K and I had another dinner outing this evening, this time at Gustav's, a German restaurant and bar (attached to the Rheinlander restaurant, sort of a 'Deutschland duo') with Miranda & Brian, and Heidi & Andy (joined later by Brendle & Debbie). For dinner I had a delicious rotisserie turkey sandwich with munster cheese on a ciabatta roll, with a side of spicy sauerkraut (that's right, spicy… it had habanero in it, and it was good) and a couple steins of Spaten Munich. After dinner we went down the street to Moon & Sixpence for some beers (all but Heidi & Andy that is). We spent a few hours sipping beers and chatting away. Great evening all around.
Category: Beer
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Dinner at Gino’s
Tonight K and I went to dinner at Gino's Restaurant & Bar in Sellwood for Snooks girlfriend L's birthday. We arrived just after 8pm, meeting up with Snooks, L, and our friend Miranda, and waited for a bit for our table to open up. The place itself is very nice (nicer than the outside led me to believe as we pulled up), with a really gorgeous wood bar that nearly reached the high ceiling. The atmosphere was cozy, with a comfortable murmur of happy patrons, and a very friendly and helpful staff. While waiting the owner came to where we were standing and helped the wine drinkers select a bottle of (reportedly) very good wine, and took beer orders from Snooks and I. I was pleasantly surprised they had not only Guinness on tap, but Greene King Abbot Ale. Once seated the hostess was very helpful in taking our orders. The menu, while slightly expensive, was filled with delicious sounding meals. I tried to avoid really high-calorie / heavy items, but just couldn't resist one item named Grandma Jean's, a tomato based sauce with pork ribs, pepperoni, and beef, over penne pasta. I held out on the caesar salad appetizer that Snooks ordered, and any other appetizers so I could eat the main dish without too much regret. The meal was frickin' delicious, and very filling. They don't skimp on portions at Gino's.
After dinner and Kelly and I joined Snooks & L at the Horse Brass for a beer before calling it a night. I was exhausted all evening, mostly from the insanity at work all week, but it also could have been attributed to the evening out I had last night with my brother and Snooks at Moon & Sixpence. Either way, I could hardly keep my eyes open (so much so that I was forced to order a coffee at Gino's for fear of falling asleep in my chair). Despite my exhaustion, it was a fun evening.
Read a review of Gino's here (Willamette Week).
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Mappyhour
a little something a coworker sent my way… MappyHour, the Happy Hour Map. Enjoy!
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Delta Cafe and Horse Brass Pub
Tonight Kelly and I joined Snooks & 'L', and Miranda & Brian at the great southern style 'home cooking' restaurant near Reed College, the Delta Cafe. Holy moly is the food good, and not super expensive. For $9.00 or so, I got a dish of meat loaf with gravy, a side of mashed potatos and another side of red beans and rice with pork (you can pick two side dishes for every main entree). Oh, and I also got to try some of an appetizer Snooks ordered, spicy meatballs. Mmmmmm. I will say however, that I felt uncomfortably full at the end of the meal, and all I had to drink was a little water. But it is really delicious food. Go, now!After (the very filling) dinner we drove up the street a ways to the fabulous Horse Brass Pub for some beers. Had a great time hanging out and chatting, despite the fact that it was VERY busy. Thanks Snooks for arranging the evening. 🙂
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Back Stage Bar and Talkdemonic show
Tonight Kelly and I met up with our good friend Miranda after work at a new-ish McMenamins pub called Back Stage Bar (named for it's location, behind the Bagdad Theater on SE 37th). The pub hasn't been open for quite a year yet, and was once literally the Bagdad's back stage when it opened in 1927. In the 70's it was converted to a more art house theater, but since McMenamins bought the Bagdad the back stage building has been more or less vacant until last year. When you walk in, you can't help but be awed by the height of the room. Essentially, it's the concrete shell of what looks like a 4 story building, though I could only pick out one missing floor, about 15 feet from the ground, I'm guessing that's the height of the Bagdad stage. It's really very impressive. You can also climb some stairs to two smaller rooms along the street-facing side of the building. There are 5 pool tables and one snooker table, a large bar along one wall, and a dozen or so booths. Aside from the building, the food and drink is what you'd expect from a McMenamins.After dinner we drove over to the Doug Fir to see Talkdemonic play. This was the first time they'd played in a while, what with Lisa Molinaro having joined the Decemberists on tour. Lisa and Miranda are friends so at one point we got to meet her, and had a chat about the Decemberists tour, the future of her with them, etc. It seems that she'll be joining them on another tour sometime soon.
The second opening act was Leti Angel. Fairly good rock trio, though the vocals were pretty rough at times. That said, the male singer (there's a female vocalist and bass player in the band too) would use a sampler effect pedal and add harmonies loop vocal bites (yells, etc), which created some interesting sounds, some of which were really really cool. All in all, worth checking out their MySpace page.
Talkdemonic were, as always, great. I've talked about them before, so I won't go into great detail about them except to say that each time I see them the crowd gets bigger and bigger. They performed a lot of my favorite tracks from their albums, some of which were slightly re-worked, or Lisa would play her parts different, which was nice to hear it sound fresh… and they also performed a lot of new material, which was fantastic. More pics here and here. -
Beer, with added workiness
Ah, friday. I say that as if it was a long week or something, I only worked 3 days, but they all were long, brain-destroying days. One nice thing was that at the end of the day the company hosted another small happy hour in the break room, so I had a beer or two and chatted before Kelly picked me up around 6:30. We decided to go to the Moon & Sixpence again, have a few pints, some snacks, etc, and relax.
The pub was packed when we arrived, so we ended up with a small table near the door. About an hour later I hear my name called out, it was one of my bosses and his wife. They sat with us and we had a great time chatting, mostly non-work related. Towards the end of the evening my esteemed coworker seemed to be getting a little droopy-eyed, so we drove them home. Fun evening all around, and a good way to end the week.
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It’s 2007!
Happy New Year all. Had a small gathering this evening, loads of fun, ate too much, drank too much… guess that's the point? Overall had a very nice evening, and am looking forward to the new year. Happy New Year and here's to a better '07. (PS, I can't believe that it's 2007… I feel that I should have a flying car, a cold fusion-powered home, and a robot maid by now).
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Dinner at the Mortuary
Tonight Kelly and I had dinner with our friends Miranda & Brian at the new McMenamins pub that opened near where we live. It's called the Chapel Pub, and is located in a building that was constructed for and used as a mortuary from 1939 to 2005. Again, McMenamins did what they do best, snapped up the great building and renovated it. A server told Kelly and I that originally the building was to be nothing offices for their corporate headquarters, however they figured out that there was enough room in the large brick building to put a small pub in the front. And boy has it been a hit, Kelly had heard that on opening night a few weeks ago there was an hour-long wait to get seated. Yikes!
The wait wasn't too bad (20 minutes) and we were seated in a nice spot by the windows that face Commercial St. Dinner was good, and had a great time hanging out with Miranda and Brian. At first I thought it might be a little weird to have dinner and drinks in a former mortuary; however it really wasn't strange at all once there. The pub has a warm, comfortable vibe, and very a 'McMenamins' atmosphere, with interesting art and great old photos of the area adorning the walls. It's not a big place, but it's worth going to check out. Oh, Miranda & Brian and Kelly & I exchanged gifts, and I got a Serenity ornament. Way cool! Thanks again! 🙂
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A night out at Edgefield
Yesterday Kelly and I joined our good friends Mr. & Mrs. Ghost Dog out at another fine Mcmenamins establishment, Edgefield. For those of you who've never been there (or don't live in the area), Edgefield is a great spot to spend time, whether an evening or a weekend. It was built in the early 1900's and served as a poor farm for many decades, later becoming a nursing home, and was shut down in the early 1980's. A decade later, McMenamins did what they do best, bought the vacant (and condemned) spot and did major rennovations to save a great piece of local history. Naturally, they also added restaurants, a brewery, a distillery, and a winery, along with golf courses, gardens, and a movie theater. It's really a perfect adult getaway, sort of a grown-up's Disneyland.
We met there around 7:00pm (well, more like 6:30 since all of us arrived early) and had a very nice dinner, and had a few (perhaps too many) of their ESB, both in the 'Power Station' restaurant, and the 'Distillery Bar' had it on nitro, it was creamy and delicious. Be sure to check out Ghost Dog's post about the evening for more. After a few hours we all left for home, Kelly (bless her heart) drove home, and we watched some TV and fell asleep on the couch with kitty. 🙂
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Company Holiday Party
Last night Kelly and I went to my company's holiday party, held at the Paragon Restaurant in NW Portland. They had rented out the Gallery Room, a large room for private parties, and supplied hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and dinner. Seeing the entire company (with their spouses / significant others) under one roof is impressive. Even the two 'out-of-country' employees flew out this past week and were able to attend. It was fun to get to meet many of my coworkers better halves, chat with coworkers who I don't see in the average day, etc.
About an hour or so into the event however, the power went out, not just in the building, but a large portion of the surrounding area. I went outside to look around and from Paragon (NW 13th and Hoyt) north as far as I could see was out of power, but it seemed that south, east and west were only out for a handful of blocks. Still, it was a pretty large outage. The Paragon staff were polite and professional however, filling the room with candles and continuing to serve drinks (and later, the salad portion of our meals, since nobody was sure whether they could complete the main course without power). Also during the outage the CEO stood up, read a hilarious poem he had written about the company and employees, set to tone of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore, and then handed out gifts (each employee participated in a white elephant gifting scheme, and some of the gifts were hilarious, including what I received). The power finally came back on, and within a half hour dinner and then dessert were served.
Due to the late dinner, many people continued drinking, on empty stomachs. Fortunately for me, I don't drink anything but beer, and my head cold kept me from drinking too much of that, so for the whole event I remained sober. Kelly has a different story, which I'll let her tell. 🙂 It was fun though seeing some of my coworkers getting a bit tipsy, standing outside with their manly drinks and manly cigars. I just stood there with them with my bottle of beer and a cigarette.
After the event, my manager wanted to go to the Moon & Sixpence, which I would have gladly done, but Kelly was ready to go home so we thought we'd share a cab there, then call one from there home. The company provided taxi vouchers for the evening, which was great, except that the cab company's phones were either busy or not answering. The few of us (seven total) who were going to go out decided to find something walkable from Paragon rather than stand out in the cold, somebody (I believe it was my manager's wife) directed us around the corner to a club/restaurant called Apotheke (Portland Murcury review here) for a drink and, well, warmth. The place itself, which, nearly all white, had a very angular, rounded-corner, 'plastic' look (most of it was either plastic or fiberglass), with minimalist artwork decorating the walls, and a couple of guys (one on a laptop, the other with a sampler) creating 'crunchy' electronic music completed the atmosphere.
The restaurant serves what it calls 'Scandinavian and Northern European Cuisine', and has a better-than-usual beer selection (including a couple bottled Scottish beers [1, 2] I hadn't had, or even seen, before). The server behind the bar was very friendly and knowledgeable about the beer offerings and accurately described the flavors of the things I tried after they ran out of one of my favorite English ales, the Adnams SSB. It was a very interesting place to go, and given the friendly staff I'd be curious to go back and try out some of their food menu (the patat, wurst with potato salad and sauerkraut, and Westmalle stew all sound delicious). Kelly and I finally got a cab home sometime around 1:30am, then Kelly, I, and Arthur all dozed off on the couch around 2:30am. I woke up (still on the couch) sometime around 4am, and sleepily shuffled my way upstairs to bed. Fun night. I'm sleepy.
