PIGOATYSTER

After my breakfast I walked back home and prepared myself for the drive I planned on making up to Brooklyn in order to once again enjoy the wonder of a Pigoatyster night. Once properly overprepared for a one night's stay away, I drove to Brooklyn. The drive went pretty well until I got off the New Jersey turnpike and made my way towards the 278 on ramp. Then I pretty much sat in traffic for half an hour. In the end, however, I arrived in Brooklyn. The pigoatyster fest didn't happen until later in the evening, so after hanging out with L. and Fat. T at their place, L. went to a kickball game while I went to Apartment 138 to have a beer with M. and T. This was a pretty impromptu plan, and I was a little trepidatious about it. M. and I haven't hung out since we watched Get Smart together in 2008. I had accidentally run into T. during one of my visits to Brooklyn over the past year, but I think the last time I was part of a group hanging out with him I still lived in Chicago. So it's been a while, and they were really my ex's friends more than mine, or certainly started out that way. So I did worry that we'd have nothing to talk about. But it was actually quite nice to catch up and I enjoyed two beers and deviled eggs to boot.
Then with a hasty goodbye to M. and T. I was meeting up with Fatty and S. and walking to E.'s to bask in piggy glory, goaty and oystery glory. Here lies the pig.
That guy with the knife was a very good pig cutter. This year I avoided sauces and happily ate my pig straight up.
I missed getting in on the oysters, but I accept that.
There were a good number of other treats for consumption, including sesame noodles, individual little lasagna type things and cabbage salad.
A strawberry cheesecake kind of thing.








It was great to see some familiar faces and to enjoy a nice night in Brooklyn. At the end of the night I got stuck in L. and Fat T.'s stairwell and slept there until the fire department could come help me in the morning. It was awkward for everyone.

Birthday Celebration Dinner c/o Cantina Los Caballitos

Since winter hit I haven't seen much of A.S. Her work, sadly enough, also has a busy season. And since most of her clients are homeless, winter becomes quite busy. Anyways. She recently turned 27 (youth!) and I met up with her and some other friends at Cantina Los Caballitos. Soon after sitting down we ordered pitchers of margaritas and chips came out with green and red salsas. I spoke to B., a girl who went to the same high school as I did, but with whom I wasn't overly familiar. It was nice to meet her, or re-meet her. There were others, but the space was loud and I didn't manage to circulate. I liked the margaritas just fine.
I'm not sure if these look appealing or not. They are nachos, and in actuality they were quite good. Though - like many nachos before them - their bottom layer of chips did not benefit greatly from the presumed trickle down effect of strategic topping placement. If you know what I mean? The whole balance of chips that get equal opportunity topping smothering. If that makes sense. I think I'm going to move on from the nachos.
Cantina Los Caballitos is the sister restaurant of Dos Segundos, which I consider a good thing; every time I have been to the restaurant I've had a good time, even if sometimes I haven't liked my exact menu choice. I ordered the goat tacos, still remembering how much I enjoyed Dos Segundos' version when Childhood friend visited in ... oh man, it's going on three years ago? Almost. I added guacamole and pico de gallo to my tacos, I kind of feel like charging for those things is sad. But they were really good and I didn't want to go without. Somehow my angle and the flash led to an unfortunate (and avoidable-for-someone-better-than-me) shadow issue in most of the taco images. It's my looming mouth and stubby hands bearing down upon the tacos. They were ready. They knew it was their time.
I can't wait for the season to change, and the farmer's markets and the fresh green beans and radishes. And strawberries! Oh man. Tomatoes. Tomatoes with real dirty realness. I really need to grow tomatoes this summer. I have a deck. It gets sun. I can fight off squirrels with my superior intellect. I have an MFA, you know.
So happy birthday to A.S.!

PIGOATYSTER c/o Brooklyn

Work has begun to heat up, which is no surprise. Tis the season. And this heating up makes it harder for me to plan my weekends, as it may very well be necessary for me to log some time in the office, or in an office capacity remotely. So when I heard about E.'s Pig Goat Oyster Feastival in Brooklyn, I knew it was entirely something I would want to attend, but I was entirely unsure of whether I would be able to. The day arrived, and I did have work to do, so I got up early and got it done and then called L. (who is the only reason I am friends with E. on facebook...E. and I were bridesssssmaids for L.) and asked her to convince me to come. She was very convincing. I arrived a few hours later just in time to see an army of cupcakes in need of sprinkling.
Then Fat T., L. and I went on over to E. and her housemates' digs. The pig was fresh out of the, uh, barbeque pit? There were a lot of people trying to take photographs of it, and the nearby goat, so these were the best I could do. No evidence of goat will be seen on this blog. Sad.

In their back patio area there were oysters and a few knives with which to open them. Now this is something I have never done (successfully) in my years of oyster eating, but after being told by a fellow shucker to 'find their butt' I kind of got the swing of it. Kind of. I mean. I opened at least seven, but were they completely free of shell and unmangled? No. I can only go up. In the oyster shucking trade, that is.

Then we got in line to fill our plates with fresh pork and goat...except that we missed the goat. And we were there in a timely fashion! Tears! Rage! Exclamation marks!
This was my plate. It would have been the perfect plate of food had I not been so liberaly with the sauce next to the pork. See, my thinking was 'oh this sauce is right by the pork, it must be some sort of barbeque/special pork sauce, I shall smother my pork with it.' This line of thinking was flawed. Very flawed. The sauce was straight up habanero madness. Madness! I have steered clear of most all habanero things after being dared by he-J. to take a bite of a fresh habanero pepper back in my Hudson Valley Days and almost losing my brain. Maybe it wasn't a dare. But it was peer pressure of some kind, I tell you. Any who, the sauce was all over the pork, which made it challenging to eat, as my entire mouth became enflamed and I'm sure my face turned a little red. I know my eyes popped out of their sockets a bit. I almost wrote 'circuits' but I'm not a robot.
That Saturday was September 11th, so the light commemorating that day was quite visible throughout the evening. I won't bother trying to say anything about September 11th. It was very sad. I wish it hadn't happened. I won't say anything other than that.
This was a very nice NY party. I talked to a number of strangers about books, cheese, Scrabble and long underwear. So, basically, I talked to a number of strangers about some of my favorite things while hanging out with some of my favorite people. Look. It's L. and Fat T.
Then we went to a bar with a name like Alma and Fat T. and I put on some tunes.
And then we returned to L. and Fat T.'s abode with pizza. We were in bed at the entirely indecent hour of four. It was a splendiferous night.

Dinner c/o Bombay Palace

Another night my mother, father and I went to Bombay Palace for dinner. My first experience had been very positive, though the lighting conditions had left much to be desired. My parents both started their meals with soup, which inspired me to try the tomato soup. This was definitely a little better that traditional Campbell's Soup, but not all that revolutionary.
My father and I split vegetable samosas, which were slightly unusual to me. Not samosas as a whole, but this particular kind of samosa. Or maybe not? I don't know. Instead of chunks of potato and peas, it was all very much a mush. Thing about all kinds of cuisine? There are a million different ways to do it. Duh.
Mom ordered the fried fish appetizer, which we all expected to be some sort of flaky white fish. So, we were surprised to find salmon instead.
I ordered a goat form of bindi bhaji. I wish I could say I loved it, but I didn't really. It may be that the soup and samosa filled me up, leaving little stomach interest for the main course. Or, perhaps, I should have expected the pieces of goat bone in the dish (this actually does seem like a reasonable expectation to have in retrospect) but I did not have that expectation and was not pleasantly surprised when crunching into bone when I was expecting meat. It was harder to find meat than it was gristle or bone. That said, I didn't look that hard and the few bites of meat and okra I actually did consume were nicely flavored.
So, not an entirely successful second visit to the restaurant.

Lunch at Dos Segundos

After our manicures J. and I took a walk on over to the museum and then down Kelley Drive. After the walk we took in some Olympics before heading to the Northern Liberties neighborhood in order to participate in one of our longest held traditions...playing foosball. Before we played this foosball we had lunch at Dos Segundos.

I had a margarita. It was quite nice. Amazing, no. It didn't seem like it had been made out of a premade mix but, paradoxically, it didn't taste like it had been made with fresh limes either.
A nice guy, whether an employee or simply a patron of the establishment, saw me struggle taking a photograph of our new nails and helped me out. Below you can see my shiny new nails.
My childhood friend had a chimichanga the size of a small baby.
I had goat tacos. They were quite, quite yummy. The meat was tender, the cilantro fresh, the whole thing juicy. I might have wished for complimentary tomatoes and sour cream but even without (I actually paid for the sour cream) the dish was tasty. Each taco wasn't skimpy on the meat.

We were seated in a very sunny spot, I had already gotten too much sun on my chest from our early walk and then I had to worry about my back getting equally burned. So I constructed a cape out of a napkin in a not entirely futile attempt not to burn.
J. was kind enough (psych) not to remind me of my cape as we walked out the restaurant. Sigh. I am awesome. Not because of the cape. No. I am awesome because then we went to North Bowl where I used the entirety of my quarter cache to play a few games of foosball with my pal. And after a rocky start, beat her pants off her legs. That's right. I am the awesomest foosball player ever. Still got the touch, baby. Still got the touch.