Boat Tour + Date Night

Tonight’s date night was wonderful!

Ryan and I kicked off our date nice and early with a 4 p.m. boat tour of Winter Park, a small city right outside of Orlando.

It was warm outside, but a little chilly on the lake when the wind got blowing. Thankfully the boat company had blankets to snuggle under, and I took advantage of a big fleece blanket to keep warm.

We had fun looking at all of the multi-million dollar homes on the lake. Horace Grant, a former Orlando Magic (and Chicago Bulls!) basketball player used to live on one of the lakes. His house was ginormous, but I guess a guy who’s nearly 7 feet tall would need a big house.

Ryan loved this house:

He was a big fan of the boat house. I thought the little boat house would be cool if inside was a neat little dining room to enjoy dinner on the lake. Fun, right?

The boat tour took us through several canals so we could visit a bunch of different connected lakes.

The canals were beautiful, but very narrow.

The boat tour lasted an hour and went by very quickly. Ryan and I both said we were glad we took the tour. It’s nice to learn a little history about the area where you live.

Dinner

After the boat tour we headed over to Park Avenue, a street lined with shops, boutiques and restaurants to wander around until it was time for our dinner reservations. We stopped by a chocolate shop and sampled an amazing chocolate ganache truffle and chocolate-covered movie-theater popcorn. Both were delish!

Eventually we made our way to Luma, an upscale restaurant we both were anxious to try.

We were seated immediately and our waiter informed us that all the food was organic and bought locally. A good start! He brough a basket of fresh bread to the table which Ryan and I polished it off with ease. The basket had two different types of bread in it and one tasted like Thanksgiving stuffing! It was delicious and I had one too many pieces.

Ryan ordered a duck confit salad to start. 

The duck was moist and very tender. The strawberries in the salad were definitely a highlight.

For my entrée I ordered the local organic beet salad with avocado, hazelnuts, goat cheese, oranges, figs and grapefruit.

 It was very good, but I was glad I ate a couple (4) slices of bread before so I wasn’t hungry afterward. I also shared a lot of Ryan’s fries and had several bite of his burger.

Ryan’s entrée was a hit! He ordered the Angus burger with a poached egg, white cheddar cheese and bacon. Wow-zaa!

We asked our waiter for his dessert recommendation and he suggested the sweet potato cake with marshmallow fluff ice cream.

The cake really was delicious but when it arrived we couldn’t help but quote Zoolander:

“What is this? A cake for ants!?”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9pg6CTZyKg]

Apparently we like our dessert portions “plus-sized.”

Though the dessert was teeny by our standards, it was moist and very yummy.

January date night was a success! February is Ryan’s turn to plan a date night, but he’s getting off a little easy… it’s our anniversary and Valentine’s Day in February, so no matter what he plans it’ll be extra special. 🙂