locally, reminding us to drink responsibly...

,

A few rounds later, the conversation ranged from domestic socio-economic debate, to the disturbing trend of lower attendance at NASCAR events, to CIA intelligence gathering capabilities in pre-war Iraq. We covered each topic with varying degrees of knowledge and insight.



Meanwhile Kelly and Tom Berry cleaned up on the pool table.



A good night had by all...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

oh i didnt know it was her birthday that week. well here goes:


happy birthday to you,
happy birthday to you,
happy bithday dear kelly
happy birthday to you.

Mary E.Carey said...

We drove by Nini's last week and were wondering about it but as we knew Apollo Grill was good and we had only been there once quite a while ago, we checked it out and it was great. Next time, we'll check out Nini's on your recommendation. Happy Birthday to the (long-suffering blog star?) Kelly.

Tony said...

I saw that post you did about the Apollo. It looks pretty neat. It's on my list...