I just came back from a very enjoyable dinner at Canlis with the Internet Explorer Program Management leads; these are basically the people who I work with who run the group that design the next versions of IE, organize the effort to ship it, and lead the work to take care of customers after we ship. Unfortunately, Chris Wilson couldn't make it, but he was off on some amazing SCUBA diving trip, so I don't feel too bad...

As with most teams, some of us have worked together for a while; some of the group came to IE more recently. We work together pretty well, but we haven't all gone out together and just had a fun meal; we were overdue.

Canlis is an old Seattle institution; it's the "dress up" restaurant in Seattle (one of the only ones with a dress code in town). We had a fun time telling stories, getting to know each other better, and generally not talking about work for a few hours. It was also fun to see everyone dressed up a bit.

The food was lovely, of course. I started with steak tartare to die for; easily the best I've ever had. We also had a few orders of truffle fries because the only thing better than fried food is fried food with truffle oil.

Then I had the Yukon River salmon. As I had blogged about earlier, I was looking forward to a chance to try it and had it tonight -- lovely. It was grilled simply (the best way for a fantastic piece of fish) with a little couscous on the side. Yum.

We also had some very nice wines -- some of my favorites

• 1990 Pol Roger -- I love Champagne; I think it makes every event a celebration. I don't know tons about vintages and such, but I recalled that 1990 was a fantastic year for Champagne. This was my first (I think) bottle of Pol Roger. Lovely. Dry and delicious.
• 2000 Peter Michael Les Pavot - Peter Michael is one of my favorite wineries, and the Les Pavot is really great. I'm not sure I've had the 2000 before, but once it opened up it was fantastic.
• 2004 Domaine Serene Pinot Noir - This is definitely one of my favorite pinot noirs, if not my very favorite. The consensus around the table seemed to be that this one was the best wine of the night, even though it was the least expense (although still not cheap...)

On top of the great food and wine, we got to see the Duck Dodge, a sailboat race in Lake Union and a Seattle tradition. I'm not sure anyone but I cared, but I liked it so there you go.

I had a great time; it's important to me to work with people I like. Tonight was a good reminder of why I love my job.