March & April Dates

If you remember back from Valentine's Day, I created a Year of Dates for Mike, with 12 pre-planned dates for the coming year. We started in March & April & I thought it'd be fun to have you follow along in our fun!

Our March date was to go downtown to Illegal Pete's & to The Tattered Cover (bookstore) to spend some gift cards we had. Unfortunately, the only Saturday that worked for us that month was St. Patrick's Day. We headed downtown midafternoon, thinking we'd miss the lunch crowd, but that didn't happen. Illegal Pete's is right on 16th Street, & was crazy. So, we dropped the idea & went to Qdoba around the corner. Surprisingly, we were able to find a nice quiet table to enjoy our lunch. And personally I like Qdoba nachos better than Illegal Pete's, so it worked for me! We sat & had a wonderful talk over nachos, discussing the questions on our Coffee Talk cards.

Then we walked through the green crowd to The Tattered Cover, where we spent time finding books we wanted! I ended up with Ina May Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth. It comes highly recommended everywhere I turn for natural childbirth. Also got The Napping House for my cousin's baby. Michael didn't get anything because he wanted to save up a little for a newer fantasy book.

Our March challenge was to write down a list of everything we love about the other person & share on the last day. So sweet!

April was Ramen Restaurant Month for the Hollars. Michael has really wanted to try Ramen here in Denver. We had Ramen in Hawaii a few years ago & have been wanting to find a place in Denver we liked. Each weekend we picked a new Ramen restaurant to try.

Week 1: Kobe An
So, here, I actually got udon noodles, which are thicker than Ramen. But they didn't have a whole lot of choices, so I bent the rules a little. =) Let me just say I'm glad I did! The soup was delicious! Mike's Ramen was good, but the broth could have been a little more flavorful.

Kobe An restaurant in Lakewood

Michael with Kobe An's Ramen soup

Me with my Udon soup. Delish!

 Week 2: Pho 95
We decided to go a little away from Ramen this week (it's not like there's tons of choices), so we went to a Vietnamese Pho restaurant. Same concept as Ramen: Thin noodle soup. We choose our meat but didn't have a choice of broth. Michael got chicken & I got thin beef. We both liked the soup just fine, it wasn't really flavorful, but it was still good. I don't know that I'd go back anytime soon, but I'm glad we went!

Spring roll appetizers

Pho with mint, bean sprouts & some other greens

Yum!

Week 3: Domo Restaurant
This restaurant is a nice place near Downtown Denver that has an awesome atmosphere! It's an authentic Japanese restaurant complete with gardens & a museum. Here it was great: We got to try some different appetizers that came with our meal (salmon tempura, pumpkin & beans, eggplant, pork stew, thinly sliced potatoes, cabbage, & meatballs). Definitely not anything we would order on our own but it was fun to try new things! Then we got to choose the broth, noodles & meat for our Ramen soup. We both got miso base, Ramen noodles & chicken. We found out the miso base might not be as flavorful as you would expect. We both love miso soup, but think the other broth base, shoyu, is probably better. We want to go back to Domo & try the Ramen with shoyu base! It was still delicious & overall a great experience!

The gardens

Our Japanese appetizers

Our Ramen soup!

Yum!

Week 4: Oshima Ramen
Our friend Nathan told us about this place, so we decided to go with him & his now wife (as of yesterday!) Sarah. We didn't have a lot of choices, & I'm not sure what broth base they used, but it was really good! It was more flavorful than the broth at Domo. They had these marinated eggs they put in that were amazing! We also got Japanese soda, which was fun.

Michael & I

Sarah & Nathan

Ramen with marinated egg. Yummmmm.

Japanese soda!

Overall I loved this month (and I know Michael did too!)!! Our favorites in order: Kobe An (udon noodles, not Ramen though...), Oshima Ramen, Domo, then Pho 95. We want to go back to Domo & try the shoyu broth base, then I'm sure it will move up!