Han Dynasty Dinner and Darts With Friends

About a week or so back I met up with a few high school buddies for dinner at Han Dynasty. We had cumin lamb.

And garlic eggplant.

And twice fried scallops. Not pictured, but consumed, included green beans, pea shoots, cold noodles with sesame and spicy cucumbers. All very good.

Then we went to Buffalo Billiards where some non-high school folks joined us for dart times. I could have sworn that more photos were taken of me with people, but this is the only proof I have: E., me and  Mr. Ass. An evening that went quite well and allowed me the chance to see a few dart folks one last time as well as just other people I like. A successful night on the whole.

Birthday Fun Times c/o Buffalo Billiards, Han Dynasty and Yakitori Boy

My birthday fell on a Tuesday this year, which isn't really ideal for a night of celebration given the propensity for the people I know to have jobs that require them to use their brains effectively on weekday mornings. So I sent out a call to birthday arms for the Saturday preceding the actual day of my birth. It was sort of a two-pronged call. To a slightly  more select group I suggested dinner and to a broader, more dart-loving group I suggested darts before that dinner. This was all a bit more last minute than might have been ideal, but I was still really pleased and grateful for the turn out...nothing worse than inviting folks to your own birthday celebrations and finding yourself totally alone. L. and Fat T. came down from Brooklyn a bit before our first scheduled activity. I made a little cheese plate and L. and I drank champagne while Fatty and A. drank beer. We all threw some darts. Then it was on to Buffalo Billiards, where our numbers soon allowed us to take control over all three boards.

Mr. Ass couldn't make dinner, but we did play a game of darts. It was a funny mix between the true blue darters and some of my less dart savvy friends. The majority of darters are legitimately better than me, and usually when I played them I lost. Meanwhile the friends who aren't throwing darts on a daily or weekly basis were quite impressed by my prowess. My dart ability: a sliding scale of awesome based solely on others' own abilities.

After a good amount of time playing the darts, it was time for our rather late dinner reservation at Han Dynasty's new Old City location, just down the block from its old one. I basically ordered for all of us after hearing certain suggestions or desires from the crowd. So our meal ultimately included dumplings in hot chili oil.

Cucumbers in hot chili oil...these suckers are sooo good .

Dan Dan Noodles. Not everyone ordered a sazerac, but I did and I loved it.

This was the cumin lamb.

This was L. reacting to her imminent turn getting the cumin lamb as A. scoops some on his own plate.

I think this is Fatty and LW with the eggplant.

Yep. Succulent, savory eggplant. Love it.

This was either the kung pao chicken or the garlic chicken,

I think this was the twice fried fish maybe?

String bean magic.

Pepper scallops if I recall correctly. SO GOOD.

The dinner was quite lovely and I was so pleased to share my birthday with such fun and funny folks. After that C. and R. went home while Fatty, L., LW, A. and I decided that we would try to do some karaoke at Yakitori Boy, which we did. I sang a Tom Petty song. We also just sang along with all the other people singing. A.'s gf G. joined us and the night went late.

Sake bombs did happen.

I don't really know what's happening in this photo except that LW and I both look quite taken aback, but from different things.

I'm a homebody for much of my daily, weekly or monthly existence, and the older I get the more okay I am about it...that said, every once and a while it's good to have an evening full of folks and fun, and this was certainly such an evening. A hearty thank you goes out to all who partook in my pre-birthday fun times!

Fried Chicken Buns and Lamb Ramen c/o Dassara, Plus Darts

During our super busy season my job overwhelms my waking and sleeping life (oh the stress dreams) and makes it so that most all evenings are spent at home, alone, lying down with zombie eyes and preserving energy for the next day. I don't really mind how crazy it can be because I do enjoy some generous vacation days in exchange for my hard work, but work/life balance during these times is a pretty much foreign concept. So lying down and staying in was  pretty much what I planned on doing a Friday a few weeks back when I received a text from L. suggesting I come up to Brooklyn for her friend's annual big pig party the next evening. I think I surprised both of us by taking her up on that suggestion. I finished work later than usual and then packed myself up and hit the road, making pretty good time on the whole, though getting off the NJ Thruway and towards the Goethals and Verrazano bridges was especially stupid. Once I arrived I got loopy from the socialization of L. and Fat T. It had probably been far too many days since I had had any lengthy conversation with anyone about anything other than work. Though, of course, I also talked about work because when it's the only thing you really have going on, then it's really the only thing to talk about. In any case, after some much needed laughter and fellowship, L. and I went out into the world to have dinner while Fat T. stayed home because he is a party pooper and hates dinner. L. and I, on the other hand, love parties and dinner. So out to Dassara we went. It was a little on the late side, so we were pretty much the only folks eating, though there were a few people sitting at the bar. The lighting in the main dining room was challenging in a similar neon-like way to Morimoto, though I feel like I did a slightly better job dealing with it in this instance. We started by splitting the fried chicken buns, which I found to my liking. The soft and pliant buns made a nice contrast to the crispy chicken bit and slight saltiness of the pickle.

Dassara isn't a 'traditional' ramen spot like Ipuddo but its variations on the traditional ramen set up were definitely interesting. I ultimately found myself most drawn to the lamb ramen with braised lamb belly, market greens and a soft-poached egg. The thing I usually like about ramen is that the noodles have a little more 'toothiness' to them...Japanese al dente if you will. While I enjoyed the broth of the dish well enough, I will say that I found the noodles themselves not to have that especially good resiliency. They were a wee bit too soft and mushy for my taste. I feel like L. had a similar feeling about her noodles as well. So the conclusion I had was that the buns were good, the broth was good, but the noodles weren't very exciting.

After dinner I suggested/requested that we seek out a dart board and play darts with some strangers. And that is just what we did. Here you will see L. properly celebrating the double bull she threw that won us a game.

Good times.

Pho and Darts

At some point in the last few months A. (my roommate) and I bandied about the idea of a field trip to Bullseye Darts so that A. could get his very own set of darts after a year of using mine or one of our other teammates'. I also was falling a little out of love with my darts and was thinking about getting a new set. Then LW and I also discussed such a trip with the added attraction of having a bit of pho, which would basically be a variation of our 2011 manapus adventure. Of course one often talks about doing something for an extended amount of time before actually doing it. And in this case I think it was at least a month between the idea being brought up and schedules aligning to make it so. I thought I remembered where the pho place we went to in 2011 was...but I was wrong and we ended up at Pho 75. This was a smaller shop than the place I actually meant to take us, and its menu slightly less expansive...no pork rolls to try. Though there were fewer bells and whistles, they still had the crazy coffee.

It turns out this was going to be a day of firsts for A. Not only was he about to get his own darts, he also had his first pho experience. I think it went generally well.

The broth was good, the whole thing was good. I still like our go-to South Philly spot a bit more, but I was glad to try a new place and to introduce the glory that is pho to yet another person. 

Once our meal wrapped up we were on our way east to Bulls Eye. I think the three of us probably tried out a minimum of six different sets of darts each. At one point I was convinced that I wanted one set but then saw a completely different set and all my certainty went out the window. LW was especially dervish-like in her pursuit of a new set of darts. In the end ALL three of us got slightly different weights of the exact same darts. I've been pretty pleased with the new darts they have a different kind of grip that seems to be a slightly better fit in regards to my small little fingers and weak arms. Our league starts up soon, so that will be the real test. It was still very entertaining when we all walked out of the store with the exact same cases. Funny stuff. 

Dart Banquet

So I am the captain of a dart team. We're a motley crew but we get along pretty well and our overall roster is pretty strong. In the fall season we got very close to finishing well within our division, but we kind of screwed the pooch in our playoff game. During the spring season we fared a bit better, winning our regular season but not clinching the playoffs yet again. But two of us (not me in either case) did have the highest in- and out- shots for a respective season. Here is T. with his in-shot trophy. And I think actually maybe it's three teammates...just that N. wasn't there to collect his prize so I kind of forgot about it momentarily.

And here is a portion of the team with the plate we won, which is a really heavy son of a gun. I'm going to bring it to our home bar at some point soon and they will hang it on the wall and we will be famous for eternity. We also won shirts with our names on it because of finishing first in the regular season. Shirts and plates! Plates and shirts!

Here is my roommate, A., with his trophy in hand.

On this particular Sunday afternoon the league threw a banquet so everyone could collect their prizes and eat and drink and play darts. I did two out of those three things. For the dart playing it was an "LOD," which stands for luck of the draw. Basically you throw in some dollars and then you're paired randomly with a partner. My partner and I got through the first round but didn't fare quite as well in the second, but it could have been worse.

Pho and Engagement of Others

On a Saturday not long after the sushi I had a work responsibility that involved seeing the newest Tina Fey movie. I decided to go to the earliest possible show, and to try a new-to-me pho spot beforehand. It met my expectations though the broth wasn't as excellent as the Oregon Avenue location LW and I often frequent. If you want to know my basic thoughts on the movie, you can go here...though you'll be kind of confused, I would think.

Also on that weekend's agenda was meeting up with SP and CG, as they had let me know they'd be in the city weeks before. In fact, when I returned to NYC after my trip I met up with T. and his girlfriend A. and clued me into the high probability that SP was going to propose while they were in town. I wondered if this would result in my not actually seeing them, and I also wondered if T. should have told me, so I did email SP separately to confirm that even with a proposal there would be time to hang. He responded in the affirmative. At first we met at the Ranstead Room, but there was an unsurprising 45 minute wait, so we concocted a quick plan B and headed to the Bards, where we took over a table and hung out for some hours. This included seeing J., his girlfriend, and a bunch of folks I didn't know and didn't really get to know, though they seemed nice. So SP certainly did propose. And CG definitely said yes. It was a very celebratory evening with plenty of beer and darts.

SP recreating his proposal. Maybe.

CG, engaged and hitting what she aimed for.

Engaged.

My face needs help.

A good evening.

Birthday Night Darts c/o The Bards; Birthday Night Dancing c/o The Barbary and Midnight Magic

Next up on my birthday night agenda was darts at the Bards. I wasn't sure who would or would not be there, but I had certainly invited a number of darts loving folks. LW and I arrived and gladly met up with S. (who is on my dart team) and TDoc. It was a little whirlwind because of the third act of my evening, but we got in a few games and, of course, some photos.

Next up was a relatively last minute addition to the night in the form of music and dancing at the Barbary. This was a venue I'd never actually been to before, so it was nice to broaden my horizons. Basically I bid adieu to LW, S., and TDoc and met back up with BC, BM and AS, who had stayed north in preparation for the dancing.

The band in question was Midnight Magic.

I went to college with one of the band members, and via Facebook it was brought to my attention that they'd be in the area that Saturday, and I figured what better way to round out a night then by dancing to the musical stylings of a group that includes former college people? No better way really.

As always, I was the annoying girl with the camera taking pretty not great photos. But it's what I do. It's too late to stop now.

I'm not sure I recall exactly what transpired between the first and second photos. But clearly it was hilarious.

It was a really fun show. Lots of dancing and sweating and jazz hands all around. Maybe not that many jazz hands. Of course by this part of the evening (2 AM ish) I was pretty sauced, which made me think it was a good idea to chat with A. (the college compatriot) while he did his post-show rounds. I can only hope I didn't embarrass myself entirely. Hope is half the battle.

Then I followed him (I mean not like without his permission, that would be very much weirder) to the green room area, insisted on taking a photograph, and then proceeded to blather about this and that and god knows what to his bandmates.

My face become fatter with every passing photo.

Yikes. In any case, my own ridiculousness aside, it really was a fun night, and definitely not the norm for me in Philly. It reminded me that when I put to my mind to it, I can have adventures in the city and talk to strangers. And that even if I'm not a good dancer, it's still fun to dance. Thanks to LW, S. and TDoc for coming out for darts, and to A. for putting on a good show and putting up with my college remembrances and overall ridiculousness.