A friend and I ate at Crave this week. In contrast to some reports I’d read, we found the service to be excellent, and agreed with other reviewers that the food was spot on. We enjoyed a dish of mussels cooked in coconut milk & spices to start, and I had a braised lamb shank for dinner. They claimed it was in some sort of molé sauce, and though I couldn’t taste the chocolate or chiles, I found it very tasty none the less. It came with a great polenta cake – soft on the inside and fried crispy on the outside. Yum. The atmosphere is relatively casual for such upscale food, but I think that it’s successful – it doesn’t feel pretentious, but they don’t hurry you out, either. They’re often busy, but they do take reservations.

I also made it out to the ballet this week, and enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The few modern dance pieces they snuck in didn’t do much for me, but I really liked the more classical ballet choreography. Not sure if I’m ready for a full-length ballet (this was a bunch of different pieces rather than a story like the Nutcracker or Sleeping Beauty), but I’d like to go back sometime.

Frisbee finished up this weekend, but unlike past winters, I’ve still got a sport to keep me in shape during the off-season: I’ve been playing a lot of soccer recently. There’s an architecture crowd that has a pickup game twice a week and it’s just about perfect for me – it’s a reasonably athletic crew, but it’s not too serious a game. It’s been about 15 years since I played even semi-organized soccer, and I’m glad to say I’ve gotten a bit better since then.