Posts Tagged ‘beer’

Not so neighborly, a new restaurant and learning to ride.

Saturday, September 26th, 2009

The neighbor I don’t like (and boy do I have a lot of reasons) is having a rummage sale today in his front yard. I’m having ethical debates with myself about it. I really want to run out and warn the poor people that are buying his crap that the velvet furniture has sat outside in the rain for the last few months (they use the velvet furniture to sit outside and smoke and drink). I’m going to be good and not do it, but I do feel really sorry for whomever buys the furniture, can you imagine what creepy crawlies are in it?

In other news, I ended up walking up to Alberta St twice yesterday. Once for a good wander and once to go get some drinks and dinner with Brian.

We decided to try out Branch Whisky Bar. It is in the location that Alberta Street Oyster Bar and Grill was originally, and I believe the man who owns Branch was the former chef for ASOBG. Really like the feel in the place altogether, and our waitress rocked. The have (unsurprisingly) a lot of whisky, including tasting trays (yowza!). I didn’t want to drink whisky with my meal, so I tried a Rye beer by Upright Brewing (the brewers in Left Bank).

I’ve tried two of their beers now and really have like both of them. This one was unusual – Brian said that it reminded him of Duchess – and I don’t know if I’d want to drink it all night but I really liked it. Brian got a whisky (can’t remember now which one) which was an Irish single malt.

We had burgers for dinner which were very tall, featuring house-made bacon and what appeared to be house-made pickles – both pickles for the burger and a pickle spear on the side. The side dish was potato salad, which was very good – not a mayo potato salad, which I can’t stand, but a homemade German potato salad. It was all very good, and too much food for me (even though I kinda finished the plate). After dinner, I tried their whisky sour. Super awesomeness – both Brian and I liked it even better than my whiskey sours. Definitely will wander back here again – the food menu is very limited (I think the burger was the only thing on it that appealed to me) but I’ll be back for drinks for sure.

Today, we get to go to Polish fest, I’m super excited. We are going to take the bus there so we don’t have to worry about driving back. It will be my first time aboard Max! Wish me luck. I haven’t been able to pick up my bus pass from PSU as it goes onto your PSU ID and mine doesn’t have my picture yet. Will try to write about all this tomorrow, if I’m not distracted.

Alright, better go study. Am sure you are all going to tire of hearing me say that!

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Knitting and beer

Saturday, September 19th, 2009

Fun time last night!

I made myself go out and meet people I don’t know. This whole-meet-people-by-hanging-out-at-our-house thing just really wasn’t cutting it. Heh.

One of the local yarn shops (Yarn Garden) hosted a beer and knitting night at Lucky Lab. Knitting and beer? I am so there. Brian was kind enough to chauffer me around so I didn’t even have to worry about driving. I drank Superdog, one of their IPAs, all night.

It was cool – the Yarn Garden folks were super awesome, and gave out a little bag to each person that had a skein of fingerling weight yarn, a one-skein pattern to use it on (still can’t decide if I am going to do the pattern or something else), a card to keep track of your needles with their hours on the back and a paper ruler to fold up and keep in your knitting bag. It’s almost odd how often you measure things when you knit, it kinda makes me feel like a carpenter. My skeing was in shades of green with a little yellow – picture to follow at some point I am sure.

The people there were really nice. I stood there with my beer for a few seconds trying to figure out how to find a place to sit, and someone waved me over to a seat. What a good turn out – there had to be 40 knitters there (and a crocheter) at one point. Met some cool people, and will definitely go to the next one which is at Roots next month. When my table went home around 9, I turned my chair and chatted with folks behind me. After they left, I met a nice scientist and her aunt and talked with them for quite a while.

The owner stopped over to say hello to me too – her sister started the store, but just passed away, so she’s taken it over. After she left, I realized I was mostly alone, so I called Brian for a ride. No sooner did I get off the phone than two more people came and sat down with me to see what I was knitting (a sweater for a Christmas present for Gretchen, which got a lot of attention last night. I think I was the only person working on a sweater – there were lots of socks, a few shawls, and a few afghans).

It was really cool to see the range of people there – all ages, all styles, men and women. I was curious to see what the regular drinkers at Lucky Lab would think about being overrun with knitters, but this is Portland, they just took it all in stride.

After Brian finished a beer with me, we headed home, swinging by Voodoo Doughnuts on the way. hehe. It was great to wake up knowing I had a sugary doughnut waiting for me.

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Random updates

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009

Just because I forgot to post this last Wednesday, I’m going to post it now. It’s been nice to use this website to look back at the bands I’ve been seeing.

Laurelthirst has some great bands who play there, and Brian hadn’t been to Laurelthirst yet, so we had to go. We went to see Dolorean for their last Wednesday night Laurelthirst show. I knew the place fills up as the show starts, so we went early to get dinner (early being 5 p.m.). Laurelthirst’s food is really good – they currently win for my favorite Portland veggie burger (Portland veggie burgers tend to be either soft [blech] or sweet [not so much my style]). They also have good beer :)

Dolorean is great live. Brian had told me that I’d hate them, so I didn’t listen to them for a long time. I really like them though (take that, Brian! I’m contrary!), and the show was really cool. The place was completely packed too – people sharing booths and everyone looked like they were having a good time. Al James, the singer, said they were taking a break from live shows to work on a new album, so I’m really glad we went out that night.

There’s something really awesome about being out at a great bar on a summer night listening to a band and drinking beer that just can’t be beat.

Last night, we were supposed to go to Clay’s for dinner, but when we go there, we found out they are only open Wed-Fri. At that point, we were both hungry and kinda feeling like eating out, so we wandered over to East Burn (why’d they change their logo?). I got to try a beer from Upright Brewing, which is a new brewery in the Left Bank building. Farmhouse Ale was quite good – it tasted like a Belgium, and was fruity. Looking forward to trying some more of their stuff. Didn’t hurt that apparently all beers are $2 on Tuesdays at East Burn. Fun. We want to walk there some night and try some of their infused gins.

This was followed up by heading to Laurelhurst theater to see Pixar’s Up. Up was good, although it made me cry thinking about Brian’s dad. Also managed to swing by Beulahland, which I had been missing. It’s probably a good thing that Beulahland isn’t walking distance for me because I’d be there waaaay too much.

Alright. Sorry about the randomness – had a bout of insomnia after a bad dream at 2 a.m., so I’m scattered today. Which is why I’m not working on fixing the layout here.

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Monday, Monday. Ahhhh ahhhh ahhhhh ah ah ah.

Tuesday, May 19th, 2009

On Monday nights, we’ve been heading to Old Town Pizza on MLK to watch movies. The first night we went, it was old (1940s and 1950s) beer commercials. They were completely awesome. One of them completely startled me – I had no idea that in-your-face foreplay was on TV back then. I’ve looked all over the internet and can’t find the one that scandalized me, which is disappointing, it was really cool. I wonder why beer companies don’t use their old commercials? It’d definitely make me pay more attention to them.

In any event, it was pretty cool to watch them listening to the thwap thwap thwap of the film project (16mm, Brian said). Not to mention having a beer or two while doing that.

Last night’s was crash test dummy films from the Ford Motor company. Also good, but even better was the 1950s PSA-like movie for teenagers on not drinking and driving. Old Town doesn’t particularly turn the music off in the restaurant while we watch these, so it was a bit surreal to watch it to electronica music, watching it storm outside and drinking a beer.

The guy who does this didn’t remember what he had planned for next week – he says he just grabs them out of his basement. He’s quite a character too as he sets up the film. I think we are starting to make friends with the bartender too, who is from Edinbourough. He’s fond of Brian’s full name, which makes me giggle. And I was amused this week because he was less one beard and Brian was less one head of hair. Almost timed, that.

Pretty cool night, except for the fact that when we went out to get in my car, we noticed that my car was spraypainted sometime between Sunday night and Monday evening. Brian had moved my car to the street while we were gardening because he wanted to pull some weeds in our driveway and I left it there knowing we were going somewhere Monday night. The morons didn’t get Brian’s car thankfully, but they clearly thought about it because they spraypainted a penis on the street in front of his car. Reported to the police, of course, and my car has already had it removed. I’m working with the city to get the sidewalk and street penises removed, so hopefully that’s that. I’ve got enough of my family in me to think that if they’d like to do that again, there will be BAD. CONSEQUENCES. But all in all, part of living in a city, I get that.

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Just in case

Friday, March 6th, 2009

In case anyone was trying to decide – Rogue’s Deadliest Ale is really good. Complex is how Brian described it. It unfortunately sets off his beer allergy so I had to drink the whole thing. Yum.

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Birthday weekend

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

My birthday weekend was great.

Doug Fir
Per Se at Doug Fir

I had won tickets to a show at Doug Fir on Friday. We got there early enough to get seats behind the bar, which is our favorite place to be. You can see the show, you have access to the bartenders, and you don’t have someone right in front of you. I always seem to end up with some strange smelly jock college guy who is trying to get down someone’s pants right in front of me, and it makes me cranky. So behind the bar rocks for me. Our bartender was great too.

The first band (Scissors for Lefty from San Francisco) was really good, but the sound was off after that for the rest of the night. We weren’t fond of the second band at all, and only our awesome seating kept us there (and even that was close, I had B nearly talked into heading upstairs). We’ve seen Another Cynthia probably five times now, and have both albums, but they must have had an argument with the sound guy because the vocals were way too soft, and everything else was off too. We stayed for a few songs and then went upstairs to have a midnight snack.

Saturday morning our new stove was delivered. We have to get an electrician to move the outlet, and then it will be done. So far I’ve loved cooking in it, and it’s such a relief to be able to prepare food for ourselves again. Just in time for Thanksgiving!

Picked up the farmshare, and mostly just hung out and worked on the house the rest of the day.

My birthday proper, B let me sleep in. He was gone when I got up so I drank coffee and played videogames. He came back with my birthday cake:

Voodoo Doughnut birthday cake
Voodoo Doughnut birthday cake with nickel for size comparison.

Two Tex-Ass Voodoo Doughnuts glued together with frosting, then frosted, with Oreos on top. OMG. It’s slightly terrifying and very, very good. And sweet. We are eating slices of it as cake at this point.

He also went totally overboard with presents – he bought a cord for my Casio keyboard so I can start playing piano again, the full 40-DVD set of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, puffy Japanese stickers, a stuffed animal Nekobus with a tiny Totoro inside you can take in and out, and a $50 gift card to Powells. Waaaaaaay overboard, I love all of it.

The other oversized thing that happened is that we went to Rogue because I heard that you get something on your birthday. I got a really nice Rogue t-shirt, and a yard of beer. I had to use two hands to drink it! I also discovered you can’t get the I2PA that way, which is good. I2PA has a much higher alcohol content than regular beer, and holy frijole, that’d be just nuts. I went for the Juniper Pale Ale, which tasted creamy after the small glass of I2PA I got.

beer
One yard of Rogue beer, Juniper Pale Ale style, with nickel and a pint for size comparison.

Monday, predictably, was quiet.

I’ll post the CSA box pictures later – I know I’m behind, but I was disillusioned with food when the oven was out of commission.

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Games and beer, my favorite

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

I’m really excited because a new bar is opening in the Kennedy School on Friday. It’s called the Boiler Room and will have pool and more importantly, shuffleboard. I’m extremely pleased about this and can envision walking up there to spend an evening drinking Hammerhead beer and playing shuffleboard.

The Kennedy School is about 10 block farther from our new house, but it will be so awesome to have shuffleboard within walking distance again!

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New life

Monday, August 4th, 2008

An auspicious day – my cousin Steve and Sheila had their baby today, a little boy. They are evenly balanced now, two boys and two girls so now that’s it!

Continuing the theme of making me smile because people I love are having little ones for me to smile at, our friends Marcio and Abby had a little girl today! YAY! I know I normally don’t post about babies (not so much my thing) but it does genuinely make me happy that people I think are intelligent, fun, good-hearted and nice are having children who will be loved and raised right. Woot!

Only other thing I have is that while I haven’t got back into the routine of weight lifting and yoga and pilates (but I’m working towards it), I did walk 6 miles yesterday. Now, two of those miles were to go get a beer or two, but still! Progress. I’m looking at a good hike for sometime this week, a new place definitely.

Now. Off to walk two miles today. Anyone know how many steps in a mile? I’m curious if I did the stereotypical 10,000 steps yesterday, but I haven’t found a pedometer I like yet.

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Food and beer, beer and food.

Sunday, August 3rd, 2008

Brian at Kenny and Zukes
Brian at Kenny & Zuke’s.

Let’s see…posting a picture from last week. Brian and I had a weird day where I needed to get something signed by a notary, and the notary we use was out for a while so we went and tried lunch at Kenny & Zuke’s, which has been on our list pretty much since it opened. It’s a deli a block from Powell’s. It definitely lives up to all the positive reviews I’ve heard, the food was yummmmmmy. Brian got their rueben, I got the grilled cheese. So good I wasn’t even able to identify the cheese, it just all came together as amazing. Great fries too. I’m not sure that I’d be able to bring my vegetarian friends there on a regular basis, but man, it’s a deli, which is all about the meat, so that’s not a slight against it! Besides, you have to love a place that has 12 different root beers.

Friday I met up with Laurie and Cindy at the Tin Shed. Laurie and I aren’t certain when the last time that we saw each other, but we are guessing about 30 years or so. Laurie and Cindy used to babysit me when I was a kid, and my dad used to tutor them in math. They had really sweet things to say about him, and you know me, I try to absorb anyone’s memories of my dad so that I get to feel that I knew him (he died at the age of 34 when I was a little kid). Really wild to see them – Laurie still looks like herself, and Cindy looks like herself too, but different somehow. It’s funny because the picture of them I have in my head is probably from when they were 17 or so, it’s like holding up a picture from a yearbook next to someone. We had a blast, and I hope we get to hang out some more (Laurie just moved back to Portland from Seattle at the same time I moved into town). We seem to have a lot in common.

They had mentioned Hopworks, which reminded Brian and I that we wanted to go try their restaurant, having only had their beer (and loved it – organic IPA, organic anything beer, yummmmmm). The restaurant rocked – the website had a way of putting in where you were coming from and generating the best bike path to get to them. We had their pizza and it was awesome. I had the pale and Brian had the IPA and then we gave up and got a taster’s tray so that we could sample everything. It’s rare that I get those and like every single beer, but I did this time. Super impressive, and they are green and sustainable and every good adjective I can heap on them. The inside of the pub was comfortable and has a pool table, and this is definitely going to quickly become a favorite hangout. We bought a growler right away to take home with us, bring our growler collection up to three now.

So much for giving up beer, huh? I’ll try harder next week. I kinda over did it with wine when our neighbors were over so I needed a break from it, so to speak.

All good otherwise, the Sold sign went up on our house Saturday, I’m so excited and happy to see it!

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Lime Rodeo

Saturday, June 14th, 2008

We got up early to go to the PSU farmers’ market. We wanted to have some good fruit and veggies on hand for when Carrrie arrives tonight.

Dave from Dave’s Killer Bread was there and sold me a loaf of Powerseed. I had promised Dean to get a picture of Dave but it was pretty busy at that point and I got too oddly shy to ask him if he’d pose for a picture, so the above blurry shot was all that I got.

Some people are awed when they see a rock star; I’m apparently awed when I see my farmer (Richard from Harmony Valley), my cheesemaker (Farmer John!) or my baker (Dave’s Killer Bread). Yeah, I’m a little dorky, I guess. I’d rather be happy about stuff like that than not notice anything so there.

If you haven’t read Dave and his family’s story, you should, it’s pretty cool. If you haven’t tried the bread yet, poor soul, you should, it’s awesome. And if you don’t live in Portland, Oregon, maybe you should come visit me so that you can try some.

We also swung by the grocery store to grab some non-IPA beer for Carrie – we went with Bridgeport’s Stumptown Tart which is a Belgium that is brewed with Marionberries and fermented in Pinot Noir casks. O lord. Super yumminess. Also some limes so we can make mojitos (our mint plant is already tall enough for many drinks) and gin and tonic.

Hopefully I will get a few good shots while Carrie is here; I’ll post them on my flickr account!

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