A tough choice, because the cuisine is so similar

Last night, Mark was discussing where to go for his birthday dinner. He gets to pick any restaurant he wants, and I have to suffer through it. So I was pleasantly surprised to hear his choice.

"I want to go to the fritter place," he told me, and my stomach replied, "Yay!"

It's a quaint little restaurant with a country-esque interior and an outdoor patio with a koi pond. The cuteness also extends to the food presentation. Each dinner comes with a salad, and an accompanying basket of fresh veggies. You choose the ones you want in your salad, and the waitress whips it up at the table.

They also make amazing yeast rolls, and fried chicken with mashed potatoes to die for. However, their specialty, as Mark noted, are the fritters (he doesn't even know the restaurant's real name, he just calls it "the fritter place"). They're little round balls of dough fried up and dusted with powdered sugar. It's about as close to eating a donut for dinner as you can get, and the waitresses pass them out liberally.

So I was VERY happy with his choice. Until he scratched his chin and said, "Or maybe I'll pick Taco Bell instead. Ummmmm, TACO BELL!" He actually licked his lips at the thought.

Damn! I was so close!

I'm actually very proud of how far his culinary appreciation has grown in 3 1/2 years. When he first moved in, all he would eat was boxed mac n' cheese and hot dogs. Peanut butter and mayonnaise or peanut butter and butter sandwiches were frequent requests. (I could never bring myself to make either -- I literally gagged at the thought!)

But sloooowly, his tastes became more refined, until one day he told me, "Hmmm, we haven't had a crab feast in a long time." A few days later, he requested, and finished, an entire filet mignon, and I realized I must be careful what I wish for, because my wallet was feeling the pain of my little foodie's increasingly sophisticated palate.

I wasn't totally shocked by the Taco Bell request -- mostly because last year he chose KFC for his birthday dinner. I shared the wealth on that one, inviting my parents and family along. I treated them all, because heck, it was my only son's birthday dinner, and that's how I roll. (OK, and because none of them would go if I didn't promise to buy!) I got a fried chicken dinner all right, but in no way did it resemble the delicacy served at the fritter place.

And so we'll see which restaurant wins out. Come February 24th, I'll either be dining al fresco beside the koi pond, or inside, on a hard plastic bench, next to the drive-through window.