"When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible." - When Harry Met Sally

With so many weddings to celebrate this year (3 down, 6 to go), its nice to stop and remember our own journey.  Six years ago June 14, B popped the question.  We always remember the date fondly because when we called his grandmother to tell her the news, she exclaimed, "And what a lovely day to get engaged, Flag Day."  Although we don't do presents or anything like that, we always try to enjoy a nice meal out (shocker I know).  This year, we decided to try Ela, a relative newcomer to the Queen Village neighborhood.

We arrived a bit early to enjoy a couple of cocktails before dinner.  I started with the "Last Chance to Lose Your Keys", tequila with rosemary, kaffir lime, and "citruses", and B had the "Daisy", hendrick’s gin with rhuby, cucumbers, and lemon.

 [Daisy on the left, Last Chance on the right]

Both were clean and refreshing, but the rosemary didn't play as well with the rest of my cocktail as I would have liked.  Next I switched to champagne but B tried one more from the "Elixir" menu, the "My Nine Rides Shotgun", bulleit rye whiskey with amaro meletti, green chartreuse, and passion fruit.  I typically hate all things burbon but this cocktail made me regret my champagne order (that's when you know its serious).

Once seated, we ordered the oysters.

They had a nice brine but were small enough to still be sweet, and despite the creativity of the accompaniments, dill pickle bits and a bacon foam, the oysters remained the main event.

We also ordered the foie gras special to start.  For those of you who don't know, a ban on foie gras is set to go into effect in California starting July 11.  To pay homage to their Californian homies fighting the good fight, a group of Philadelphia chefs have instituted Foie Gras Friday, featuring a different foie gras special each Friday.  Ela being on the bandwagon, we were able to enjoy a foie gras and lobster panacotta with potato skin "chips".

The pineapple toppings added the perfect amount of acidity to the creamy panacotta and the potato skin "chips" contributed the perfect zest and texture. 

For our second course we split the baby spanish octopus and the scallop "noodles."

The octopus had a nice charred barbeque flavor and was complimented well by a ramp puree, fava beans, and a cornbread crumble but the entire dish came out on the verge of cold.  For the scallop "noodles" the chef apparently takes diver scallops and carves each into one long noodle that is perfectly caramelized and served with a peanut sauce.  The dish was one of the most creative and flavorful I have tried in some time.

For our final dish we tried the skate.

It was fine, but nothing to write home about (whether because it was truly blah or because the previous courses packed such a punch I'm not sure).

My only true criticism came at the end of the meal when we received the check.  Yowza.  We had a great meal, but, given the hefty price tag we'll probably only be back for a drink and appys at the bar - Foie Gras Friday happy hour anyone??