A pleasantly unplanned weekend

There's a nice second run movie theater not too far from where we're staying. If you're like me the term second-run-theater conjures up images of musty old theaters with sticky floors and scared screens. Not so The Picture Show in Marietta, Georgia. The Picture Show is an older six screen movie house adjacent to a strip mall. Whoever runs the place does a great job of keeping it up. The theaters are clean, well maintained and a good option for seeing a show.

We've seen just about a movie a week these past few months but one, The Avengers, escaped our notice. Truth be told, I didn't have high hopes for it, but in keeping with the theme of this weekend, I was pleasantly surprised. It was a fun, entertaining movie and well worth the $1.75 price of admission. Did I not mention that? Two adult tickets for $3.50, such a deal.

We got to the theater a few minutes before the doors opened so we took a walk through the strip mall. Along the way we passed a menu board for a Thai/Chinese restaurant. We glanced at it briefly then headed back to see the movie.

After an entertaining 90 minutes or so it was lunch time. We decided to take a chance and headed back to the Thai place we saw earlier. Cue pleasant surprise of the weekend #2, Bamboo China Bistro. We were greeted and seated promptly and given menus. Bamboo China Bistro has daily lunch specials so we both took advantage of that. For $7 we each got a bowl of delicious coconut soup, nicely spiced, full of fresh mushrooms and lemongrass, a fried spring roll and an entrée. I ordered the Red Curry with chicken and my dining companion ordered the Masaman Curry with beef. I ordered mine spicy hot, which was spicy but not really hot. I asked and was told that there is a Thai spicy level beyond the one I ordered. I definitely get that next time.
The food at Bamboo was great and we'll be eating there again next time the craving for Thai food hits.

Coconut soup

Red Curry Chicken

Masaman Curry with beef

We had one more pleasant surprise this weekend. We had planned to have lunch at a local seafood place and made our way there Sunday afternoon. Sadly the place was not as advertised (that was our one unpleasant surprise!) so we were at odds and ends for lunch. We drove around a bit in the area and settled on Cinco, a modern Mexican restaurant billed as Mexican with Attitude. Hmmmm. We went in and they were serving brunch. Again, hmmmm. Well, brunch was terrific. The food was fresh, made to order guacamole was on offer and the rare spicy tuna was perfect. I didn't take one picture sadly but we'll probably try and get back there. If we do I'll post about it.

Round that all out with breakfast at my favorite breakfast place, The Red Eyed Mule, and it was a very nice weekend.

Miami Hangover

Plans don't always work out so be flexible. Some pleasant surprises of your own could be right around the corner.

Happy travels!