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Two Valentines Day Dinners

My husband made reservations at Timpanos for actual Valentines Day. The restaurant is around the corner and we've gone before for Valentines Day, even without a reservation. In the past they've had a Valentines special where you get drinks, some sort of appetizer, two entrees, and their awesome dessert tree which had chocolate covered strawberries and cheesecake pops. No such luck this year. Not only did we have to wait around for a half an hour even though we made a reservation this year, they also didn't have the same Valentines special they've had in the past. This year you could get lobsters as the special, otherwise you could order off the regular menu. Our waitress took forever to take a drink order so by the time she showed up we had chosen everything we wanted to eat. We both ordered salads, the aged steaks and two sides. The salads came out first and were great. Then our steaks came out. Then there was a horrible crash of dishes and turns out those were our sides. The waitress offered to put our food under a heat lamp. Um no thank you. When you have a $30 steak you don't put it under a heat lamp. We ate the steaks without any sides. Later our sides showed up. Never did the manager come to our table and apologize or anything. We also weren't compensated at all for the fallen food. The only Pro for Timpanos is the food. The steaks were wonderful and so was the truffle mac n cheese. We wont be back. They also took the cheesecake pops I loved so much off the menu several months ago according to the waitress. The whole experience took over 2 hours and not because we were enjoying ourselves.

My husband made reservations for 6 of us to eat at Firehouse in Old Town several weeks ago. We arrived early and walked around Old Town until it was time for our reservation. 2 other friends in our party had arrived and were told the table wasn't ready. 15-20 minutes after our reservation we were seated with 4 out of 6 people in our party. The other 2 were having trouble parking. The waitress took our drink order right away and my husband put in an appetizer order. The appetizer came out moments later before the drinks arrived. We tried the reuben eggrolls and they were really good. They have Boylans root bear and birch beer. I ordered birch beer. I love that stuff! Our other two friends arrived and we put in our dinner orders and other drink orders. One bottle of wine was ordered and it was brought to the table and offered for approval before the whole bottle was poured. I ordered the bison short rib stroganoff. It is the reason we were at the restaurant in the first place because this dish was on the tv show "Best Thing I Ever Ate" as a twist on a classic that is awesome. Three other people at our table ordered prime rib and even though they ordered the 10 ounce it was HUGE. The horseradish potatoes were really good (I tried my husband's). Two people at our table ordered scallops and they cleaned their plates. For dessert my husband and I tried the dessert sampling where they have homemade donut, snickers bar, hostess cupcake etc. I liked the homemade snickers bar the best. Another person in our party ordered the mint icebox type pie. It was good. It was weird that it tasted like mint ice cream but was mousse that didn't melt. I liked the dessert but I don't think it was for my palate. All the pros: restaurant is beautiful, the wait wasn't very long, the staff were great the food was awesome, the restaurant isn't very noisy (we were on the second floor so it might have been a little due to being away from the bar area).

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