A couple Saturday nights ago, my husband and I met up with friends of ours in Princeton. They live near his parents' outside of Philadelphia, so Princeton seemed to be a good meeting place in between. We tried to make reservations ahead of time at Blue Point Grill, a seafood place that we had been to a couple years ago with his parent's. However, a week ahead, all we could get for four was at 4PM or 9:30PM, both times which were just unacceptable for a nice dinner with friends. We still tried to go as walk ins. We met the other couple at the restaurant after finding parking six blocks away, running out of change trying to fill the meter, getting awful blood blisters on my feet from my new shoes and freezing ourselves on the six block walk to the restaurant. A day earlier, it had been a surprising 80 degrees and even that Saturday had been in the 60s, but by nightfall, it dropped back to the 40s, so we were completely unprepared coat-wise. We went inside hoping that maybe there would be a cancellation or that they had room for walk-ins, not reserving out the entire restaurant. Alas, we were told that the wait would be an hour and a half to two hours. Since it was a BYOB and there didn't seem to be a bar close by, we left. As a side note, the restaurant did offer to seat us at the sushi counter right away, but we wanted a setting fit for good conversation for our double date, so we passed.
The other wife had been to a little hole-in-wall Mexican restaurant called Tortuga's nearby at lunch one time, so we went to check it out. My husband and I are not really "Mexican restaurant" kind of people. I mean we enjoy homemade tacos for dinner once every couple weeks but when we choose to eat out, we never go the Mexican route. So we were a little nervous and hesitant but with no other options, we went with the flow. We hiked back to our car, thinking how lucky the next person who took our spot would feel with the meter fully paid for several hours. We put the address the other couple gave us into our GPS - 44 Lehigh ("like the college") - and headed in that direction. They told us that the restaurant was in a residential section of town so not to be worried if we ended up in an area surrounded by houses. Well, needless to say, there is a 44 Lehigh in Princeton and it is definitely in a residential area, but it is actually a house, not a Mexican restaurant. We looked around, figured out that we were definitely in the wrong spot, were very grateful for our iPhones and realized that the restaurant was at 44 Leigh instead. Luckily, it didn't take us too long to find our way back, and the other couple had stopped along the way at an ATM and a liquor store, so we weren't too late. The wait at Tortuga's was only half an hour so we waited. I'm very happy we did. We enjoyed chips and guacamole for an appetizer and shrimp tacos and spicy chicken for dinner. It was very tasty. I am very happy that we were able to try it.
Next weekend, we are actually heading back to Princeton to try Blue Point Grill again. This time we made reservations two weeks in advance.
No comments:
Post a Comment