Food Finds: Ladies' night just got classier

Some lovely ladies and I headed out to 58 Degrees & Holding for Ladies Night last week. The store seeks to be your destination for wine -- it has a wine store, wine bar and restaurant and wine storage lockers available for rent, if you're really serious about it.

On Thursdays, both Tucson locations offer a selected wine, champagne and cocktail for $5. We went to the St. Phillips Plaza locations and I had a champagne, following by a light red that I would call pink in color.

And then there was the food. What you see in the photo is a cold peach puree soup with pancetta in the foreground and a warm curry-based soup in the background. The peach soup was delicious and dessert-like. The combination of pancetta on top was very interesting because it added a salty crunch to the creamy, cool soup. My curry soup packed a pleasant kick, but not enough to keep me from finishing it. Also, I could taste hints of crunchy celery and pungent spices in the thick soup -- it was quick filling. My dining companions got dessert such as a tres leche cake with cream freccia and a flourless chocolate cake.

Overall, this was a great experience for not just the food and drinks, but also the atmosphere. We lounged in a spacious and uncrowded wine bar area on suede couches with a low, dark-colored wood table between us. There was not the stale smell of beer and desperate frat boys that's usually associated with ladies night, either. In fact, it was all women in the lounge area, although there were some couples in the dining area. We're making a trek to the other Tucson location to check it all out, for good measure.