Another Dinner And A Show Night (or Classic Musicals And Yummy Food)

As I’ve mentioned a few times before, the current season at the Pantages has a lot of classic musicals. Most of them I have seen before, but I always love seeing a musical again. But there are a few shows this season that I haven’t seen and sometimes I get a bit nervous about seeing something new if I’m not totally sure I will like it. And the most recent show we saw was “Cats”, and it was one that I was a bit hesitant about.

But before I get to the show, I have to talk about our incredible dinner! We went to Wood & Vine again because it really is our favorite pre-show dinner place. Usually when we go, the manager is there and he likes to make sure we get to try some of his favorite menu items. This time, he was out-of-town so we knew we wouldn’t have his guidance on the food. But the last time we were there, we got to meet the new chef and he and I have become friends on social media. So I reached out to him online to ask if there were any new menu items he thought we should try, and he gave us a few things that he recommended for us and said he would stop by our table at some point to say hello.

The first thing that was recommended was to get the charred romaine salad.

This was the perfect thing to start with and it was nice and light and it didn’t fill us up too much. When we were finishing up the salad, the chef came over to chat with us before the entrees were brought over and it was really nice to get to catch up. He had to rush away when there was something he had to tend to in the kitchen, but it was when our food was served so we turned our focus to eating some delicious things!

We got the shrimp and grits, halibut, and pork shanks. We had the pork shanks before and they were just as good as we remembered them. The shrimp and grits were a bit spicy, but not too spicy for me. And the halibut might be my new favorite! It was so light and flavorful and I loved the spinach cous cous that it was served with.

We weren’t sure if we wanted to order dessert, but because they spoil us so much at Wood & Vine they said they wanted to give us one of the desserts. We have had a few things on the dessert menu in the past, and while they are things we love we decided to go with something new. So we ordered the whiskey cake.

I have never had whiskey cake before and I was worried it would be too filling, but it was another lighter option. We didn’t eat a ton of it because the chef came over again to chat with us a bit more and we had to rush out of there to get across the street to the theater. But the bites I had were so good!

As always, we had the best dinner at Wood & Vine and we really appreciate how much they spoil us there! And it was so much fun having time to chat with the chef before the show because he had already seen it and he was sharing his review with us.

I know that “Cats” is a classic and it seems like everyone has seen it. But I had never seen it before. I was familiar with the song “Memory” and I knew the show was actually about cats (and it wasn’t something deeper than that). And I found out during dinner that the show was not that plot heavy so I was prepared for that. But none of us in the group had seen the show before and we were all a bit hesitant about it.

I will never say that I hate a show, but this show was not one of my favorites. It had nothing to do with the performers. They were amazing and the dancing was incredible. If it was a dance show, I might have liked it a bit more. But I spent so much of the first act trying to understand what was happening. I didn’t know until intermission that all the songs except for “Memory” are the text from poems by T.S. Eliot. Once I found that out things were making a bit more sense for me, but it was still a weird show. I like more plot driven shows and I think even though I knew there wasn’t a heavy plot I kept looking for a deeper meaning or to understand something that wasn’t there.

I was glad that my friends had the same feelings as I did about the show because I really spent a lot of time during the first act wondering if I was just completely missing the point. I think we all were trying to look too much into things and we should have just been sitting back and relaxing. And we were all able to laugh at ourselves a bit after the show for how hard we were trying to figure things out when there was nothing to figure out.

But besides over thinking the show and being a bit confused, it was still a fun night out. And I am glad I can check off another classic musical off of the lists of shows I’ve never seen! And of course, I love any night I get to spend with my friends and have an amazing dinner!

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