Wednesday night dinner at Swagat Indian in Beaverton.

It is Wednesday and that means dinner with my friends. We are having dinner at Swagat Indian in Beaverton. This is the first time going here although we have gone to the Swagat downtown Portland many times. We picked this for two reasons, first we were looking for a place on the West side this week, we had thought about Giovannie’s in Beaverton which I love but they will no longer do separate checks which makes it hard when you have a group that could be 10 to 15. This seems to be a lot more common now which I think is bad as you lose customers this way. it’s the reason we didn’t do the Swagat downtown this week as they will only do 1 check for groups of 6 or more which is sad as we have been going there for many years. We used to go to Screen Door in the pearl district and also Irving street tapas but they also stopped doing separate checks and we haven’t gone back in over a year. Jennifer called Swagat Indian in Beaverton and asked and they said they would do separate checks for us so we will go to a new place tonight.

I got home from work a little after 5 and started getting ready. Tonight I wanted a Cherry red lipstick and a smokey eye look and I chose my long green summer dress. I was all ready by 6pm and on my way as when I got home my GPS said it would take 51 minutes to get there. Well traffic must have cleared up as I only had a little slowing going through the tunnel and arrived at Swagat Indian a few minutes after 6:30 so I was way early. Now this place is actually in an old house, they do have a small parking lot behind it with about 8 spots but if you drive back and they are all full you really cant turn around easily so yes I had to back out down the driveway. Luckily was I got to the street a car pulled out right in front of the door which is where I parked. I saw Patty walk in and as I was getting out of my car Jennifer was parking just down from me so we walked in together. Now this is actually a small place being in a house, as you come in there is a little bar you can get a drink at but no place to sit. In the front room there are 5 tables that seat 4 and in the back room where we were there were 12 to 14 tables and yes 4 were pulled together for us to sit at. They did it in a square which was nice as it made it so we could all kind of talk with each other. There were 8 of us tonight with 2 on each side as you can see from the picture Jennifer took. It is me, Patty, Jenifer C, Jane, Biana, Alanna, Mary Ann and Jenifer T who took the picture.

Our waiter came and took our order and I got my usual, Chicken Makani which I like as it is not spicy. Yes Indian food would not be my first choice but as I always say it really is not about the food or where we go it is about being out with my friend. By the way our waiter was wonderful, and this really is a nice place. Small but very cozy and personable, if you are in the Beaverton I would check it out. Now tonight we had Jane who is our newest member, this was actually her first time out with our group. Her and her wife moved out to Oregon a few years back from the East coast and she was active in a group back there but has been looking for a group out here and came across our group. So of course we all introduced our selves and then let her tell us a little about herself which is always fun as I love meeting new people. Our group has been growing lately as Jennifer C joined last fall, and Bianca joined about a month ago so really tonight we have 3 of our newer members at the dinner. Jane seems really nice and I think she will be a good fit in our group although she does live about 1 ½ hours south of Portland so we may not see her as often.

Our food came and it was as good as the one downtown. We had a wonderful dinner and great conversation and as I said by the way they set up the tables we really could talk with everyone which in a group of 8 is nice. As always the night went by way to fast. It was about 9pm when we got our checks and I noticed our waiter did not put a tip on the checks which usually happens with bigger groups but I like this as yes I gave him a nice tip as he really did treat us well and we had great service of course they were not real busy but also the fact they were willing to give us separate checks. It was about 9:15 when we wall walked out together and left. It took about 30 minutes to get home and then it was time to wash away my makeup and go back to my male self-till the weekend. It was a nice evening though, thanks Jennifer for setting this up.

Now I am looking forward to the weekend which is Mother Day weekend and the weather for the next few days all the way through the weekend are in the 80’s to low 90’s and sunny. I would also like to wish all the mothers out there a Happy Mother Day. Yes I do plan to go to the Cemetery on either this weekend, it is hard to believe that it has been almost 3 years sense my mom passed away and 5 ½ years for my dad, yes I will also go on Father’s Day weekend.

Thanks for reading my blog and sharing this part of my life with me.