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
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).
Categories
Mappyhour
a little something a coworker sent my way… MappyHour, the Happy Hour Map. Enjoy!
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. 🙂
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.
