Dinner with Jennifer and Ben

Last night we headed out to a highly recommended seafood restaurant in North Boston in search of raw oysters, clam chowdaah, and a lobster roll. We put our name of the list, two drinks, one interesting conversation with some guys originally from Malaysia, and two hours later we finally got seated at a table for six that was to be shared by three couples.

One couple was already on the outside so we sat in the middle. Five, ten, fifteen minutes passed and even though a line was out the door the hostess hadn't seated anyone next to us. Finally a couple came over and sat down. I looked briefly at the woman and thought she looked familiar but I couldn't place her right away. I glanced at her husband out of the corner of my eye, my wife looked at me, and at that point the veil of recognition was lifted and I realized the couple was Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck.

We proceeded to have a delicious dinner and a very nice conversation with Jennifer and Ben about food (Jennifer took our recommendation for an appetizer, Ben for some oysters), California wine country, West Virginia (she's originally from there) and other assorted things. They told us about their favorite restaurant in LA and Jennifer insisted that we try her beer (it was some kind of special beer which was quite good).

Simply put, just nice, friendly and engaging folks having an evening out and sharing a conversation with strangers...them and us.

They only got bothered by one autograph hound the entire evening which was nice. We got a bunch of stares as we left the restaurant.