Everyone else had one kind of egg dish or another but C. also ordered a helping of chocolate chip cookie dough pancakes (I know, craaaaazy). My first taste was only okay...and that is because I didn't get any of the dough. The second and third bites I ingested were quite tasty in a strange way. I mean, cookie dough in pancakes for breakfast?
Another high school alumni friend of J. came by for coffee and was kind enough to take these photographs before going on his merry way.
I ordered a cheese whiz steak 'wit' onions. It was pretty great. All fake cheese and greasy steak juice. My first few bites were more bread than steak or cheese but once I got into it I was very satisfied.
Next month maybe I'll try Geno's. It seems all Disney World tricked out. The question I almost don't want to pose is this: how different can one cheesesteak be from any other? Answer me that.
I brought some deli meat and cheese and bread to work last week. Then I made myself sandwiches with these ingredients. That's right, sandwich for lunch.
It was dollar dog night. I had two dogs. One with too much mustard and some onions, one with too much ketchup and some onions. The 'too much' element to both hot dogs was entirely due to the way that each condiment gushed from its pump containers...I wasn't alone in having this problem...and I don't think, even knowing this now, that I would do any better if put in the position of having to do it again.
Ridiculously overpriced beer was had ($6.75 for Miller Lite) but not too much of it because, you know, it was a team building exercise not a drunk making exercise. I don't really care about sports. I'm one of those 'I'll watch the big finale and maybe care' but hardly ever do I get all excited on my own. There have been exceptions...I do like to watch Ohio State football and I got pretty into the White Sox (well, in the weeks leading to their winning of the World Series) and I thoroughly enjoyed the first 8 or 9 days of the Olympics. The point is that many of the other work participants actually knew who all the players were and were really excited. I took a passing interest but just couldn't gather that much interest in the whole thing. The Phillies won though and that's good.
On Sunday I turned my left over jerk chicken into a stew. A stew with a few coq au vin notes...mainly a bit of red wine. I added more potatoes, carrots and olives. I then ate this stew for dinner for the majority of the next week.
After that walk I stopped by my local Rita's and had me some black cherry and lemonade water ice. It was delicious.
So, as I mentioned, Saturday was National Rum Day and Mount Gay Rum's public relations people were kind enough to send me a sample bottle of their rum and a long list of recipes in which it was featured. In the end I chose to make use of their jerk chicken recipe (I considered their chicken stew but it involved pineapple and orange juice and I'm not sure if that the kind of stew I like...actually I know it's not and I made another kind of stew later on that you'll just have to wait to read about)...which I am happy to share below. I also looked through their myriad drink recipes before deciding to, as Fleetwood Mac might say, go my own way. What was it?
I've never had jerk chicken before, let alone made it, so I can't tell you if it was successful on that score but I took the Mount Gay recipe and followed it pretty accurately (except I made more of it so increased things a bit and added potatoes...which I'm sure makes me a non-authentic jerk...ha!).
The recipe for the chicken, as I adapted it:
They included a vinaigrette:
On Friday after the sad sushi I met up with L., B. and M., my coworkers in crime. We met at Bards for a rousing round of watching the Olympics in a loud bar where you don't get to hear any of the commentary. I ordered French fries to drown my panic sushi let down. They were pretty good, crispy and well seasoned. I chose the gravy option as the side. The gravy was okay not quite delicious, not quite gross. It was there that we watched the Phelps race where his winning or losing was a matter of an itsy bitsy of a tenth of a tenth of a hundredth of a second (or whatever)...we wouldn't know, since the volume was off. The bar had a pretty good juke box.
On Friday a few coworkers and I made plans to watch some Olympics at a bar. I made my own plan to go to Vic Sushi Bar because Yelpers had said wonderful things about it. But I had underestimated exactly how small the place is (literally six seats at the bar, nothing else). I panicked, suddenly I had an hour to kill and a hankering for sushi (specifically three rolls for $9.95). Living on a perpetual budget does not necessarily lead me to make the best decisions at all times. So I walked around a little bit, trying to decide how to satiate my hunger for a rock bottom price, then faltered when I saw Sushi on the Square. I went inside, I had two rolls for far more than $9,95 and while they were not bad, they did not truly make me happy. I think I went into it with the wrong attitude. Plus the special spicy white tuna roll I ordered was described as: sesame seeds on the outside, white tuna etc on the inside...but it turned out that the white tuna was on the ouside and all that was inside was cucumbers. Rough deal if you ask me, rough deal. Sigh. General summary: not a bad place but not extraordinary thus not worth the amount of money I spent. Sorry, Sushi on the Square.
Last Thursday a number of my coworkers and I walked on into Center City and had a few beers at The Black Sheep.
This happened while we did all that other stuff.
Disregard my voice, focus on the crazy.
The Sunday K. (and later J.) came down, K and I went to Taylor's up in the general Roxborough area (on Ridge). As far as I can tell this restaurant has no internet presence. It was very, very 'authentic'. Old school decor, fake rocks and brick walls and not all that friendly waitresses. Oh and butter on the water glasses. K., from his angle, saw something that disturbed him greatly but I didn't see it and he never really explained it...other than mentioning the word seizures. The breakfast was very much on the affordable side though, since they didn't take credit cards, I didn't end up paying for mine (thanks K!).
So K. and I played some mad Rummy when he came to visit. Drinking our drinks on the back porch with J.D. by our sides. And every once and a while Marla would make an appearance as well.
Sometimes I won by a lot. Some times I did not. I love playing cards and shooting the shit. All I want to do with the majority of my free time is sit outside, playing a game of cards (or Catan...sigh) and talking to someone whose company I enjoy....especially when I get to jackal the hell out of somebody.
On Saturday morning K. and I drove back to the apartment to give Zul a little face time and have breakfast at Sabrina's. There was a little wait but ended up in a nice booth. I had their "Ocean Blue Mexican Special", I just put that in quotation marks but it's not actually accurate. This breakfast included: eggs, cheese quesadilla, beans, cilantro sour cream, tomatoes, potatoes and blue tortilla crab cakes. I know, it was ridiculous. And pretty tasty. K. had the French toast and it looked thick and amazing.
