PDX2

Here’s the teaser:

Got breakfast from a food truck.  Found out gas stations lock up their drinks in Portland.  Missed an underground tour of the city. Visited the famed voodoo doughnuts.  Browsed crazy stores in the Hawthorne ranging from bikes, vintage clothes and custom bags.  Had great coffee.  Saw one of my best friends who I haven’t seen in forever.  Almost destroyed his TV.  Had a short 90 min wait for dinner.  Had some great drinks while waiting.  It wasn’t as worth the wait this time but the food was still quite good.  Almost punched a Seahawks fan.

So day two started off with sleeping in a bit but not too much.   We were still out and about by about 10 am.  We decided to get a quick bite to eat from the food carts on the way to our next destination.  I was going to watch the game later with one of my best friends, I wanted to do something that would not interfere with that.  The Underground tour of Portland we thought would be the perfect thing.  It started at 11, but we thought we would make it there in enough time.

For breakfast, I decided to go with a Burger from Brunch Box.  I liked what I had there, but I am not a big fan of their ordering system.  To be honest it was rather annoying.  Why can’t I just tell you what I want and you write it down on the stupid little card for me.  Not to mention the fact that I couldn’t see everything I wanted on the menu on the little laminated menu with checkmarks that you fill in using a dry erase marker.

I went with the Outlaw burger.  It wasn’t that hard of a choice because I did want the Texas toast, but I didn’t want something as extreme as a burger between two grilled cheese sandwiches.  The food was ready pretty quickly and it was a damn good burger.  It played to all of your desired senses, salt from the bacon, sweet from the barbecue sauce and the bread was nicely grilled.

I decided to stop by a gas station on the way to the walking tour for drinks and another odd thing happened.  For the first time ever, the drinks were locked away.  They were being safeguarded as if they were some high value asset.  After struggling trying to open the door to buy one for a bit, the cashier came over and opened it for us and we got a couple of vitamin waters.  Unfortunately this little detour meant that we would miss our tour.  

On to plan B, we would walk back to the hotel, grab the car and head over to Hawthorne to browse through the shops in the neighborhood.  But first we figured we may as well brave the line in Voodoo Doughnuts.  I wondered, before I made the trip if there would be more Seattle fans or San Francisco fans in Portland.  They don’t have their own NFL team and both teams are relatively good as of late.  I’d say, that it seemed to follow about a 80/20 split in favor of the seachicken fans, but there were still a few of the faithful out and about.  It kind of makes sense since Seattle is a two hour drive away where San Francisco is a two hour plane ride away.  

We waited in line for an about half an hour with some mutual banter between fans.  Nothing too aggressive everyone was pretty friendly.  Voodoo Doughnuts was one of the places that I was really looking forward to trying.  I’ve got to say the maple bacon doughnut was pretty epic.  I don’t know who came up with that genius combination of sweet and savory but it was great.  I was so excited that I took a bite before I even snapped a picture of it.

When you consider the extreme wait time, in my personal opinion Voodoo doughnuts is just a really good one time thing, or a once in every great while thing.  I definitely wouldn’t consider it at all if the weather was anything other than nice.

The first stop was a music store Crossroads Music.  This is a place for the true audiophile that is looking for something seriously hard to find.  Though finding it still may drive you a little nuts once you get inside the store.  I was getting extremely frustrated as I tried to find albums because it seemed like there was so many different sections for the same genre.  After visiting the website, I think this has something to do with the fact that they have several music dealers that operate on consignment.  I don’t really seek out stuff that is extremely hard to find so for me it was more frustrating than fun, but I guess I know where to go if I needed some really rare vinyl at a really good price.

I thought the weather in Portland would be quite cold but for the most part I was outside with nothing more than a light jacket.  This made the walk along Hawthorne very pleasant.  Next up we stopped at probably one of the biggest comic book stores I’ve ever been in.  Excalibur Comics has a great selection of comics, many of which I never even knew existed.  I’m kind of a dork but comics aren’t necessarily my thing so I just spent tons of time browsing through the very interesting selection of titles.  The section for my favorite superhero franchise, X-Men, and the many variations of the comic took up a good four feet of table space.

Coffe at Oui Presse

Next was a short coffee stop at Oui Presse, ok I admit I stopped simply because I wanted a cool design in my coffee.  The latte I ordered came out just as such.  The cafe is very bright and it seems like a very chill place to kill sometime especially if you needed to get some things done.  The latte I had there was pretty good, not fantastic, but all things considered it is worth a stop, especially since it gave us a chance to rest our legs a bit before heading back up the street.

After a quick look at some really pricey recumbent bikes, we wandered into Black Star Bags.  The place is really cool, it makes some really unique bags and has a ton of designs available as well the ability to make your own custom bag.  I definitely wanted to pick something up while I was there but unfortunately, I didn’t budget for a random bag purchase of a couple hundred dollars.  The staff there was pretty helpful though and they offer free shipping so I don’t feel like I missed out on anything at all.  I did some s searching on etsy, and they have the cheapest waterproof messenger bags and backpack available.

If I haven’t stressed the fact enough, Portland is extremely weird.  One of the craziest things was the fashion sense.  In true hipster form vantage clothing is all the rage.  We shopped around in one of the House of Vintage for a bit.  It seems as though the sensible option for Portlanders to wear these clothing options of decades past.  Though much of the stuff was very interesting, I am not much for things of old.  I saw a couple of things that peaked my interest a little, but just not anything that made me want to pull the trigger.  I felt more apathy than nostalgia.  That’s not to say that there might not have been some great finds in that store, I just love new stuff.

Random Steet Art

The next stop was Herb Shoppe.  I’m pretty sure you can find pretty much every herb you might need in this store.  As soon as you walk in the intensity of the dried herbs hits you and you can smell a near overwhelming amount of these dried herbs.  It is easy to tell that the herbs are sold pretty quickly based on how potent they smell.  It is probably one of the largest selections of dried herbs I’ve seen.

Then it was game time.  All throughout my time in Portland, my phone’s GPS wasn’t especially friendly, but I didn’t have that complicated of a route so it didn’t matter that much anyway.  I hadn’t seen Doug in a long time.  He was one of my best friends in the Navy and we were roommates for a couple of years.  It was cool to go over and see him and to be honest I kind of envy his huge back yard and deck.

I made that sandwich from the leftovers I had from Ox.  I also got Doug one of the maple  bacon doughnuts, because I figured even though he lives in suburban Portland, he’s the type that would probably never venture beyond like pretty much anywhere that sports, fast food, or a good steak is involved.  Anyway I won’t get started on the game because I am still a little angry over it as soon as the game was over I had to leave because I was so angry and I couldn’t bear to be around any Television.

Khai Luuk Khoei

We went for dinner at Pok Pok. The wait this time was much shorter only 90 minutes.  This time we would wait at Whiskey Soda Lounge.  While we waited I had the Mango Alexander to drink and ordered the Khai Luuk Khoei, deep fried boiled eggs, to snack on.  The eggs were cooked perfectly.  They had this nice creamy yolk.  I also loved the tangy tamarind sauce was perfect with it.  The crispy shallots added a little bit more crunchiness that I didn’t think the dish would need initially, but it definitely worked out well. The Mango Alexander is probably one of the best sweet drinks that I’ve had.  Imagine a mango dreamsicle.  That’s what this glass of awesomeness tastes like.  I will say the one big downside of this place is the way they printed the menu.  Combining the low lighting with a darker colored paper and relatively small print makes the menu pretty difficult to read (and I’ve had LASIK mind you).

It was well under the wait time when the table was ready.  I couldn’t pass up another Mango Alexander because that drink is great.  For dinner I wasn’t too hungry and they serve in small plate style.  I went with two small plates.  The Kaeng Hang Leh and the Muu Paa Kham Waan.  The Kaeng Hang Leh is a spicy pork belly stew that goes with rice.   I could have probably stopped with this dish alone.  The sauce was thick and it is an incredibly rich dish.  I enjoyed it a lot and the pork was incredibly tender.  I must admit it was an interesting take on curry, and I have never thought of the idea of the addition of tamarind to curry.

Muu Paa Kham Waan

The Muu Paa Kham Waan was a genius dish.  I’ve never heard of anything like it before.  It is a boar collar meat that is tender and sliced thin.  It is coated with this bright and slightly spicy yet acidic dressing.  Match that with the chilled mustard greens and you definitely have a winner.  The strategy of putting the greens under ice right before serving is a technique that I will be walking away with because it keeps the greens crisp and keeps them from getting wilted when met with the warm meat.  It’s something that I have to use the next time I make lettuce wraps.

We turned in early for the night in order to get up and see a lot of nature stuff the next morning, but all in all this would have been the perfect day, if Colin Kaepernick threw one more touchdown and one less interception.

PDX1

So for those of you who don’t want to read through all that I did in Portland, here is the tl;dr version.

I flew to Southwest to Portland, somehow got free Wi-Fi.  Talked to the quickest rudest rental car agent ever and then navigated the most confusing streets of my life on the way to the hotel.  Got some pho from a food truck and spilled it pretty much everywhere.  Got +1 Tranquility points courtesy of the Japanese Garden.  Saw a dude pissing on the street in broad daylight.  Did some light window shopping where I scored some chopsticks.  Had an amazingly cheap beer at a really great 80’s arcade.  Went to my first clothing store/art gallery combo with live DJ.  Waited two and a half hours for dinner.  Got pretty tipsy at a few bars while waiting for dinner.  Found out it was actually worth the wait.  Had a waitress from a neighborhood nearby where I live now.

I’m not a huge fan of flying.  The exception to that rule is when I have to fly Virgin America.  I especially hate flying Southwest Airlines.  I much rather have assigned seating rather than go through the craziness of fighting over a seat once you’ve boarded.  It’s the worst airline to travel on if you’re flying with someone.  Solo it is pretty great though admittedly.  Still I settled into the fly pretty easily.  We scored the last two seats together on the plane and I sat back and listened to some music while reading a book.  Those Bose® QuietComfort® 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® Headphones have saved the lives of countless children.

View of Portland from Hotel Room

We got off the plane pretty quickly.  PDX is the biggest oddly emptiest airport I’ve ever been in.  It seemed slightly somber for a Saturday afternoon.  It was a quick walk to pick up the bags before making our way to the rental car counter.  I booked the car in advance through hotwire.  It was a Toyota Corolla, so nothing fancy but it would surely get the job done.  I came across the rudest rental car agent I’ve ever dealt with.  What he lacked in tact he made up in efficiency however.  I was able to ignore his sly comment about how he couldn’t find my reservation because it was for ten (Flight landed at noon mind you).  What stuck with me is the fact that I would need to bring a receipt back for refueling from within 5 miles of the airport.  This outrageous request made me almost not want to rent from them at all.  In retrospect, the closet gas station to PDX is oddly two miles away as I would later find out.

You don’t really need a car at all in Portland, with the exception of the trails that I wanted to go on and such I could have gotten along just fine without a car.  I would go as far as to say that Portland is not only bike friendly, but car hostile.   When you finally figure out which lane you are supposed to be in, it makes navigating the downtown areas much more complex when you have to consider that you may not be able to turn in the direction that you want to turn because of a bus only lane.  It wasn’t too tough though I am exaggerating a bit but you really have to pay attention.

As I moved to check in to the Hilton when I tried to park valet, I found out that I was staying at the other tower.  This meant I had to make a huge circle back around in order to park.  I would end up doing self-parking at the other tower.  This made for a great annoyance for the rest of my stay as the other tower was easy to find by walking, I am easily confused when it comes to direction and use Google maps almost exclusively when I’m driving.  This meant that I would make that same huge circle whenever I went back to the hotel.  I wish Hilton would save the executive tower onto Google maps to make it easier to find.

That aside, we were checked in after a bit of a delay,  I can’t complain much as we were checking into the hotel a bit early, and there was a bit of a line.  Still, I ended up in a room that was on a pretty high floor with a decent view of the city of Portland.  The room was spacious enough and the TV selection at the hotel was large enough that you wouldn’t have room to complain about it.  The internet speed was just fast enough to not annoy you.  I had no problem streaming a few YouTube videos here and there, but you aren’t exactly getting HD quality there.

The main advantage is the location.  It’s pretty central in downtown and it isn’t too far from the food trucks on Alder street.  Food trucks are pretty huge in Portland.  The food at the ones I stopped at were of pretty good quality too making it relatively cheap in order to score a good bite to eat.  Many of them also have very unique bites to eat and there is a great deal of variety as well there.

For my first trip out to the food carts, I was looking for a cart called Mai Pho.  I kind of underestimated the number of Vietnamese carts that would be in the area and I ended up eating at some random other cart that I cannot name now.  I ended up getting the pho and a Bahn mi.  I took everything back to the hotel to eat.  The problem was that the noodles and beef were packaged separately from the noodles.   Me being not so bright at the moment decided to try to dump the noodles and everything into the pho.  Since they were stuck together a bit everything came out in a big thud that resulted in me getting pho splashed everywhere.  At least the food was tasty.

The weather was to me at least, surprisingly warm.  Around fifty, which is for me having left the frozen tundra of Chicago, was hoodie weather.  Still I felt it chilly enough to make a stop at Java Man for a latte on my way over to the Chinese Garden.  It was all you could ask for in a small coffee shop, a very well made coffee that came to our table very quickly.  They also sell bubble tea there which would have been very tempting absent the cold weather.   Still, though this was certainly not my favorite coffee stop along the trip, at least they made that vanilla latte without so much sugar that I was unable to taste the coffee which is often a complaint of mine.  It was actually a very well balanced drink.

Continuing our walk, there was a bit of shock when we saw a guy pissing on the street in broad daylight.  This wasn’t your normal pissing in the street that is done somewhat discreetly up against a wall or something, this dude was just standing out in broad daylight pissing into an open patch of grass.  I seriously thought he was emptying a bottle out or something until I walked past him.  Who pisses on the street like that in broad daylight, there was a child coming from the opposite direction for goodness sakes.

Initially, I did not think that I would enjoy Lan Su Chinese Garden at all because from the outside, the garden seems very small, almost too small for me to justify the entrance fee of nearly ten bucks.  I was very wrong though.  Even with all the people walking around snapping pictures, self-included.  The garden is very peaceful and tranquil.  I got a chance to take a lot of good pictures inside of the garden it was very serene and calming.  I even had a really cool “look, a squirrel” moment. 

Here are some photos from Inside:

While we were in Chinatown, we decided to browse through a couple of the shops over there.  It seemed a little counterproductive considering we were headed to San Francisco, which has a much larger Chinatown, but I did end up snagging some chopsticks in the end.  There isn’t much room for so much Chinese themed items in my household, or to carry back in my luggage for that matter.

Voodoo Doughnuts

We figured by this time the line would have died down outside of Voodoo Doughnuts, but that place always has a super long line.  Anyway I made a stop for more coffee at Café Vita which is just across a pedestrian only street.  This little open window made some great coffee, but they win with the varieties of milk that they offer.  I actually got an espresso there that was pretty good.

The trek continued as we made our way to Ground Kontrol.  Think 90’s arcade with beer.  Astonishingly cheap beer at that.  I may be insulated from good prices on a beer from livening in the suburbs of Chicago, but when I ordered drinks, and the total came out to $8, I thought for sure the price was for one of the drinks, not both.  $3 for Deschutes is a hell of a deal.  Not to mention that evidently Portlanders have that whole crowding around the bar thing worked out and they just get in line to order a drink.

Who can argue with how great of a place this is?  It’s one of my favorites of my short stay in Portland simply because of bringing back so many childhood memories.  They are straightforward and don’t cheat you either as all of the games are very reasonably priced most at a quarter a round, and they use actual quarters as opposed to tokens.  Therefore, you aren’t locked in if you feel like cutting short your play time by a few minutes.

Next stop as we were walking was Compound.  It seemed like a pretty interesting clothing store and I wanted to head in and browse around a bit.  The store had a lot of unique items, and I thought it was pretty cool that they had a live DJ as well.  Then we walked upstairs and found out that there was an art gallery up there.  It was a crazy surprise but probably the only art gallery clothing store combo that I will ever visit that also happens to have a live DJ.  The clothing was s a bit pricey for my taste, so I didn’t make a purchase, but it is a good place to browse for some unique items.

Mole Tots at Bunk Bar

We went back to the hotel, before going out for dinner.  I knew that I wanted to have dinner at Ox, just after reading about the place online and looking at the menu.  When we got there and found out that there was a two and a half hour wait for a table, I almost didn’t want to stay.  Not to mention that their bar next door was beyond packed for standing room even.  This only kind of confirmed that this place was too good to pass up so I ended up agreeing to the wait, it’s not like I had somewhere to be in the morning and it just left us more time to drink, though now we would explore the neighborhood bars.

Mulligan and Cat's Meow at Secret Society

Our first stop was right across the street, in total opposition to the seemingly upscale bar we just checked out, Billy Ray’s Neighborhood Dive, was just that a dive bar.   The problem I had with it is that after paying $3 a beer at ground control, I felt a little ripped to be paying $6 for a well vodka tonic at a dive bar where the smell of urine assaults your nostrils.  It’s not that I’m too good for urine smells, and lime slices that have been cut so long ago that they are starting to turn brown around the edges, it’s just relative to all the places nearby, their drink prices in particular should have been a lot cheaper if that’s what they are offering.

La Yapa at Ox

Out of there and into Bunk Bar though.  I’m of two minds about this place, because I got suckered into buying a really bad drink here.  It just had a too good of a name that I read it without reading the ingredients, I kind of just briefly looked at them.  The name Typhoon Shandy was just too interesting.  IN hindsight a combination of Tequila, Lime, Grapefruit and Beer had no possibility of working.  On the other hand the place had a great atmosphere and the food was pretty good as well.  While we were there we decided to sample the mole tots, which turned out to be a great decision since they were probably the best tots that I ever had.  In hindsight the miscalculation was completely my fault, because there were other great drinks on the menu along with a good beer selection.

Bread ad soup at Ox

The next stop in the wait was The Secret Society.  They had some sort of live performance going on in one of the rooms up there, but we enjoyed a couple of drinks in the lounge area.  Having not quite enough time to enjoy one of the very elaborate absinthe drinks, we snacked on the spiced almonds, which were a steal at only $3.  The perfect pre-dinner snack to accompany our drinks.  The drinks by the way were phenomenal and coincided with the whole Victorian era theme that they had going on. 

We finally made it into Ox.  We got the text message and hurried over to be seated.  What I love about this place is despite the fact that it is an Argentinian themed steakhouse, it is vegetarian friendly and the aroma of the place isn’t dominated by that of cooked beef.  At the suggestion of our server, I decided to go with the La Yapa to drink, and let me tell you it was probably one of the best drinks I’ve had in quite sometime.  It is a well-balanced drink that catered to my love of whiskey, while being sweet and approachable.  You also have a nice bit of lemon to finish off your palate.

Duck Rillette Croquetas at Ox

First thing was a complimentary squash soup.  From there I knew this was bound to be an incredible meal.  It was a rich and creamy soup that wasn’t too heavy that it would weigh you down from the impending meal.  Combine that with the bread that they serve with a bit of a chimichuri sauce and it was fantastic.  I’ve made soups out of squash before and it still boggles my mind how they achieved a texture that smooth.

Mushrooms at Ox

For an appetizer I went with the croquetas of duck rillettes.  I felt a bit of trepidation about passing over the recommended Clam Chowder, but being that I was going to be in San Francisco soon and eating clam chowder out of a sourdough bread bowl, I decided to go for something different.  I must say I couldn’t have made a better choice.  It was the perfect balance of texture, perfectly tender meat that is so smooth that it melts in your mouth and a nice crisp exterior.  It was also well complemented by the celery root and pomegranate.  I swear that I could also live in the lemon aioli.

Potatoes with Horseradish at Ox

For the entrée, I couldn’t pass up on my favorite cut of steak, my beloved ribeye.  The steak was so tender and juicy and from a value standpoint it was one of the best I have ever tasted.  It was cooked to a perfect medium rare with just the right amount of carmelization.  Absolutely sublime.  As a side dish I went with the mushrooms and the potatoes.  The potatoes were the perfect counterpoint to the steak because they had a tasty horseradish aioli.  I still have a vivid and fond memory of taking a bit of steak and dragging it through the aioli to get the perfect bite of steak and potatoes.  Rich beef, alongside crisp potatoes and a bit of spice from the aioli.

The Main Event, Perfect Midrare Ribeye

At the suggestion of probably one of the best waitresses ever, I packed the remaining portion of food to go.  I was about to toss the bread until she suggested that the bread was the perfect size to make a steak sandwich with my leftover steak.  I didn’t plan it that way, but she was right as it did make for great leftovers. 

Dessert at Ox

I couldn’t come to a place this great and not try the dessert though.  Even though I was much too full, we had to go ahead and share the torte.  The honey chamomile ice cream was the perfect knockout punch.  Along with that crisp honeycomb candy that was a great topping for the soft rich and buttery cake.  On all levels, Ox didn’t just meet my expectations but blew them out of the water.  I still can’t believe a bill for two people was only $160 with tip, I expected it to be so much more.

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.