Latin Dancing and Portland Happy Hour: Wild Abandon

Last Friday night the girls (Dena, Leslie, and Katie) and I finally made it to Wild Abandon for happy hour. It is this cute little place at 2411 SE Belmont St (close to SE 25th) that is long and skinny (had it not been cold and rainy there is a cute back patio area) with cute lights and nice waiters. We all ordered off the happy hour menu which included food that started at $2 and went up to $8. We each ordered different dishes and got $2 cheesy garlic bread to share. Yum.

Leslie got the Cavatappi Pasta for $8, which I definitely stole a few bites of. Dena got the $5 Portobello and Veggie Sandwich and a small caesar salad ($3). Also delish. Katie got the Chicken Mazatlan ($5) which was also quite tasty. Next time I want to try the Shrimp Mazatlan. Actually now that I think about it, there are lots of other things I would like to try. Everything that the waiters carried by looked amazing and the entire restaurant just smelled awesome. Finally, I got the Willamette Dream Salad ($5) which is so not like me, I'm not usually a salad getter, but it was really really good. Of course we also got drinks, it wouldn't be a proper happy hour without them! We got Lemon Drops and a Cosmopolitan, all $6 and all really good. If we had more time...and a little thing called money...I think we would have all had at least one more!

So we ate (and drank) up and headed out to our Latin dance class. Yeah, that's right, we decided to take an intro to latin class at The Ballroom Dance Company in Tigard (8900 SW Commercial St.) The classes are usually 5 weeks long with about an hour long class each week, but we decided just to drop in to a beginners class for $9. It was pretty hard! We were definitely the youngest there, with a couple older women and one loud couple (well just the woman). We learned the walking (I guess) technique for the Cha Cha, Rumba, and Samba and we weren't bad, but we weren't the most coordinated. It required a lot of control, hip action, step onto straight leg, settle, straight, settle, toe first, present your inner ankles, knee up but don't take your foot off the ground. Oh and now do it REALLY fast. Yeah, it sounds kind of complicated and it was, we were really sore by the end, experiencing some back pain and a little butt burn. Ultimately it felt good, we definitely worked some previously ignored muscles and had fun laughing at our awesome technique. We'll definitely be back!

But the night wasn't complete with out a stop at Bannings Restaurant and Pie House (11477 SW Pacific Hwy, Tigard) on the way home to reward ourselves with a marionberry pie for a job well done (or at least a good effort).