I'll Be Ready In Five Minutes: Presents, Pâté, and Beer, Oh My!

Ian and I had made plans to celebrate Valentine's Day on Saturday. He really wanted to cook me dinner and needed more than the few hours after work to prepare for it. So! This left Friday night open for shenanigans...

Since none of the roomies had any dates planned for the evening, we all decided to partake in some San Francisco Beer Week activities! The plan was to get gussied up and head to the Mission around 8 - which quickly became 9 since, as the very name of this blog suggests, I am never on time...

Ian had asked me to come over after work so that he could give me a "few small treats". Delighted as ever, I trekked it to his apartment only to find that these treats were by no means small and by all means AMAZING...

Bubbly is life. And Veuve is just the creme de la creme of all bottled bubbles, so you can imagine my reaction when this was placed in my lap...

Lauren Conrad (love her) once said that her perfect gift is something she can "Eat, drink or burn" I would agree and maybe add "rub" to encompass lotions and potions, but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it... Anyway, what I got next just about scent* me over the moon...

I had mentioned that my two fave Diptyque candles are Baies and Feu de Bois, but Ian really nailed it with this one...

(*See what I did there? Eh?)

Rosa Mundi is the best smelling rose scent of life... It is so fragrant, but in a light, not overpowering way. I feel like rose-scented things tend to have a dated feel to them, but this is nothing like that... It is like Rose: new and improved... Rose 2.0, if you will... And it's pink! So freaking cute! Also, it's a limited edition - I think they do it every year around Valentine's Day - so run get yours now!

After exchanging gifts, we headed out to get something to eat... I was down to just grab a sandwich at a cute cafe across the street, but Ian didn't think that would suffice on Valentine's Day... So we popped into Cocotte, a cute French place we had always wanted to try, and lucky for us, they had two seats right at the bar! Success!

I took a lot of pics but it was rather dark, so I'll just give you the highlights...

Two glasses of one of our favorite Pinots, 5 Russians, with some bread and tapenade...

Rabbit and Duck rillette with apricot chutney and toast. This was my fave - ohmygod, so good. Very similar to pâté...

I had blackened cod with buerre blanc as my main, which was heaven, but didn't photograph well.

As usual, though, the best part was dessert! My favorite cake in the entire world is a traditional Princess Cake (which I love for more than just the name) and this was very similar to that, except instead of a raspberry jam layer, there were giant fresh strawberries... SO. GOOD!

Also, the check came in a baby Le Creuset dutch oven, which I was beyond obsessed with :)

After din, we headed back to my place to pick up the other half of our crew and hopped in a cab down to Zeitgeist in the Mish, where they were hosting a Sierra Nevada 62 Tap Takeover for Beer Week...