Frugal Fannie's Bluegrass Blast

For date night this Friday, J and I used a $25 coupon at a Spanish restaurant on King Street, Las Tapas. When I was traveling all the time with work, I was building up small amounts of frequent flier miles on multiple airlines (saving HQ money on the cheapest flight, yet not amassing enough miles on any one airline to get me a free ticket. oy.). Using some miles from United, I purchased several coupons from restaurant.com. We had a great meal with wine, and it only cost us $38 out-of-pocket.

That being said, I'm not sure I'd purchase these coupons w/out using airline miles, unless it was for a restaurant I already knew and loved. There are eight grillion restrictions: many don't apply the amounts toward alcohol purchases, many only allow use on Mon - Thurs, the most popular restaurant's coupons are sold out at the beginning of the month. It's a lot of hoop jumping, and I have small measures of both patience and dexterity.

After dinner, we walked a few blocks West to Tiffany Tavern. They advertise having the best burgers, bluegrass and open mic in town. I don't know of any other bluegrass in town quite frankly, and we'd just had dinner, so I can't vouch for the burgers either. That and I've been eating mostly vegetarian lately. But they looked HUGE and delicious for the meat-eating among us. I had a few Canadian Clubs, and J imbibed Smithwicks brew while we listened to Over Under Down Yonder. No cover charge for great bluegrass! I think their sound is much better than their My Space page would have one believe. The live OUDY had less twang and more speed.They had me tapping my boots on the bar stool and playing air washboard on my thighs.

All in all in was a fun evening for two and under $75.00 for dinner, several drinks and live music. Score!