November 29, 2007

Farrah Olivia, Chef Morou's Restaurant

On our two-year anniversary, Jeanette and I went to Farrah Olivia, the restaurant of Chef Morou Outtara. You may know him from such shows as The Next Iron Chef, or NPR Food. The style of his restaurant is New American with West African influence, and it's mostly some damn delicious food.

While Morou's food isn't at the pinnacle of sophistication (Le Bernardin?), nor does it have the layers and layers of subtlety of such a restaurant, it is nevertheless elegant and complex. His dishes are not designed, like those of many top restaurants, to "challenge" his diners. And that's Morou's greatest strength: he isn't above a crowd-pleaser. Indeed, go to the menus on the website linked to above and read the entrees. One doesn't read them and wonder how such a dish could possibly be good (like one might at WD-50 or The Fat Duck). Nearly every one of them instantly looks like it will be a fucking flavor party so delicious that you'll be licking your plate afterward. And mostly, they deliver.

First of all, we got a great recommendation on a Meritage from our waiter. That was one of the high points of service, as he had basically no clue about any of the (admittedly, fairly high-level) questions I asked about the food prep, and he was also quite glib the entire time. But the wine was absolutely amazing. I also loved the wine list. For each varietal (and a list of blends) it had wines at every price level--literally a bottle at $30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90... Spending a bit more doesn't mean you'll enjoy the wine more, but it does help you center in on what you can afford. Anyway, I really, really loved this wine.

Warm bread was served with four different spreads, instead of the usual butter. There was honeyed butter (awesome), bok choy pesto (meh), sundried tomato spread (Jeanette's favorite), and horseradish and cottage cheese (weird, and I don't like either of those ingredients, normally, but it was actually not bad).

We got an amuse bouche of truffled, cured ham with corn flan and some kind of mushroom sauce. This was a good indicator of what was to come, with deconstructed dishes, every component of which could be enjoyed on its own, and which usually came together pretty well, too.

Appetizers were delicious. Cinnamon roasted quail with (cured?) mission figs ingeniously wrapped around quail legs for finger-food appeal, a fuyu and persimmon "yolk" (probably a soidum alginate-based spherification of a puree) that was delicious, spiced port reduction, and a small salad of apple, feta, and something. The quail was served boneless, and was not as tender as I imagined it to be, but everything was spot-on flavorwise. And again, what a crowd-pleaser.

Butter-poached lobster with tapioca and roasted banana cream was good, but there was way too much bland tapioca. Luckily, eating around it was easy, and everything else was delicious. You know how when you eat bananas, there's that certain odd tartness in your mouth that you don't really get from many other things (passionfruit has a similar, but different thing going on)? Well, that goes really well with butter (Bananas Foster, anyone?) and they both go really well with lobster.

Deconstructed caesar salad was very good, with parmesan flan, crushed croutons, and fresh sardines (salty, but not pickled like the icky, canned ones). There wasn't even close to enough lettuce to eat with the quantity of the other ingredients, and the only reason I can think of for this dearth was that the Chef liked the pretty presentation when it was only four small leaves of romaine. Nevertheless, this was an appetizer salad, not an entree salad, and by the end, we were by no means hurting for quantity. What was here was really tasty, but other than being deconstructed, and using great ingredients, it didn't offer much of a spin on the usual caesar salad. Parmesan flan was good, but not enough of a twist.

The entrees were both excellent, with few flaws. Slow-roasted lamb with palm fruit BBQ sauce couldn't possibly not be good. It was served with palm oil powder (I guessed powderized with maltodextrin, which the Chef later confirmed), a very faithful version of Southern collard greens (all the way down to the lack of seasoning), a fried dauphine-type thing, and, in a twist on the typical mint jelly with lamb combo, there was clear mint "caviar" on the plate. The mint caviar was another example of what must have been a minty sodium alginate solution dripped into a calcium chloride bath to form spheres with a gel skin. Problem is, these were either left too long in the calcium bath, or were made too long before the dish was served, because these were gelled all the way through and didn't "pop" in your mouth like I assume was intended. Nevertheless, everything was perfect except the texture of the mint caviar, and it all went together very well. The palm powder was an excellent counterpoint to the barbecue sauce, and the lamb would have been great even without any adornment.

The other entree was spice-rubbed venison loin (yes, we got a lot of game to go with our lovely Meritage) with a port-reduction, wild mushrooms and baby onions, and sweet-potato fritters. Venison was cooked perfectly rare (at our request) and everything else was exquisite. A perfect (and very satisfying) dish.

For dessert, I opted for the lemon cheesecake with candied citrus segments (lemon and maybe sour orange) and thyme syrup. The thyme syrup was good but superfluous, but Jesus Christ the cheesecake and candied lemon went together well. When tasted on its own the cheesecake was great, the candied lemon a bit too tart, but when alternating bites between the two, they worked together so well! This was really inspiring. Every bite had a delicious palate cleanser followed by a blast of creamy richness. Eaten this way, it was like every bite of the cheesecake was tasting it for the first time. So good.

The other was an apple strudel with coriander caramel, sour cream ice cream (delicious), and cherry-apricot compote. The apple strudel itself was good, but nothing special. Every one of the supporting players, however, was excellent. I've seen sour cream ice cream (or buttermilk ice cream, or scalded milk ice cream) on menus all over the place, but it was so good. I actually think this dish would have been better without the apple strudel. It didn't detract, but didn't add anything either, except for taking up a lot of plate space.

Finally, we were given little mignardises that were nothing memorable.

After our meal, I asked whether I could have a quick kitchen tour, and though the waiter said they normally don't do it, he asked and got permission. So we were escorted to the kitchen where we were immediately introduced to Morou himself (as if that was the only reason we wanted the kitchen tour--because we'd seen him on TV--I guess they get that a lot now, but I swear I really just wanted to watch the kitchen work for a minute). Morou was very gracious, talkative, and jovial. I discussed the palm powder with him for a minute or two, and he offered to give me some of his maltodextrin (I had some at home already--yeah, I'm ridiculous). Jeanette talked Next Iron Chef with him. Jeanette and I also loved John Besh, and it turns out Morou did, too. He clearly thought Besh should have won. As I said, Morou seemed like a great guy, and he'd be a lot of fun to work with.

Overall, there were some flaws, but the guy can put together a meal that satisfies like no other. Like I said, he isn't above pleasing the crowd, but he does it in his own way. You want the mint jelly? Fine, here are little chemical-reaction-created spheres of mint jelly. You want a Caesar salad? Fine, here's a deconstructed Caesar. As long as everything tastes as delicious as it did, diners are going to be willing to forgive all the tiny details that weren't quite there yet. But this is definitely one of the top five restaurants in the DC area.

Posted by Barzelay at 2:24 AM | Comments (3)

November 22, 2007

Five Guys @ Five AM

I had to fly out of Reagan National Airport at a ridiculously early time on the day before Thanksgiving. Planning for horrible lines, I got there plenty early for the flight. So I got to my terminal at about 5:45 am. I was hungry for breakfast, so I checked the terminal for some eats.

They had Cinnabon serving cinnamon buns, Auntie Ann's serving breakfast pretzels, Gordon Biersch serving a breakfast menu, some sandwich place that just had croissants for breakfast, a pastry place, etc. But I kept walking, and around the corner was a new place. They have recently installed a Five Guys Famous Burgers & Fries in the airport! And it was open for breakfast!

They had a special "Breakfast" menu up next to their normal menu. It said "Breakfast served 5:00am-11:00am." The breakfast menu looked like this:

$2.25 Bacon
$1.95 Egg
$3.49 Bacon and Egg
$3.25 BLT

*All sandwiches served on hamburger buns
*All sandwiches served with your choice of toppings (see hamburger menu)
*Add a hamburger patty to any breakfast sandwich for $1.00

When I got up to the register I asked whether their full menu was available. It was. So I got a Little Bacon Cheeseburger, Fries, and a Coke, all at 5:50am. Excellent. Another reason to love Five Guys!

Posted by Barzelay at 2:21 PM | Comments (3)

April 19, 2007

Motorcade Of DEATH

Two nights ago, Jeanette and I suddenly heard a ton of police sirens, followed shortly by two very loud crunch noises. We jumped up to the window and realized we were watching the immediate aftermath of a traffic incident.

The first thing I noticed was a police car, lights still flashing, the front end of which was wrapped around a traffic signal pole. Then I noticed what appeared to be an entirely separate accident; a red Jeep Cherokee was beside a large Budget truck, the Cherokee's front end buried underneath the Budget truck's bed. There were also a bunch of additional cop cars speeding past this accident like it hadn't just happened five seconds ago. We heard an officer yell out, "Contain this area! The rest of us will continue!" We knew this was going to be juicy.

Upon first seeing the accident, my impulse was to dial 911. And I did. But before it ever rang, I realized that the six or so police cars that had been traveling with the wrecked one probably had it covered. And we watched.

The police officer got out of the wrecked car, and seemed to be fine. We could see that the Cherokee's windshield was smashed on the driver's side (against the Budget truck), but its passenger-side front tire had burst. No one appeared to be moving inside.

Eventually, we saw the driver move around. I don't know whether he was conscious or not before then, but he started moving, and eventually chatting with the driver of the Budget truck. At that point, I went out to take pictures of the crazy cop car wrapped around a pole, and to find out what happened. The drivers of the cop car, the Cherokee, and the Budget truck were all fine by the end, though the Cherokee driver's ankle was injured and he was limping. Here's what I found out about the accident:

There was a motorcade of some sort coming South on 16th Street NW. As it approached the intersection with V St. NW, the light was red for the motorcade. But it didn't stop. The Cherokee, which had a green light and was merely going straight onto V St. NW, came into the path of the first of the oncoming police cruisers. It collided with the Cherokee.

After the collision, the police car ricocheted off the Cherokee and directly into the light pole. The Cherokee was hit so hard that it spun 270 degrees before lodging itself beneath the Budget truck.

So, basically, government fucks over yet another of its citizens. Just so that Dick Cheney or whomever could get home thirty seconds faster, this motorcade plowed into a citizen who was, unlike our leaders, law-abiding. We started speculating as to whom would pay the claim. Would the city pay the Cherokee driver's expenses? Would his insurance have to cover it? Would his rates go up solely as the result of the police motorcade's mistake?

Posted by Barzelay at 4:09 AM | Comments (8)

January 15, 2007

Acceptable Forms Of Identification

I went grocery shopping today, and for some reason, grocery shopping always requires presentation of my driver's license, customer loyalty card (yay Harris Teeter! I am indeed loyal), and a debit card. After checkout was complete, I shoved them all hurriedly into my jacket pocket in order to stop blocking the checkout lane with my three-hundred and one dollars of ridiculous groceries. Big mistake. Always return one's cards to one's wallet.

Fast forward six hours. After a night of grilling steaks with a bunch of friends and roommates (and eating homemade, fresh-cut french fries, corn on the cob grilled in the husks, salad, and bratwurst), we all decided to make the trek up the Porter hill to Connecticut, to go to Cleveland Park's "Four Green Fields" pub. After checking out the draughts menu and ordering a Pilsner Urquell, I realized that I had left my driver's license in the jacket I wore to the grocer's. "Okay," I thought. "No problem. I'm twenty-four and look even older than that." But it was a problem.

The waitress was nice as could be. She asked for my ID, and I explained the sitch. She understood, but said they had a strict policy and it was ultimately up to the manager. "Okay, now it'll work out," I thought. "I'll just talk to the manager." I'm quite the smooth talker, you see. But it didn't work out.

The manager, a rotund hulk of malformed, non-Irish idiocy, bent his one good eye toward me and said, "I'm sorry but we have a policy. You can't prove that you're 21, so we can't serve you."

"But I can!" I insisted. I presented him with the following:

  • Voter registration card, containing my name, birth date, and social security number
  • Social security card, containing my name and social security number
  • Georgetown Law Center ID, with name and picture
  • Vanderbilt University ID, with name and picture
  • various credit cards containing my name
  • California Tortilla burrito card with two burrito stamps

I also pointed out the fact that I look well over twenty-one, and have been to the Four Green Fields several times before.

He, old hunchback, just stared blankly and then repeated himself, unable to muster the mental forces required to make a reasonable decision. "No. That doesn't work. We need your driver's license or passport."

Sensing defeat at the hands of the cretinous, ursine cyclops, I lowered my expectations. "Alright, then. Well, how about I just don't drink anything, but I stay here with my friends. You see, we made this really long hike up the hill, and--"

"No. You can't be in here unless you can prove that you're twenty-one."

And so it was that I was forced to walk all the way back down the hill, up the 120 stairs to my house, up the three floors to my room to grab my other jacket, down the three floors, down the 120 stairs, and back up the now humongous hill.

When I arrived back at the bar, I almost missed him. The manager was lurking like a troll beneath a bridge, at the side of the entry-way, popping out only when he smelled me pass. This time he checked my ID and thanked me, only to return to his home until the next time some unfortunate traveler forgets his ID and must be confronted by a lazy-eyed, hirsute, angry troll with managerial powers.

He did end up giving me my first beer free, and that was uncharacteristically nice of a troll... but it was really rather expected of a human.

Posted by Barzelay at 3:45 AM | Comments (15)

May 1, 2006

Stephen Colbert at the WHPC Dinner

Stephen Colbert mocked Bush Saturday night to his face for about 30 minutes at the annual White House Press Corps dinner. While driving down Connecticut Ave that night, I was forced to stop and wait for about three minutes for some well-dressed waspy types to be escorted across the street to the event by police officers, so I'm glad something good came out of it. Bush had to just sit there with a stupid grin on his face, not quite managing to hold in his contempt for Colbert, while Colbert blasted him.

Why they allowed Colbert to do that routine, right in front of Bush, is pretty incomprehensible to me, but wow! It is hilarious. He stayed in character the whole time, acting as if he loved Bush, while obviously lambasting everything about him. He also mocked the press at their own celebratory dinner, thanking them for failing to ask the tough questions or investigate anything the President did. As a result, the mainstream press has boycotted Colbert's routine, instead running stupid stories about the act that preceded Colbert where Bush got on stage with a Bush impersonator. That bit was mildly humorous (if you download the file using the torrent below, you'll have that, too), but Colbert's speech was one of the most newsworthy things to happen this year, and it is being blacked out. The Press Corps wants the President at future annual dinners, and the Press also don't like being mocked, so they're not reporting on it. Such blatant bias. Everyone needs to watch this. Some of my favorite lines:

  • "If anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. will be right over with a cocktail."
  • "So don't pay attention to the approval ratings that say 68% of Americans disapprove of the job this man is doing. I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68% approve of the job he's not doing? Think about it. I haven't."
  • "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."
  • "Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
  • "Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"
  • "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."
  • "Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction."

This is one of the ballsiest things I've seen in a long time. Welcome to the no-fly list, Stephen Colbert. Here is a transcript, but if you can, you should really watch the video:

From BoingBoing, Slashdot, DailyKos, EditorAndPublisher

Posted by Barzelay at 5:06 AM | Comments (8)

April 17, 2006

That time some scraggly woodsman gave me a frozen turkey

I approached the Bethesda Giant (the mid-range supermarket chain that owns Peapod) last night with a smallish list of items necessary to tide me over until the next big grocery run. My grocery runs are usually of epic proportions, often happen very late at night, almost always feature the wonderful Harris Teeter as my destination, and result in the cooking of many delicious meals in the ensuing week or two. Last night was not such an occasion, though it will result in at least one delicious meal (the leftovers of which may last for the ensuing week or two).

When I pulled into the parking lot of the Giant, I could tell something was amiss. There were only a couple cars. A bad sign. I walked up to the door, and an employee standing outside smoking and waiting for a ride explained that apparently a lot of people in this country believe that, a long time ago on this day, some dead Jewish guy walked out of this little cave and said, "See? I told you so," a short time before flying away into the sky never to be seen again except in nachos and hot chocolate, and because of that, the Giant closed at 8:00pm.

Okay. Well, ten-thousand years ago on this day, this ancient Mesopotamian man was having a really bad day, and needed to buy a bottle of Thunderbird at 9:00pm to drown his sorrows, but all the Giants in the fertile crescent were closed, so instead he invented writing and and actually improved the world. In His honor, I say we should go ahead and keep the grocery stores open until their normal closing time.

Oh well. Moving on... the employee's explanation only lasted a few seconds, after which I noticed a scraggly old man, standing nearby, staring at me. The guy was maybe sixty years old, with a long, stringy white beard and peppered hair, sun-hardened skin, and a dirty gray t-shirt covering his wiry body. And he was looking right at me. As soon as I made eye contact, he said to me in a deep, raspy Southern voice, "You want a turkey?"

I stared at him for a second, and finally asked, "What?"

He looked me up and down. "I said, do you want a turkey? I got this frozen turkey, and I'll give it to you if you want it." At that point he gestured behind my left shoulder.

I turned around and looked, and right behind me was a large trashcan with a flat-topped lid, on top of which was a large, frozen turkey wrapped in grocery bags.

"So," he repeated. "You want it? I ain't gonna use it."

So I said, "Well, thanks, but I think there are probably people who need it more than me."

He shook his head. "Nah. I done asked five or six other people, and no one wants to take it. So if you can use it, you take it. Give it to some family, or just cook it up and eat it yourself."

Ever the skeptic, especially when hobo-looking men try to give me items of value, I asked, "Why don't you cook it up and eat it?"

He looked off into the distance momentarily before saying, "Nah. I do all my cooking out in the woods. So I got this turkey and I can't use it. Why don't you take it?"

At that point I moved closer to the turkey and felt it. It hadn't begun thawing. And then I looked over to the store employee with a questioning glance. He nodded his head, which I interpreted as confirming that the guy had just bought the turkey and that it was okay for me take it and eat it. In retrospect, he may have been nodding to say, "Yeah, the guy's absolutely crazy," and not in any way sanctioning the turkey donation.

So I was confronted with a dilemma. To take the sketchiest turkey in history, or not to take the sketchiest turkey in history. And well... if there's one thing I'm sure of it's that there is a depressed Mesopotamian man in heaven watching over us and saving us from our illiterate sins. But if there are two things I'm sure about, the second is that I would never pass up a free opportunity to cook something delicious. So of course, I took the turkey, and thanked the man.

As I was walking back to my car, without milk, sugar, or laundry detergent, but with a large, frozen turkey, he yelled at me, "Happy Thanksgiving," and then cackled. It occurred to me then to take a picture of him, but when I turned around, he was gone. Seriously.

So now I've got this big turkey thawing in my kitchen. Do you know how much turkey is in a turkey? I mean... it's a shitload of turkey. It's somewhere between ten and fifteen pounds. The weight isn't labeled, and I don't have a scale. Cooking times for such beasts are based on weight, so I considered constructing an elaborate balance to use physics to determine the turkey's weight based on the fixed mass of a 2-pound bag of flour. Then I remembered that it was a FREE turkey given to me by a cackling woodsman outside a closed grocery store. If it comes out a bit dry, oh well.

I'm not sure how much a turkey costs, but I'm pretty sure it's more than $0. So I think I'm making out pretty well on this one. Of course there's always the chance that my philanthropic Appalachian friend poisoned it or something, but I figure the head-nod of a sixteen year-old chain-smoking bag boy who may or may not have been hired because he is slightly mentally handicapped is probably just as safe as FDA approval.

So look out world, because a ten to fifteen pound turkey is coming your way, courtesy of a possibly-homeless mountain man whose campfire apparently lacks the facilities for cooking such a bird. And when I'm savoring the perfectly roasted meat, crispy skin, and flavorful gravy, I'll make sure to bow my head and give thanks to our depressive Mesopotamian god for his gifts of poetry and poultry. Happy Easter, kids. This world is insane.

Posted by Barzelay at 5:53 AM | Comments (7)

March 25, 2006

Animal Collective, Ted Leo, shows, music

Shows seen this week: 2
Fake encores seen this week: 2
Hipster mullets seen this week: 2

Coincidences? Nope. Quite the contrary; I've been to two concerts at the Black Cat! Animal Collective on Tuesday and Ted Leo on Friday night. Both were shows I'd been looking forward to for a long time.

Animal Collective is an amazing, experimental band that made #2 on my Top Albums of 2005 list. I was curious what the hell they'd do live. I was looking for more weirdness and experimentation, and they delivered on both fronts. A band called Storsveit Nix Noltes opened, and they were delightful--kind of like an Icelandic polka version of Esquivel. I can't wait to hear more from them. Animal Collective's highlight was "We Tigers" from their second-to-last album, in which the band laid down their instruments, picked up their mics, and engaged in an exuberant, converging acappella evocation of the jungle. I know that sounds like a pretty ridiculous description. And yeah, they were ridiculous. And awesome. Definitely obtain their albums Feels and Sung Tongs, if you have the means.

I've been listening to Ted Leo for a couple years, and his music is so much fun. Since my first listen, I've taken it as a given that he'd be awesome live. That kind of energetic music is always great to see. Reminds me of my days going to some ska show every week or two at The State Theatre in St. Pete, and every single show being amazing because of the energy and pure fun of the music and the bands. Anyway, Ted Leo ended up being a big disappointment; he lost his voice somewhere during the third song. Like the trooper he is (the guy has to be over 40 now) he trudged on through a short set while sounding pretty bad. He has such a good voice, and you could tell he was really bummed out, so that took a lot of the energy out of the show. But we did get to do some good dancing and singing along, so on the whole, it wasn't too bad.

No band has yet stood up to the challenge that I posed: Whatever band declines to do a fake encore will instantly become my favorite band ever.

Besides a guy who was six-foot-six with a giant afro who decided to stand in the front row, another guy looking as redneck as anyone I've ever seen, a bartender apparently trying to use the old hanky code to let us know he likes to be fisted, and the guy who sat at the bar, facing away from the stage for the entire show without looking back toward the band, who nevertheless knew the words to every song (why attend a sold out Ted Leo if you have no interest in seeing him play?), the crowd was as expected. And then there was the couple to the right.

This couple totally caught me off guard. I was fresh off of having read this Pitchfork review of Ted Leo's latest album, that asked, "Can you feel yourself getting old?" So when I saw this couple, I was thinking, "Damn, is some of the music I've listened to for a while getting that stale?" Indeed, there was a huge surplus of older people at the Ted Leo show. For that matter, at twenty-three, even I have looked older than most of the crowd for about five years now at shows. And just last week, I was called out on wearing a corduroy blazer that I thought was still pretty hip--I was informed that, in fact, it was not. Damn. Aging. I took solace in the fact that I was able to identify so many of the undesirable characteristics of the aging concert-goer, as noted below. With such skills remaining, perhaps I can stave off the reaper of relevance for a few years more. Click the picture to the right to see the full-size version. Any other critiques I've missed?

In related news, after one listen all the way through, I'm pretty sure The Flaming Lips new album At War With The Mystics is my biggest musical disappointment of the decade. Built To Spill's new album You In Reverse, however, is still great after three or four listens, "Mike Joooooooones" and all.

Posted by Barzelay at 3:00 AM | Comments (19)

March 12, 2006

Idiotarod 2006 and a nice day at Tryst

This was a very DC day. After auditioning this morning to be an SAT/LSAT teacher for Kaplan (pays well, though infrequently, and perhaps I can teach classes in San Fran if I get the unpaid EFF internship), Jeanette and I went to lunch at Chinatown Express on 6th and H NW. That's the place where a guy is always putting on a show in the window making lai mein noodles by stretching and folding dough over and over again. I'd been craving some Chinese food, and that place is very good, and cheap.

After that, we decided to head out to Adams-Morgan to study at Tryst and then get Ethiopian for dinner since I'd never had Ethiopian before (post on Ethiopian food to come). Tryst is not usually the quietest place , with a hip soundtrack (Sufjan Stevens, the new Belle And Sebastian, The Arcade Fire, etc.), baristi steaming milk, waiters running about, and chatter. But on this occasion we experienced a very peculiar and enjoyable interruption: Idiotarod 2006.

Basically, we were sitting there reading cases for our moot court competition, and every minute or so, a group of five or six drunken idiots would run by, cheering and yelling, dressed in absurd outfits and costumes, while pushing a decorated shopping cart. Very conducive to concentration. With a bit of googling we found this posting on Craigslist [edited for brevity]:

Get SMASHED at the 2006 Idiotarod, D.C.

What the Hell is the Idiotarod Anyway? It's a day of racing, making an ass of yourself, meeting new people, stopping and having chats with some local bartenders, potentially dressing up, and generally having one of the best days of your life.... The race starts with registration and Check-in at the Front Page in Dupont Circle, three checkpoint bars in between and a large party at Tom Tom in Adam's Morgan. Plan to make a fool of yourself, or come and mock your friends. And all in the name of giving back to the community...

A team is comprised of 5 Pullers/Runners, 1 Musher, and one cart. The same 6 team members must start and complete the race, and be present at each checkpoint. You should come up with a catchy team name...there might even be a prize... We will award First, Second, Third, Best Costumes, Best Fundraising and Best Sabotage prizes... For the 2006 D.C. Idiotarod, we have decided to donate funds earned to the Arlington Food Assistance Center (http://www.afacinfo.org/). They don't know they are getting this money yet, so you can't blame them for anything stupid we might do...

I love this idea, and I'm not surprised to hear that it originated in San Francisco, the land of flash mobs, giant pillow fights, the EFF, and more. I so wish that I'd have known about the Idiotarod 2006 in advance. It definitely would have been up my alley. Oh well. In any case, I got some good photos of the event in progress, and some good distraction.


The rest of the day was spent quietly at Tryst, my favorite DC hangout. I used their free wifi, edited my spring appellate brief, read some moot court, and played some Text Twist (so addictive). It was beautiful out, and so they had the whole side facing the sidewalk opened up. A breeze was blowing in, and the natural light from the front as well as from the skylight really made it a nice place to study. This was my first time there during the day. I got some iced coffee, we split a fruit tart, and then I had some more serious coffee drink later in the day. A very pleasurable time. I highly recommend you check Tryst out if you have not yet done so.

Posted by Barzelay at 1:55 AM