Bah, I hate being sick.
I had been fighting it, but succumbed on Friday and took the day off from work to lay in bed all day watching Iron Chef America. When I slept, I dreamed of a three way between me, Alton Brown and Mario Batali. I'm pretty sure cheese was involved. I dragged myself out of bed for dinner at Bleu with Lucas, but he was sick as well so we called it an early night. This was my second time visiting this restaurant and it didn't disappoint. Each little table is tucked away behind dark velvet curtains making the place feel ridiculously intimate. My manhattan was excellent and the salads were so large I hardly made a dent.
Saturday brought a celebratory breakfast with Casey for his completion of classes at SCCC the previous week. We had been wanting to check out Oddfellows for breakfast after our excellent meal there on Valentines Day and although there has been some conflicting reviews online, I really enjoyed the food. I've learned at one of the other restaurants in Linda Derschang mini empire of eateries, Smiths, that the chef can have a wildly varying take on the menu items depending on the day but it was not the case here.
I was thrown off immediately as the set up for breakfast is different from dinner service; you have to order at the counter and they give you a number. I was used to this from my days at Alcove, but I was kinda sick and sleepy so I was a little hard on the waiter who let us know of the breakfast ordering process after he saw us sitting at a table waiting. He wasn't offended though and later we chatted about my restaurant experiences down in LA. He had just taken a trip down and was staying around Los Feliz, which is where Alcove is located. My breakfast panini arrived and I was delighted to find it on brioche bread which soaked up the runny egg yoke perfectly. It was heaven. Casey's baked eggs with ham looked excellent and he assured me it tasted just as good as it looked. If you order that particular dish, I recommend ordering the toast and jam as well unless you like a carb free breakfast. We sat chatting, drinking coffee and soaking up the ambiance in the large dining hall that once doubled as the meeting hall for the fraternal order that founded the building before my back could no longer stand sitting on the hard wooden benches.
"setting up"
After a little nap I headed down to the Gibson Showroom for an interview with OK Go, who you might remember from their fun treadmill video "Here It Goes Again", which was filmed at Damian Kulash's sister's house after practicing the routine for two weeks. Apparently she's a trained ballroom dancer and choreographs their videos. Although for "Do What You Want" they put out an ad on Craigslist looking for people with strange talents. Check out the video to see the interesting people who answered the ad.
One of my boss's had family in from out of town so he wanted to bring them down to check out the performance. After the few songs they played for us Damian took a moment to sit down with Brian's son Ryder to chat about music. A.d.o.r.a.b.l.e
Dan Konopka, Andy Ross, Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind
The drummer Dan Konopka was sick and sat out the performance but I guess their normal set up for acoustic shows is sans drummer, however he did join in on the interview. I asked him if he felt threatened by his replacement; a cup of change and the back of the guitar, but he was interested to see what Tim Nordwind did with the change. Apparently it was a last minute idea which turned out pretty cool.
I was glad that I drug myself out of bed for the interview, but it lasted for quite some time and after a couple hours I was exhausted. I had a date for the evening and I wanted to get home in time for shower and rest before going out again so we packed up and headed out.
Sunday was an excellent end to my weekend. I was starting to feel a bit better, but still spent the majority of the day in bed. Luckily I had company this time, although we did head up to the Coastal Kitchen for a yummy breakfast around noon. Funny thing about this restaurant is that there is always a long wait for a table but if you pass the crowd you can almost always find a seat at the bar, which is what we did. The menu showcases a new country every couple months and the fare was Tunisian on this day. I decided to stay with one of their constant menu items, a goat cheese "rumble" which is scrambled eggs with caramelized onions, spinach, sage and goat cheese. Yummy.
I realized as I was writing this that I had a restauranty kind of weekend, visiting three excellent examples of local fare. And although I'm still sick today, any weekend that ends with me in a sheet being handed a beer with a kiss leaves me with little to complain about come Monday morning.
I had been fighting it, but succumbed on Friday and took the day off from work to lay in bed all day watching Iron Chef America. When I slept, I dreamed of a three way between me, Alton Brown and Mario Batali. I'm pretty sure cheese was involved. I dragged myself out of bed for dinner at Bleu with Lucas, but he was sick as well so we called it an early night. This was my second time visiting this restaurant and it didn't disappoint. Each little table is tucked away behind dark velvet curtains making the place feel ridiculously intimate. My manhattan was excellent and the salads were so large I hardly made a dent.
Saturday brought a celebratory breakfast with Casey for his completion of classes at SCCC the previous week. We had been wanting to check out Oddfellows for breakfast after our excellent meal there on Valentines Day and although there has been some conflicting reviews online, I really enjoyed the food. I've learned at one of the other restaurants in Linda Derschang mini empire of eateries, Smiths, that the chef can have a wildly varying take on the menu items depending on the day but it was not the case here.
I was thrown off immediately as the set up for breakfast is different from dinner service; you have to order at the counter and they give you a number. I was used to this from my days at Alcove, but I was kinda sick and sleepy so I was a little hard on the waiter who let us know of the breakfast ordering process after he saw us sitting at a table waiting. He wasn't offended though and later we chatted about my restaurant experiences down in LA. He had just taken a trip down and was staying around Los Feliz, which is where Alcove is located. My breakfast panini arrived and I was delighted to find it on brioche bread which soaked up the runny egg yoke perfectly. It was heaven. Casey's baked eggs with ham looked excellent and he assured me it tasted just as good as it looked. If you order that particular dish, I recommend ordering the toast and jam as well unless you like a carb free breakfast. We sat chatting, drinking coffee and soaking up the ambiance in the large dining hall that once doubled as the meeting hall for the fraternal order that founded the building before my back could no longer stand sitting on the hard wooden benches.
"setting up"
After a little nap I headed down to the Gibson Showroom for an interview with OK Go, who you might remember from their fun treadmill video "Here It Goes Again", which was filmed at Damian Kulash's sister's house after practicing the routine for two weeks. Apparently she's a trained ballroom dancer and choreographs their videos. Although for "Do What You Want" they put out an ad on Craigslist looking for people with strange talents. Check out the video to see the interesting people who answered the ad.
One of my boss's had family in from out of town so he wanted to bring them down to check out the performance. After the few songs they played for us Damian took a moment to sit down with Brian's son Ryder to chat about music. A.d.o.r.a.b.l.e
Dan Konopka, Andy Ross, Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind
The drummer Dan Konopka was sick and sat out the performance but I guess their normal set up for acoustic shows is sans drummer, however he did join in on the interview. I asked him if he felt threatened by his replacement; a cup of change and the back of the guitar, but he was interested to see what Tim Nordwind did with the change. Apparently it was a last minute idea which turned out pretty cool.
I was glad that I drug myself out of bed for the interview, but it lasted for quite some time and after a couple hours I was exhausted. I had a date for the evening and I wanted to get home in time for shower and rest before going out again so we packed up and headed out.
Sunday was an excellent end to my weekend. I was starting to feel a bit better, but still spent the majority of the day in bed. Luckily I had company this time, although we did head up to the Coastal Kitchen for a yummy breakfast around noon. Funny thing about this restaurant is that there is always a long wait for a table but if you pass the crowd you can almost always find a seat at the bar, which is what we did. The menu showcases a new country every couple months and the fare was Tunisian on this day. I decided to stay with one of their constant menu items, a goat cheese "rumble" which is scrambled eggs with caramelized onions, spinach, sage and goat cheese. Yummy.
I realized as I was writing this that I had a restauranty kind of weekend, visiting three excellent examples of local fare. And although I'm still sick today, any weekend that ends with me in a sheet being handed a beer with a kiss leaves me with little to complain about come Monday morning.
Comments
I'm so jealous of your meeting OK Go. Great job.