SeanMike

Picon beer. Darn you Jake and Greg for suggesting them! Oof!

Errr, you are right, they were luxury apartments when I looked there - I have a bad habit of using "condo" and "apartment" interchangeably.

Ditto. The Curiousity Cola was a big hit with the teetotaler at my New Year's Eve party a while ago, and I'll be glad to see their ginger beer back, too. Now, I just wish they'd answer their e-mails about the CSOWG after leaving comments on our blog...

I have had a HUGE craving for Trader Vic's lately, possibly due to my lack of trips to Dragon*Con the past few years (and staying in the hotel that houses Trader Vic's down there)...

I've been reading about Cocchi Americano - which is supposed to be much closer to the original Kina Lillet than today's Lillet blanc. Does anywhere around here carry it? I find myself extremely interested in trying it in a Vesper... Cheers!

Way too much Smithwicks last night. No, wait, what am I saying?! There's never too much Smithwicks.

Heh, I looked at the condo building they are going to be in - loving the fact that Lost Dog is supposed to go there - and they wanted WAY too much money for their places! Even compared to the Ballston-Rosslyn corridor...

My thoughts: String Beans Szechuan Style (not pictured) - these were tasty if you could ignore the salt. You couldn't. There was so much salt on them that it wasn't even funny. I seriously more than once considered dunking them in my ice water, but I was busy drinking it trying to make up for what I'd just eaten of them. Pork Belly - but golly darn was this good! The two pieces of meat that I had were half delicious meat and half a thick strip of also delicious fat. The pickled stuff worked off of it nicely. I forced myself to eat slowly on it as it's the kind of rich, tasty dish that would encourage overeating for me. Crispy duck - admittedly, I love me some duck. This was good - I didn't think it was great, but it was pretty good, if hard to eat with chop sticks. Squid - It wasn't as salty as the string beans but unfortunately still too salty, which really hurt it. I'd hoped that it'd be spicy, but alas, it was not. I didn't think it was bad, per se, but it needed less salt and and more spice in my opinion. I enjoyed the dinner but that might've been as much for the company that, uh, accompanied it. The salt content just threw everything off, unfortunately. I wonder if we just hit a fluke of cooking, ordered something unexpected, or what. goodeats ordered in Chinese off the wall menu so I have no idea what exactly (or inexactly) she was saying! (I usually just assume in that situation she was making fun of me.)

Last night I decided to make thick cut pork chops that I'd bought from Harris Teeter. After a while cooking them in the oven, they were still really, really rare, so I upped the heat, and next time I checked them they were well done. Oops. However, despite how tough they were, they were still tasty. Which reminded me of the Dr. Pepper Pork Chop I had at Spider Kelly's on Friday night. Marshall and I hit it for dinner, as he'd never been there sober(-ish). We split an order of the fried pickles, which I thought had a good combination of pickle to batter for the taste, though they got a bit greasy as we went through them. (As a side note, I think that Southside 815's fried pickles are too thin and Clare & Don's Beach Shack's are too thick.) For dinner I got the pork chop and it took a decent amount of sawing to cut off pieces, often causing my plate to move around the table. Still, it was tasty, and wasn't that chewy - just hard to cut, much like my pork chops last night. My chop at Spider Kelly's was ordered medium rare and was that; next time, I might consider medium, simply because of how thick the pork chop is (that was a LOT of red in the middle). We split an order of the rosemary garlic fries and they were rather goshdarned tasty, especially when I found one or two of the fried cloves of garlic. Marshall got the Spider Kelly burger but I'll let him talk about that. That wasn't the only time I went to SK last week. On Monday night I ended up there and it's not only half price bottles of wine but also half price bottles of beer (not the big ones, just the $6 and under ones). While there's no way in heck I'd pay $11 for a 15.2 ounce Grolsch (Grolsch? Really?) I paid it willingly for a 22 ounce Arrogant Bastard on Friday night and I paid $17 for a Chimay Monday night (after two $3 Anchor Steams). Monday night I got an order of the onion rings and the three day chicken. The onion rings were tasty - not the best I've ever had (I still leave that for Dave's Taverna in Harrisonburg but that might be a combination of nostalgia and drinking at the time) but better than most in the area. I'd hesitantly put them near #1 that I've had in this area. The chicken was GREAT. Juicy, delicious, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. Now to just find out if I can get all dark meat next time I order it...

I didn't think the squid was a complete miss. It was just too salty - and after the OMGWTFBBQ saltiness of the string beans, none of us could handle that much more sodium!

It was working fine for me... I used it, thinking of dinner, and saw that Sala Thai here in Ashburn was participating, so I went over there for lunch. We'll see if I make it out for dinner...

Actually that night I was at St. Maarten's Cafe in Charlottesville, VA.

When I hit the RW menu the other day - I'll concur with how good the mussels were - I was a bit hesitant about the desserts, too. I'm not a huge dessert guy, and I'm not a big fan of pineapple. That being said, the pineapple dessert was fan-fugu-tastic. (Of course, so far just about everything I've had there has been great, so I should've expected as such...)

I was asked to come up with cocktails for my brother's wedding. So we had the Matt and the Cathy. The Matt was basically a Crown and Coke (practically the family drink for everyone but me) but with some Grand Marnier and orange bitters. The Cathy was vodka and Grand Marnier topped with champagne in a Chambord rinsed glass. That was the drunkest I've ever seen a lot of my friends and relatives! And I haven't drank that much regular Coke in longer than I can remember...

The newly married couple of my brother Matt and my new sister-in-law Cathy.

And so, from now on, when you get a cinnamon toothpick, you'll think about Don's ass. I'm shuddering already.

There are less than one hundred tickets left, and it's only 2 weeks until the event! For those of you thinking of going, here's the list of breweries attending: Capitol City Brewing Company Clipper City Brewing Company District Chophouse & Brewery Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Flying Dog Brewery Fordham Brewing Company Gordon Biersch Brewery Restaurant Hook & Ladder Brewing Company Hops Grill & Brewery ICS Group - Capital Eagle Old Dominion Brewing Company Rock Bottom Brewery Starr Hill Brewery Sweetwater Tavern Williamsburg AleWerks Woodchuck Cider Also Total Wine will be doing wine, and there's food from several area restaurants. The silent auction will have all kinds of stuff that'll interest people here. Things I can confirm: gift certificates to The Gibson and Bar Pilar, whiskey tastings at Bourbon led by Owen Thomson, a Peter Smith and Gina Chersevani happy hour at PS7, a cocktail tour of 3 DC cocktail bars led by yours truly and Marshall ( ), and baskets of microbrews and drinks (mine is a Manhattan basket with Old Overholt rye, Jim Beam black label bourbon, Doulin Rouge, Noilly Prat sweet vermouth, Fee's cherry bitters, Regan's orange bitters, and if I can find some, Luxardo cherries). Plus stuff like - Have your son or daughter be the Wizard's Ball Boy on March 14th - A week in a Key West Condo - Several pieces of jewelry, including a $1500 Italian link bracelet - A trip to LA with studio passes to see a live taping of Two and a Half Men - A weekend rental of a Bently - Many baskets of Liquor, Beer & Wine at amazing bidding prices Also includes trips to Napa Valley, Walt Disney World, Las Vegas, San Diego and much more! It sounds like they're closer than ever towards a cure for CF, so if you're on a fence about going, now's the time to do it!

Yes - they told me as much at Central when I asked.

We went Sunday night. I was surprised to see how crowded it was; on the other hand, I heard some other places were pretty packed, too. Maybe it was the holiday. Michael was working the door and doing a good job of keeping things moving and people happy it seemed. A few people left when they found out it'd be at least an hour or so before they could sit - we had reservations so it wasn't an issue for us. The only quibbles were minor. They were out of a lot of the wines, but the waitress brought over two different suggested wines so we didn't have to wait. The sides didn't come out with our steaks but our waitress quickly corrected it, and it took a good bit of flagging to get her attention for the check. I didn't get any hot chocolate but I doubt I could've drank it. I had the crab bisque and we also split the blackened scallops. Yummy. Then I got the cowboy cut which I hadn't had before and oh my goodness that was a delicious steak. I definitely ate way too much and was regretting being so full for about 24 hours... The realization that the ovaltine & scotch is a breakfast drink maens I'll have to wait to try it. I'd hoped to talk to Michael a bit about a CFF Brewer's Ball donation but I was so addled by red meat I couldn't think straight. And my friend who manages at Fleming's is jealous that I "cheated" on him...though I've never eaten at Fleming's...

According to goodeats in this same thread: Just so you know

Last night, plenty of Jefferson's Reserve stout on tap. Mmmmmm.

According to the folks at Central tonight, he's moving over to Glover Park area: http://scofflawsden.com/blog/2009/02/06/whered-justin-go/

If you'd like to volunteer, send an e-mail to Kris at kpetren - at - cff - dot - org. Tell 'em SeanMike sent ya.

Hey guys -- They're looking for volunteers on two different shifts - day and night. Day is setting things up, getting kegs out, etc. Night is handling the actual ball. I'm getting confirmation of where to send y'all if you want to volunteer. I do not know if volunteering will get you a ticket - in fact, I'd doubt that it does - so if you want a ticket, you might want to buy soon! Also, if you can't make it, consider just making a donation if you have the inclination and ability. Every little bit helps. (If you're a restauranteur, bar manager, or just anybody who has something they'd like to donate for the silent auction, also let me know. They're also looking for someone to do a second dessert for the food side.)

It's not just canned tuna - it's the invisible grocery store shrink ray! http://consumerist.com/tag/grocery-shrink-ray Instead of raising the price, they shrink the size.