Sibley Holiday Party...

Tonight was my company holiday party and this year we decided to go to Buca di Beppo on Connecticut Avenue. Mike and I had never even heard of this restaurant, but were delighted that it was an old style family dining italian restaurant. It reminded us of a Carmine's (where we went in NY after we got engaged). This year we had an extremely large group. We had 13 of 14 HR staff members and at least half of them brought their significant others/spouses plus 3 peeps from Safety & Security. We started off the night right, as Katie and I are huge wino's, by ordering 2 1.5 liter bottles of red wine for our end of the table....and it didn't last long. We also order lots of appetizers - fried mozzarella, mozzarella caprese, calamari, garlic bread all to chomp on while we discussed which entrees we would be ordering. Mike and I rarely agree on menu items, but for this dinner we both agreed that the prosciutto stuffed chicken topped with marinara and served on a bed of pesto cream sauce sounded to die for. Mike joked that I usually don't like ham and prosciutto was ham - and I came back with it's an expensive cured type of ham - at which point he said, "Oh, that's why you like it...because it's expensive" and the banter continued... All in all our table of 25 ordered 9 appetizers and 12 large entrees......but didn't stop there, for dessert about 6 of us joined in for the $12 double dark chocolate cake. I am not a huge dessert person, especially for chocolate cake, but much to my pleasure the cake came out and in my opinion could have fed 12 people (or my chocolate lover husband himself). We capped off the night with after dinner drinks of either irish coffee or ambrosia. It was a fabulous night full of delicious food and a nice break away from the hustle and bustle that has become our job. Thanks Queenie for treating us to such a special event.