An Anniversary in Quito = Numero Dos

Javier and I have been married two years (and some change)!  If you had told me on our wedding day that we'd be celebrating our second anniversary in Quito, Ecuador, I'm not sure that I would have believed you.  I would have been pumped!...but largely skeptical.  Yet here we are.  This year's celebration was kind of a quiet one.  On the 13th we went to school and spent the evening celebrating Canada's Thanksgiving.  But the following evening we went out to a lovely dinner at Zazu, a Peruvian restaurant in Quito.  (I kicked myself a bit when I went to write this post because I realized we took no pictures of the two of us on either the 13th or the night we went out to dinner.  Fail.)

There is definitely not the same 'going out to dinner' culture that I would say you find in the big cities of the US.  It is not unlikely for a good DC restaurant to be completely packed on a Tuesday night.  When we went out for Javier's birthday (also on a Tuesday) the restaurant we went to never had more than four tables occupied over the course of our dinner.  As we were approaching the restaurant, I voiced my concern that this spot might also be kind of empty (even though it was 7:45pm) and less lively of an atmosphere because of it.  Boy, was I wrong.  We hadn't bothered to make reservations and only barely got a table at the crowded restaurant for our dinner (lucky!).  It must be a popular tourist spot, because I received a menu written in English (my first since we arrived in Quito) and we heard English spoken by many patrons.

Here is a quick run down of our delicious dinner :)

We started with pisco sours, a drink we had often on our honeymoon in Chile! (Interesting fact: Chile and Peru have been arguing for years over pisco and who has the rightful claim on the drink.  Even though Peru seems to have
'won' the fight, we still think of pisco as a Chilean beverage.)

Started with pork taquitos and fried calamari.

I had swordfish with stone crab mashed potatoes and a truffle consume. Deeeeee-licious.

Javier had pistachio-crusted Ahi Tuna with wasabi mashed potatoes.

And we finished dinner with an almond chocolate cake.

I said in my instagram post on the 13th that if the next 73 years are going to be anything like the last two, I'm sticking around.  We're doing a bit more celebrating this weekend with a trip to Mindo.  We have November 1st off of school, so we're looking forward to enjoying the long weekend and our first trip in Ecuador with just the two of us.