Eggplant Parmesan & Chocolate Raspberry Cake Heaven

Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I may have consumed one of the best cakes ever…

Enter: Chocolate Raspberry Cake

This cake was seriously off-the-chart phenomenal. Jay picked it up at The Fresh Market yesterday, since we were celebrating his Dad’s birthday this evening. It was so incredibly moist, dense, fudgy, and full of deep dark chocolate & raspberry flavors. Talk about rich and sensational!

Unfortunately, we had to eat our cake and ice cream by candlelight; we were “lucky enough” to come home to a house with no power. Oooof. :oops:

Thankfully, after about 45 minutes…we had LIGHT! :-D

Best.Stuff.EVER. :-P

As awesome as this cake was, I can’t forget about the amazing dinner that took place earlier this evening. ;)

Tonight I was introduced to a new-to-me restaurant (YAY!), Verdile’s. It’s a local, family-owned restaurant that’s been around since 1943, actually located only about 5 minutes away from our house! I have heard rave reviews about it for quite a while now, so I was definitely excited to check it out.

I started off by sharing a simple salad; typical of an Italian restaurant.

But then I found myself face-to-face with this fabulous scene:

WOW, right??? :shock:

I ordered their Eggplant Parmesan, which (at the risk of sounding too monotonous tonight) was probably the BEST eggplant parm I’ve ever had!

  

It wasn’t too terribly greasy/fried, and there was enough eggplant so you could actually taste it. (Often times, I find the only thing you taste is breading, sauce, & cheese…blech). But this stuff was incredible.

My eggplant parm came with a side of pasta, so I ordered their homemade “Verghetti Spaghetti” – it was good, but I was more interested in the eggplant. I let hubby take it to-go for leftovers tomorrow.

After this evening’s amazing eats, it almost seems silly to share the rest of my eats from today, but hey, I’ll do it anyways. ;)

In case you’re wondering, what you see here is a plain Chobani yogurt, combined with pumpkin blobs x2: Trader Joe’s pumpkin cream cheese + pumpkin butter.

Pure Pumpkin Heaven. :-P

And finally, thank you to everyone who entered my Date Night Dinner Giveaway! It was so fun reading your posts! But without further a do, the winner is……

Congratulations, Lindsay!

Please e-mail me with your shipping information at sweettoothcourtney [at] gmail[ dot] com.

Time to try to get to bed at a decent hour tonight…fingers crossed that it’s before 10pm! :shock:

Hope everyone has a great evening! FYI – I’ve got a fun Fashion Friday post headed your way tomorrow!!