So…here’s the weekend deal: Friday night, Jen and I checked out a restaurant in Woodley Park called Lebanese Taverna, which was pretty awesome, except it was just way too much food. I had some sort of roast chicken wrapped up in a pita type thing….and I mean a whole chicken. Crazy. After that we headed up to this music school around the Van Ness Metro Stop to see a cabaret type show called Borinquen Preciosa, which was poetry, music and dance about Puerto Rico. Pretty fantastic, and I would say I won some big points with that one. 😉
Saturday began fairly late with an AMAZING greasy, Southern breakfast at the Florida Avenue grill. I am talking pork chops and eggs, with home fries and biscuits. Holy smokes. It had to be one of the greatest places I have ever eaten. So cool. The waiters and waitresses were all rocking out to motown and getting all sassy too. Great stuff. After doing a little strolling about and shopping, the weather started to get nasty and rainy, so a nap ended up taking the place of some of the afternoon’s planned activities. Instead, it was a stop at Fresh Fields to procure some goodies to eat, and we came home to enjoy some fresh bruscetta, brie and fruit, accompanied by a cheap awesome wine called “Fat Bastard Shiraz”. So good. We actually saw the Fat Bastards at the International Wine Festival yesterday, but I am getting to that.
Yesterday, we got moving pretty early to be ready to go for the International Wine Festival which started at 1 at the Reagan building. All I can say is that once we got there, our fate was out of our own hands. I am talking about three massive rooms filled with exhibitors from all over the world. We are talking wines, olive oils, cheeses….you name it…..and we tried it all. Instead of spitting all the wines we tasted, we swallowed, and armed to the teeth with crackers, we could not be stopped. As the afternoon progressed, we sampled a huge number of wines and cheeses, bought some cheese, and made friends with quite a few wine reps. We even met the dudes from Fat Bastard! We also met some cool cats from an Australian Shiraz maker.
Anyway….as things started to come to a close, several exhibitors started to give us stuff. Bottles of wine, olive oil, cigar boxes….you name it. Pretty soon, we had about 4 or 5 big bags of crap. In order to get the wine out, i had my pockets stuffed with bottles, and my shirt untucked as cover. We also took empties and put them in the top of our bags so that those would be taken and not the real deal. Upon leaving successfully, Jen and Rena and I ducked into the Williard Hotel’s Round Robin Bar, because we thought it would be good for a couple laughs. Apparently, we caused a bit of a stir there, being the noisiest ones in the bar. After a couple Sapphire and Tonics and Bloody Marys, we were thoroughly in the land of “No Business Being Outside the Home”, and we decided to cab it over to Baja Fresh to meet Jen’s friend Catherine. It was here that stuff started to get really gross. Jen got mad at me for a little while for saying something really stupid that I didn’t even say, and then we couldn’t find her purse. Me…thinking that I might have thrown it out, go into the kitchen with the manager who gives me rubber gloves as I start to plow through the trash to find her bag. Meanwhile, Jen and her friends totally think I bailed. Eventually, they find me and I give up, and we all go home rather distraught with the thought of having lost the purse. Eventually, Rena managed to get a hold of the cab driver who last had us, as he picked up Jen’s cell phone which was ringing in the backseat. This guy was so cool that he actually drove over from Virginia to give us the bag, and everything was still intact. Needless to say, everyone’s mood improved after that, we ordered pizza, and finally got to laugh about the whole day. To protect the innocent and foolish (namely myself), some details of this story have been omitted. Overall, it was a fabulous day/night/whatever.
My hands hurt from typing.