Happy Memorial Day! Hubby and I spent Saturday evening celebrating our anniversary (a little early) at Charlotte’s famous McNinch House. It was wonderful! I started off by putting on my new dress:

Then we headed off to the McNinch House, an historic home built in 1891 and named after a former mayor of the Queen City. The home is gorgeous and I am surprised (and glad!) it was able to avoid the Queen City’s tear down trend.

We started off our dinner enjoying a glass of Riesling on the porch:

Then the dinner extravaganza began. This was by far the longest and most expensive ($400!!, never would have done this without the gift certificate!) dinner I have ever had in my life. I can’t believe people would ever pay this much for one dinner, but it was nice being catered to, especially with my picky food preferences.

Dinner started with a delicious crab-cake, by far the best one I have ever had:

Our appetizer was Tempura Shrimp (YUMMY!) with some sort of purple potatoes and horseradish sauce. Hubby loved the potatoes!

Then arrived a salad course (that I didn’t get a good photograph of and did not eat because it was covered in chopped raisins that I could not seem to eat around, ick!). Next was a rich white asparagus soup with truffle oil and served with a light, fluffy bread. All the flowers and herbs are also grown on the estate by the current owner who still lives on the second story of the home.

Our waiter brought me a tasting of wine called Evolution, that paired well with my food choices so I ordered a full glass.

To cleanse our palate, the next course was a White Peach Sorbet and it was heavenly. I could have been happy with a very large serving of this as my meal!

Time for the main course…Hubby had a grass fed organic sirloin that he vowed was the best steak of his life. Poor guy doesn’t get very much meat with me around I chose a Mushroom Gnocchi that was also quite tasty.

I was feeling pretty full (but not uncomfortably so) at this point, and still two more courses to go. Parmesan Crisps with gorgonzola cheese and a fig compote. I loved it, but hubby is not a gorgonzola fan. The presentation of everything was also beautiful, lots of attention to detail.

And lastly, dessert! Usually this is my favorite part of the meal, but honestly I did not like this at all. I am a cake and icing kind of gal, and this was not working with my taste buds. The chocolate cake part was good, but the white chocolate mouse tasted like whipped cream (ick!) and there was a layer of blackberry compote that I wasn’t feeling either. I am sure most people would love this, but it just wasn’t my ideal dessert.

It was the perfect place for a romantic anniversary dinner and the food was delicious. Without the gift certificate from hubby’s boss we would have never been able to go here, so I was thankful for the opportunity to spend a romantic night eating delicious gourmet food! I think our real anniversary on Wednesday will be spent with pizza and chocolate cake, definitely more our style