Get Lost

"I wanna get lost...Oh lost in you." - The Babies

I'm a creature of habit. I rarely try anything new unless I'm forced into it. Such was the case on Saturday night when Jerry and I went to see Anna Karenina in Durham. You might be wondering why on earth we drove two hours just to watch a movie. Well, I really wanted to see it and the Raleigh/Durham area was the closest place it was playing. We don't get the artsy type movies around these parts. In fact, even in the Triangle, it was only playing in a couple of old, historic theaters that are known for playing indie films. I chose to see it at the Carolina Theater in downtown Durham because I had been there once before about 12 years ago when I lived in Durham. It also happens to be just down the road from a certain store...

After I got my shop on which including purchasing the dress for my upcoming office holiday party (reviews coming soon), we made our way towards downtown with the intention of stopping at the local "On the Border" restaurant. We pretty much eat at "On the Border" every single time we are in that area. Like I said, I'm a creature of habit. It's yummy, it's affordable, we like it, so we go. We always eat at the one in Cary, but the Cary location was not going to work this time because it was in the opposite direction we were going. However, I remembered that there was a Durham location I used to frequent on my lunch break around the turn of the century (Jeez, that makes me sound really old, but it's true.), so we decided to give that one a try. Of course, when we got there we discovered that it was no longer there. It's funny how it had been 12 years since I had been there, but in my mind it seemed like last month. How dare they close my favorite restaurant!

So, it was on to plan B: Go ahead to the theater, purchase our tickets, and then find a place near the theater to eat. Thank God for GPS, because downtown Durham is confusing as hell to me, and one way streets freak me out! We made it to the theater relatively easily and then made our way on foot to find something to eat. The first place we found was a fancy, wood-fired pizza joint. The only problem was it was small, busy, and had a very long wait time. Our movie started in an hour, so that wasn't really an option. The next place we saw just said "Whiskey." Not really what I had in mind for dinner... At the end of the block we noticed an awning that said "Bar and Tapas." Unfortunately, we are a couple of country hicks and had no idea what "Tapas" meant, but we were running out of time and options, so we decided to give it a try.

As soon as we walked in we were greeted by a hostess who wanted to know if we had a reservation. I said, "No," and she said it was going to be a 30 minute wait unless we wanted to sit at the two open seats at the bar. At this point, we felt defeated and decided to just have a couple of drinks there and eat after the movie. The bartender informed us that we could eat at the bar if we wanted to and gave us a menu to look at. We ordered drinks, and began looking over the menu. I've been to fancy restaurants before, but the menus are always intimidating to me. This one was in Spanish, but thankfully had English descriptions.

We decided to play it safe and order a bread plate that came with 3 dips. You can never go wrong with bread. 5 minutes later, our plate came out, and it was delicious. We were scarfing it down like a couple of savages. My favorite dip was made from olives, and I don't even like olives. At this point, I was starting to feel the effects of the Rum, made more potent by the fact that I drank it on a empty stomach. I yelled out, "Bartender, please bring us another plate!" This time we ordered garlic shrimp. Once again it was out in 5 minutes and was delicious. Man, we were really digging this place. Hmm...this place...I remembered that I had no idea what the name of this place was, so I scanned the menu and saw the word Mateo at the top. I Googled it on my phone and found out that the name of the place was Mateo Tapas. I also found out what Tapas meant: small plates of food. It was all making sense now, the small plates of food coming out at lightning fast speeds. I couldn't believe our luck. It really was the perfect place to eat given our time constraints. I ordered another drink and one more plate of food, meatballs in a field pea stew. I thought I would eat the meatballs and leave the field peas to Jerry, but once again, I found myself eating something I normally hate. The field pea stew was scrumptious. With our bellies full, we quickly cashed out and made it to our movie just in time.

Ok, so I just read ALL THAT back, and I realize that this is starting to sound like a lame attempt at a food blog. Don't worry that's not my intention. If you couldn't tell, I'm about as far away from a foodie as you can get. The moral of my story is this: "Don't be afraid to try something new." If we had gone to the same old "safe" chain restaurant, we wouldn't have had this wonderful new experience. I'm really going to try harder in the future to push myself to do things out of my comfort zone. I guess sometimes we have to get lost in order to find something better.    

The Babies - Get Lost