Go Cubs Go!

I used Park Whiz in order to get my parking space for the Cubs game at the Nationals.  The parking that I would get was in a Safeway parking lot about half a mile away from the park itself.  It was my first time at Nationals Park.  It's my 7th MLB park, which totally reminds me that I have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to seeing MLB stadiums.

I made the mistake of getting dressed without knowing how cold it was outside and 65 was just a little bit too cold for the stadium weather.  Not to mention the fact that it was very windy at the Stadium.  I got there extremely early though.  I thought that the 2pm game started at 1:30.  It gave me a good chance to walk around the stadium and get some good pictures though.  I still had a very good view of the field from the the section I sat in 200 level off of the first base line.  I couldn't beat the price either.  $12 off of Stub Hub.  My only complaint about where I was siting is that you couldn't really see the catcher and part of the batter.  Though it wasn't like I was sitting close enough to be calling balls and strikes anyway.

I ended up trying the garlic Parmesan fries and they came with a smoky bacon sauce.  They were pretty tasty but the line to get them was slightly absurd.  I must have waited for about 20 mins, but there wasn't anything going on at the time so I didn't really mind that much.  It seemed as though every place there that didn't serve the standard ball park fare had an extremely unreasonable line.  The best beer I could find there was a Blue Moon which isn't too shabby.

After leaving the park I had dinner at Founding Farmers.  I really wanted to try the Deviled Eggs and Pot Roast, since I had seen both on TV, but I wasn't really in the mood for either.  I took some time looking over the menu and the great thing I liked about it was that they had designations for menu items that were vegetarian, vegan and nut free.  It shows real care.

Fried Green Tomatoes

I ended up trying the fried green tomatoes.  They were nice and crispy and just a little bit spicy.  They came with this cream cheese spread.  It's a very good combination because you get that spicy kick tagging along with the creaminess of the cheese just slightly cut through by the acidity of the tomatoes.  They were fried just right and weren't at all greasy.

Along with my appetizer, I enjoyed the Chelsea's Manhattan it was the priciest drink on the menu but it was well worth it.  A Manhattan is usually my drink of choice, and this particular version had a chai-infused Dolin Rouge Vermouth, which is one of the better Vermouths that you can buy.  It added a subtle hint of spice to the drink.  I also got to try a whiskey that I have never tried before in the drink, The Black Maple Hill 8 yr. Bourbon.  This drink had a lot of character  strong and not very sweet.  Just the way I like it.

Chicken and Waffles

Then came out the very crisp Chicken and Waffles.  I ended up getting the green beans as a side.  The green beans were cooked nicely and came with some candied lemon that added some sweetness and acidity at the same time.  The mac and cheese that came alongside it wasn't that great in my personal opinion.  I did like the blend of cheeses on it but I could have gone without it all together.  It is an unnecessary and unadvertised extra starch when you already have waffles.  The chicken was good and crisp.  I really liked the gravy that was 

After dinner, I left to visit my friend Sam’s work.  I couldn't believe that that jerk worked right across the street from a Dogfish Head Ale House.  Who does that honestly?  He also claims that he didn't know it was a big deal.  I mean seriously?!  I got to see his work which is actually pretty interesting.  Sam works at a research reactor.  It’s pretty cool to watch that reactor generate power for experiments that many people do.  Many of the researchers get approval to do their projects as the scientists review the experiments to basically see if they are worth preforming.  Then they either pay to use the time there if they want to keep their findings private or it’s free if they choose to share their findings.  It seems like a pretty laid back gig.

I went over to the Dogfish Alehouse for a  beer before heading back to Sam’s house to crash for a few hours before catching the plane home.  I was awake well before they woke up and was up and checked through security about a hour before my flight.  United has flights going from DC to Chicago just about every hour or so.  While I was there some huge jerk got all mad because he missed his flight.  The flight he was on had closed the doors about 10 minutes early.  He gave some angry excuse about how it took him a long time to get through security.  I guess he didn't think that a major airport would be busy on a Monday morning.  Anyhow his meltdown granted me with some much needed entertainment before my flight, which also ended up being the flight that he would be on started to board.

Sweet Life Festival

My day started with a little bit of Shaun T's Insanity before waking up and hanging out with Sam and his son for a bit and breakfast of some scrambled eggs and toast.  He also agave me some of the most horrible coffee I've had in a long time.  I can't remember when the last time I've ever even seen anybody buy Chock Full O Nuts.  With good reason.  I think my great grandma used to drink Chock Full O Nuts.  It tasted like sludge.  We then headed over to Rio to do some of the greatest window shopping ever.  I have been budgeting myself for the most part to prepare myself for my upcoming trip to Europe.  I only made one purchase, a 750 mL bottle of Duvel.  I love that beer and was determined to get him to try it.  I would then introduce Sam to some good coffee.  Starbucks.  Not many people know this but you can order a short at Starbucks.  It's great when you want just a little bit of coffee.

The Best Method for making coffee at home starts off with good quality fair trade beans.  I would rather not drink coffee at all than to drink coffee that exploits the farmers that grow it.  I just believe that when love is put into a product it tastes that much better.  The other thing you need is a coffee grinder.  I keep two at home, one for spices and one for coffee.

We ate lunch at BGR.  I was very interested trying the lobster burger, but was drawn towards the Wellington.   It was a symphony of earthiness brightened up with the sharpness of the Dijon mustard in the sauce.  It was a messy burger, but all really good burgers are really messy in my personal opinion.  Somehow I managed to eat the entire thing like a grown up without getting any of the burger on my white shirt.  I passed on getting the roasted garlic on my fires which would have likely been my topping of choice but I figured it wouldn't be a good idea to eat a ton of garlic when I would soon be in close quarters with so many people.

I ended up going with the Parmesan to top the fries and thought the fries were pretty good as well.  I loved the mosaic tiled tables and the kid in me arose to sit at the table that had the superman logo on it.  Who passes up on Superman? (With the exception of that one Superman movie where Superman lifts an entire island of kryptonite into space.  Not only does that defy all logic of the movie, I mean a little piece of kryptonite brings Superman to his knees, now he can suddenly lift whole islands of it... Give me a break.  Not to mention the fact that the acting in that movie was abysmal.  I would rather watch slug documentaries rather than see that movie again... but I digress).  I also liked that they served beer and ended up getting a Hefewiezen.

Then as we got ready to leave disaster struck.  Car battery deadz.  After much pacing around, I had the brilliant idea of going to Target and getting jumper cables.  (I mean I am the smarter one between me and Sam).  We eventually got somebody to help us out and give us a jump because everyone we talked to before we got the cables was "Driving their wife's car which does not have jumper cables."  Why would you not have jumper cables in your wife's car?  I don't have jumper cables but I live on the wild side.  

I quickly checked into the Doubletree.  I wanted to drop off my bags and get into my room before I went out to the festival.  I mainly wanted the hotel room in case I got too drunk out there, I'd be able to take a cab back to the hotel, without bothering Sam or his very pregnant wife.  The hotel was pretty nice.  I loved the fact that it had open elevators, which may be a point of contention for those acrophobic types.  Though it is only four stories.    I checked in got the warm chocolate chip cookie and ran upstairs to the room and almost left forgetting the ticket.  A quick double-take and I was off to the festival.

I got there just in time to see Gary Clark Jr. start to preform.  I missed him a Lollapolooza last year.  I've been a pretty big fan ever since I got a chance to listen to his album Blak and Blu.  His voice is soulful and he combines skillful guitar play reminiscent of Jimi Hendrix with an amazing singing voice onto melodies that range from bluesy to upbeat.

One of the pluses at the festival was that the food and beer was pretty good too.  I had a great crabcake sandwich, but the star of the show would have to be the lobster roll which was packed with awesome fresh lobster.  The best thing I had there was the kale and chicken sandwich.  I had to go for it after hearing the guy in front of me diss it by saying that the pork and slaw sandwich had to better.  The chicken was slightly spicy and went very well with the rich lemony aoli resting against the hearty kale.

The star of the show that day for me was Robert Delong.  I love his music.  It was a few months ago when I was driving to Atlanta when I heard the song Global Concepts on the radio and had to buy it.  Then in a search for his music video, I happened across this video:

I mean in my personal opinion, the song Global Concepts is amazing in and of itself, but to watch and see him create that amazing sound all by himself.  It is amazing to me.  The music is awesome and has a bit of that electro vibe to it.  Amazingly enough the lyrics are good and pretty complex as well.

I left a little bit early since I'm not a huge fan of Pheonix or Passion Pit and I was pretty wet and cold.  I like their music just fine, after the rain, it wasn't fun at all since it was like 60 outside.  In hindsight I could have went for the regular tickets vice the VIP since I didn't get any of the benefit of the VIP.  The bar for the VIP section had a longer line than the other bars.  The VIP bathrooms also had a huge wait.  Oh well now I know.

The next morning I enjoyed breakfast at the hotel, and it was pretty good.  I'd say a little above average as far as hotel breakfast buffets go.  One added bonus was that thay had crepes.  They were filled with a sweetened up cream cheese.  It was a good start to the morning.  I enjoyed the crepes alongside crisp bacon  scrambled eggs and potatoes.  Topped everything off with some Orange Juice.

reVOLT

I've been looking forward to my trip to DC for a long time.  Because I'd get to see my friends Sam and Emily and their son Zach (who has to be one of the cutest and most well adjusted youngsters I've ever seen).  I had big plans for this trip.  It started with the flight there. I arrived at the airport unusually early and was able to score an earlier flight to DC.  The flight I was on was relatively empty and I was able to get the whole row to myself.  It was my first time flying United in a while and they quickly became one of my favorite airlines.  I now place United Airlines firmly below Virgin America and Jet Blue.

After my flight I would get my rental car from Alamo.  The kiosk that they suggested I use was slightly annoying.  It took quite a while to get my information (which I think should have been automatically populated somehow) entered and it took several attempts to get my driver's license to scan.  After all of these small issues I was on my way about DC in a VW Passat.  One minor problem, my phone was experiencing major problems with the GPS on my phone almost the entire time.  Weirdly enough these GPS problems only really occurred when I was driving.  I found it very strange but that aside the Passat was kind of fun to drive.  It took me a bit to figure out the cruise control, which was also integrated with the turn signal weirdly enough.  Bluetooth pairing went fine, allowing me to have access to my music throughout my trip.

After my flight I had held out on eating breakfast because I was planning on grabbing something from Tortas Frontera at O'Hare, but I was starving after getting off of the plane and couldn't wait any longer.  I made a quick stop at the Good Stuff Eatery on Crystal Drive.  I had been wanting to try the place, being a top chef fan and see just how good the burgers are.  I wish I didn't have dinner reservations at Volt later because I was trying not to have too much to eat.  I ended up deciding on the Obama burger, and it was a tender and juicy burger, but in hindsight I wish I would have gotten the Spike's Sunnyside.  Then again, a burger with a fired egg would have likely been much to messy to eat while driving.  I loved that the burger was not over powered by the blue cheese, and you could really taste the sweetness of the onions and the salty smoky flavor of the bacon.  Somewhere along the lines the horseradish mayo gets completely lost.

The fries were nothing to really write home about they were good and tasted and I definitely appreciated their freshness.  They also had several dipping sauces to choose from.  The Old Bay one was a little strange, but I get it being in the Maryland area, and I kind of like Old Bay Seasoning.  I don't think the average person would go for it but it was quite tasty to me.  The sriracha sauce sauce was tasty and approachable without being too spicy.  The mango sauce was sweet and interesting and something that I wouldn't combine with just about anything save chicken or fish.  I wish I could have tried some of the shakes they sounded awesome.

And then there was traffic.  Mind blowingly amazingly horrid.  The 50 mile drive took me a total of 4 hours.  I guess it kind of made sense considering that I was leaving the DC area at around 2 pm on a Friday afternoon.  I finally made it to Federick for my 5:45 pm reservation at 6pm.  It was a good thing I got that early flight I suppose.

I think this might be a case where I hyped up what I thought the food should taste like in my mind to a completely unattainable level.  I've been to restaurants of many Top Chef competitors.  Season 4 winner Stephanie Izard's Girl and the Goat and Little Goat.  Aria and Spiagga of season 9 runner ups Beverley Kim and Sarah Grueneberg.  I expected to be wowed by every dish that was the product of the imagination of Season 6 runner up Bryan Voltaggio.

The restaurant did a very good job of playing up the fine dining aspects but not coming across as stuffy and pretentious via very subtle means, like the burgundy pairs of Chuck Taylor All Stars that all of the servers wore.    It relaxed what would have otherwise made you feel as though the place was a jacket required sort of affair.

Dinner stared with me ordering the Manhattan, which was expertly crafted and to my liking  along with ordering the tasting menu after about 15 mins of painful deliberation about courses that sounded so much better than what was on the tasting menu.  In actuality I should have taken lots more time to read over the menu.  Ordering from a tasting menu seemed so much easier though.

Trio of Amuse-bouche

The dinner got off to a very good start with a trio of amuse-bouche.  My favorite of the three was a spring roll with rabbit and a soy foam.  It was delicate and light start to the meal while being bold and slightly earthy with the gaminess of the rabbit and the added depth of flavor from the salty soy foam.  Alongside the spring roll was a beat macaroon with a chicken liver mouse.  I am very particular about liver.  I will only eat the liver of poultry but even then it has to have the right preparation to get me to enjoy it.  even the slightest bit overcooked and it takes on that horrid acrid taste akin to calf's liver.  The macaroon was quite enjoyable though.  Then there was the ramp aranchini.  I love ramps, there short season is a reminder of the upcoming spring season.

The first course was green strawberries.  I could only describe this course as interesting.  It wasn't necessarily bad but not anything that I would ever order again by any means.  I've never had greens strawberries before and I can understand the thought process behind the dish.  The green strawberries were extremely tart and I thought could have benefited from some additional sweetness.  It was almost like a deconstructed PB&J sandwich once you throw in the peanut praline.  Then there was the serrano ham.  While delicious I didn't feel like it belonged at all.  All of the individual elements of the dish were great but this is one of those cases where the individual elements didn't exactly sing together.

The next course was morel mushrooms.  It was over steel cut oats.  This particular dish bode well for me in reawakening my desire for steel cut oats.  I really forgot how great they are despite the pound or two of them I have in my pantry.   The moment the dish arrives at the table you get the big aroma of the beautiful morel mushrooms.  You also have the great textural differences that you get from the sea lettuce.  It was my first time having sea lettuce and the texture can be best described as crisp and a bit plasticy.  My only critisim of the dish is that the star of the show, the morels almost play second fiddle to everything else involved.  They almost get lost behind everything else though it was still tasty.

Corn Dumplings with Crab

The third course was one that I should have known better than to get.  In hindsight when I review the menu, I find out that it had one ingredient that I absolutely hate and can't bring myself to eat.  I don't understand people's obsession with kimchi.  I consider myself to be a pretty much adventurous eater but the Korean staple of fermented cabbage is where I draw the line. The pasta was cooked perfectly in the dish.  I couldn't get past the strong flavor of the kimchi which I originally attributed to the miso, which I am also not a huge fan of.  I had to send it back, but in hindsight I feel  kind of bad because if I knew that kimchi was in the dish I would have requested something different.  I know from now on when it comes to allergies, to mention my aversion to kimchi.

They brought out  corn dumplings to replace the calamari bolognase that I despised.  The dumplings were light and perfectly pillowly soft.  They were so light and delicate that I'm surprised that they weren't  defying gravity and floating in mid air before me.  They were perfectly complemented by fava beans and a light broth that had subtle tomato notes.  I would have enjoyed a bit more crab, it is Maryland afterall...

Best Halibut Ever

One way to really impress me is to perfectly cook a piece of fish.  The halibut that I had was absolutely perfect in every way.  It had that perfect golden brown carmelization without creating that crust of dry overcooked fish that you almost want to cut away.  This was a sublime display of perfected technique in action.  You had the bright green apple juice in the background along with the sherry vinegar you get the acid to complement the fish well and cut ever so slightly through the richness of the chirizo.  The halibut was absoultely the star of the show as far as I was concerned.

Lamb

Next up was the spring lamb, and to be honest I don't really remember the dish at all. I have a picture of it.  I remember eating eat, but I guess it would be like trying the remember the person who went on stage after Michael Jackson preformed.  The only thing you can think about at that point is just how awesome of a performance you've just seen even though you might be experiencing a great show still.

For dessert there was the beet sorbet.  At this point I was far too full to eat anything else and though the beet sorbet was  very good, especially since I'm not big on overly sweet deserts it was a perfect way to end the meal.