Adventures in Gastronomy

YAY – I had such a great weekend. Dare I say fabulous?

I left work an hour early on Friday and headed to the airport for my holiday weekend get-a-way to Washington, DC. Mike met up with me at the airport and in no time we were flying to Washington.

My friend, Chris picked us up at the airport and it was in the 60 degree range (for mid-January). We took the Metro back to his place in the U-Street district, rested a bit, and then headed out for dinner in Adams-Morgan with his partner, John. The restaurant we wanted to eat at wasn’t accepting customers because of some private political function so we ate at this most peculiar place called the Left Bank.

It looked as if, in it’s distant past, it may have been an automobile showroom. There were vast white walls with booths along the perimiter. The entire middle of the space was a bar (a bar crowded with countless hetero early twenty-somethings). The music was obnoxiously loud, making me think the place was more geared toward nightclub than restaurant. It was also apparently run by a handful of big-breasted eastern-european woman lacking the ability to smile.

But the food (at least mine) tasted good. And the presentation was hilarious. My tomato and mozzarella salad was an alternating stack of tomato and mozarella (looking like a red and white Campbell’s Soup can) with 4 pieces of endive cocooning a 6-inch branch of some sort of seasoning. Seriously, my salad was nearly a foot tall.

My chicken entree came similarly stacked (just like the waitresses…I’m picking up on a theme here). After dinner, we detoured through Dupont Circle and then toward Logan Circle, where we ended up at the bar, Titan. It was prettty crowded and we managed to unexpectedly stumble upon a portion of the Mid-Atlantic Leather Weekend where they were introducing the candidates. Surprisingly, few were from the mid-Atlantic (Montreal? Connecticut?)

We got home some time after midnight and started watching what was the beginning of a weekend marathon of “All in the Family”. When we weren’t out and about, we were with Archie, Edith, Gloria and Meathead. I swear, over the course of the weekend we must have watched at least 10-12 episodes.

The next day Mike, Chris and I had brunch at this U-Street area establishment…with a name something like Busboys and Poets. Here are Mike and Chris pre-meal. 

Then we explored the city a bit and enjoyed the weather (which was NOT the torrential wind-driven rain meteorologists were predicting). In fact, we could even see the sun. By the end of the day there was some mist..but that was the extent of the bad weather. The temperatures also started dropping by afternoon so we left the Dupont Circle area and decided to use the subway to get back to his place.

On Friday night we got together with Mike’s friends, Emily and Mike (who live in DC). They suggested some pizza place called “2 Amys” which is supposedly one of the best pizza places in the country. It was quite yummy and Chris and I struck up some great conversation with these two female geographers fond of zodiac signs and southern drag queens. A good time was had by all.

After dinner, we went back to Chris’ house and took a disco nap before heading to the best part of the weekend! There’s this thing called Blow-Off that takes place monthly. Bob Mould (of Husker Du* and Sugar fame) DJ’s at this place called 9:30 (despite the fact that we didn’t arrive until midnight). Anyway, his DJ table is set up in the middle of the dance floor so you can stand right next to him.

Midway through the evening (or, morning, at this point) he jumped on stage and performed some new songs with a guitar and another musician). The music was great (not standard nightclub fare…more rock oriented), but it still didn’t get me to dance. However, Chris and Mike tapped their toes a bit, along with Chris’ friends Ron and….um…somebody else whose name I forget.

As the night went by, the DC gay newspaper Metro Weekly walked by and took two pictues of me and Mike. Now, I’m not normally one to toot my own horn, but these pictures ROCKED. I was sporting this black cowboy-ish hat I purchased earlier in the day (I was in ‘the south’, after all) and it was a huge hit. Everybody wanted to wear it (and many did – even strangers). For the first time in my life, I actually think I looked good in a hat**.

Anyway, he caught us perfectly with the spot/strobe lights in the perfect angle behind us. In fact, even the photographer looked at it and said “WOW – this one’s definitely going in the paper”. I think it was the same guy that took Chris’ and my picture last year at the Eagle when I was down there. YAY – two years in a row!

We ended up staying until nearly 3AM and then walked home (with a quick detour to a 7-11 for snacks).

On Sunday, the four of us had brunch in Georgetown, before embarking on a shopping extravaganza that resulted in Mike going home with some new pants, jackets, sweater and shirts, and books.

Then we drove to the National Gallery to view some modern art and eat some gelato. mmmmm

Our plans to rock the Eagle never came to fruition that night. Instead, we ended up ordering some Thai food and sitting in the dining room chatting. Around midnight, we stumbled upon that channel run by Oprah, Oxygen. Did you know they do soft-core porn late at night? Shocking (and not the least bit erotic).

Yesterday morning, Mike and I had brunch at a place called Teasim, in Dupont Circle, with Emily and Mike. But then we had to head back to Chris and John’s house to pack up and head off to the airport.

The flight was fine…except the last 15 minutes or so. The Boston area had sustained winds of 30 miles per hour and we could feel it. Man, could we feel it. We were being pushed in every direction imaginable: up and down, left and right. You could literally see (and most definitely feel) the plane as it was jossled about by the wind. Fortunately, it was bright and sunny so it didn’t look scary outside despite how it felt inside.

Long story short (well, I guess this wasn’t very short, huh?) I had an amazing time. It was so much fun, I’m ready to go back! I always have such fun when I hang out with Chris and John. And Mike, who I was a virgin traveler with me, seemed to thoroughly enjoy his trip (and purchases), too.

HMMM – what adventures are next? My friend Candy wants me to visit her in Fort Lauderdale this spring. And another, Mark, wants me to return to Paris this spring or summer. And if Mike doesn’t hate me by summer, maybe I can talk him into letting me crash at his place in Oxford for a few days when he goes there to study this summer?

But for now, I just need to sleep. Lots and lots of sleep.

*Imagine appropriate umlauts here)

**Chris took some pictures of me with the hat and once he emails them to me, I’ll post them here for you to judge.

January 16th, 2006
Categories: Uncategorized . Author: snarl

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