It’s been quite a languorous Sunday here at MI Manor, folks. The official MI Husband and I celebrated his birthday last night with a verrry nice dinner at Café Matisse, a funky little restaurant in Rutherford that features Matisse paintings on vivid walls, shabbily elegant furniture, and a proprietor with a rug that would shame Burt Reynolds. “Wait!” you say, “You weren’t home watching the Saints’ historic game?! After all your talk?!” Correct-a-mundo, dear reader, but our dinner conversation was peppered with, “I wonder how the Saints are doing” and “I’m going to kill Carney if he’s blowing it for them.” Surely that counts for something.

Despite our few lapses from complete meal-mindfulness, it was the wonderful dining experience we’ve come to expect from Café Matisse.

The restaurant is BYO, so we stopped in at the little wine store conveniently located on the premises before being seated. With the help of the owner, we decided on a delicious pinot noir to complement our dinner. (If one of us can remember the name, I’ll be sure to post it, but ummmm … did I mention we drank the whole bottle? Ah, well.)

Since our last visit — one year ago in a snowstorm — Matisse has moved from the traditional appetizer/entrée/dessert presentation to a design-your-own meal, with three-, four-, or five-course options. We both decided on the four-course sampler (three savory dishes and one dessert), then set to work choosing individual dishes from the fairly extensive menu.

After much deliberation, I chose the panko fried oysters, pan roasted foie gras with scallops, and peppered lamb tenderloin. At the first bite of scallop and foie, I had a moment; I put down my fork and closed my eyes to savor the experience while Gil giggled, saying he’d been waiting for the swoon. I’m such a sucker for pan roasted foie gras. The only blemish on the meal was one overdone scallop and the medium-well lamb tenderloin; since I wasn’t given a choice of doneness, I assumed it would be served medium-rare. That’ll teach me.

Gil hemmed and hawed over the menu even longer than I, but eventually decided on the panko crusted crabcake, sliced pork tenderloin, and parmesan shrimp risotto. He almost always wins the “choice war” in restaurants, but the menu here is so good it’s impossible to go wrong. That said, I think my scallops and foie edged out his pork tenderloin, so nyah-nyah-nyah!

For dessert, I had warm apple crisp while Gil inhaled his chocolate chip bread pudding. We rolled out at about 10:30pm with distended bellies and broad smiles.

Yesterday afternoon we devised a plan for sneaking into our house to turn on the Tivo’d Saints game without being tipped off to the outcome: Gil left the TV on and muted, then placed the remote controls at the top of the stairs on our way out to dinner. We shielded our eyes from the front window as we pulled into the driveway; when we entered the house, Gil reached the remote over the railing while clicking over to the Tivo program screen, so we weren’t able to see the action that was still going on. It took us about an hour to get through three hours of football, and we didn’t record anything after the three-hour mark (about 6 minutes left in the fourth quarter), but it was a thrilling moment when I called up espn.com to see that the Saints held on to win.

Now it’s onto Chicago for the NFC Championship game! You can keep your Super Bowl Shuffle; I’m holding out for a Super Bowl Second Line this year.

Update: How the mighty are fallen … KFC and sodas for lunch today.