high class dining...of sorts

Normally for our anniversary we go out to eat.  And it's normally not a high class place.  At least not by intention. A little higher class than Smithfields or Bojangles but not by much.  The three times we have traveled during our anniversary (twice to the mountains and once to DC), we ended up in a high class restaurant by default. And of course it was after a day of walking/touring/hiking and I was in tennis shoes and hot and sweaty. Not exactly what you have in mind when you think of an evening in a nice place. (The first time it happened was pre-GPS and we were driving and driving and driving and looking for ANYWHERE that had a bathroom or restaurant, and this was the first place we found open after 2 hours. They wanted to know if we had reservations. I'm not sure why, as the place was barely even half full. Once seated, we looked at the menu with its prices, dismally looked at each other, and Bobby made a face and said "hmm. happy anniversary.")
So this year, I was a little more prepared. I had a bag of snacks packed in case we wound up on another winding road with nothing open, AND we have a gps device that will find restaurants. :) Turns out we needed neither. While quickly passing through Blowing Rock (the city, we didn't make it to the rock itself) we stopped at the only restaurant that resembled something we would like: the Speckled Trout (or something like that). It looked like a place for normal people. The decorations near us, dangling from the ceiling, were wooden fish, painted in the colors of our living room. We joked about asking them if they would sell them, but I'm not sure that's quite the look we want. :) This was the first time we've eaten in a pricier restaurant that I've actually enjoyed the food and not felt out of place/unwanted. Here's our dinner for that evening:

Appetizer:  frog legs (one for each of us!)  And even though Bobby has always told me they taste like chicken, I think they taste more like fish.

Meal: Fish (I don't remember what kind) wrapped around a crab meat dressing with 2 veggies each AND fresh bread. It was great.

and we were both full so didn't get dessert. But it was good, and I would probably eat there again if we ever drive through Blowing Rock (but only after stopping at the Fudge place which we didn't visit due to the rain and it being on the other side of a heavily trafficked street).

and tomorrow...tomorrow I'll tell you about Abele's Family Restaurant.