Sky Fire appears to be a destination restaurant at night.
We'd asked at breakfast yesterday if we needed reservations,
and we were asked when, and upon hearing the time, 7, the
hostess said no problem, but if we were going to be any
later, then ask now or forever you hold your peace.

We actually got there right around 7, and the place was dead
dead dead. By the time we left, around 9, a DJ was getting
ready to spin his stuff, and the place was getting ready to
hop hop hop.

After turning her nose up at lamb a few days before, lili
surprised me by ordering lamb chops, when beefsteak was on
the menu for about the same price. These came scottaditi,
hotter than Hades, one okay, one good, one perfect. She was
pleased by her choice, as was I, as I got to gnaw on the
bones and get the little bits of fat and stuff off them.

My dinner was just three appetizers: fried squid, lahmacun,
and fried eggplant, all things I could have gotten for a
third the price on the street, but no less authentic and
just as good in this de luxe setting. They were pristine and
delicious. The squid could have been fished out of the water
outside an hour before, the eggplant plucked from gardens
down the way this morning, and the lahmacun, uh, well, the
dough was tender, and the stuff on top, lamb bits and onions
and a sour tomato sauce, delicious, but I suspect they had
been made fresh last year and then stuck in the deep freeze
until wanted, which was now. But good.

There were a couple shining bargains on the wine list.
Aloxe-Corton 07 (Jadot) at approximately what I'd pay for
it retail at Zachy's or Total Beverage was one. Okay, it's
not Charlemagne, and the year was sketchy, and the wine is
chaptalized, but, hey, we had been drinking Okuzgogu and
stuff like that for several days. It was a little brothy
and unconcentrated but was the first real French Pinot Noir
I'd had this year, the plumminess giving way to the spice
that is what I really like about this kind of wine. The
thin body, though, meant that the alcohol was too prominent.

After drinks in the lounge and the bottle in the restaurant,
it's a good thing we were just an elevator ride home, one
floor at that.