The Doctor Professor said, “It’s important to have a good nutritious lunch.” We went to Couch Tomato for a relaxed meal and plan for the day’s festivities. We love this place since it makes everything fresh everyday.
Contrary to our programmed behaviors, we did not get any pizza despite the intoxicating aroma of the fresh sizzling pizza pies coming out of the hot oven that kept waving to us and gesturing “come with me…come to me…”
The salad was made with portabella mushroom, goat cheese, sun-dried cranberries, and sunflower seeds. I chose the balsamic vinaigrette with this salad and tossed in the addictive and slightly garlicky croutons. The soup was made with nicely pureed tomatoes and cilantro. I loved the thick consistency of the soup and that little kick of spicy aftertaste. It was great dipping the warm wheat bread in it. The wrap was made with black beans, tomatoes, cilantro, avocado, bell peppers, sweet corn, and tortilla chips. It was basically a salad wrapped inside a soft tortilla and came with salsa and sour cream on the side. I do not understand the concept of this food contraption but Tourist Tree loves her wraps.
R: It was the weekend before St. Patrick’s Day. We ran into a friendly Leprecon in front of McShea’s giving out gold coins.
L: Totally nothing to do with Beer Week but beer related: Whole Food was doing Irish cheese tasting. This Kerrygold Stout Cheddar is made with Guinness and was delicious! 
Kite and Key We could not make it to Kite and Key early enough and missed perhaps one of the most entertaining events for the week. The Throwndown in Franklintown pitted the “slightly heavier” owner of the Yards Brewery against the very much slimmer owner of Kite and Key in a sumo match completed with geisha girls, live music, etc. The entertaining video for this comedic event is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6p-J2KEfkM
Blogger “Brewlounge” has posted the pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/89461323@N00/show/
We finally arrived at Kite and Key for the Founders beer event in the very late afternoon with the place pretty much overrun by people in various forms of green attire carousing their pseudo Irish bloodline while imbibing the cheapest beer on special. L: Beer geek attire complete with a mug on the head.
R: St. Paddy’s attire with flashing lights.
We loved the Backwoods Bastard. It’s a 10.2% ABV Scottish ale aged in bourbon barrel with distinctive taste of a scotch whisky with sweetness, caramel and nuts. We also had some Breakfast Stout (8.3%) which is one of Aiiyah's favorites with its chocolate and coffee flavors. And as you know, a good breakfast is so important! As a “two-fer”, the caffeine in the beer also would get us going for the rest of the night.
R: Aiiyah needs one of these green bowties for next year.
It’s Ginger Night at the POPE. Ginger beers and gingers! Both Yards and Tröegs were bringing their ginger beers there in firkins. I hadn’t had ginger beer in a long time, so with my own ginger in tow, we headed to there.
It was an interesting change of scenery from our previous stop. There was hardly anybody in green but there sure were a lot of redheads!
We ran into Nick from Tröegs later in the night. He revealed to us that there was a production problem at the brewery and they just couldn’t get the ginger beer done to their satisfaction. So the firkin that we were drinking was actually the Hopback. A-ha! I knew it! I knew there was something wrong with that ginger beer! Bait and switch! But Tourist Tree loved it.
Ginger drinking: Pose number 1.
Ginger drinking: Pose number 3.
L: Tree found her tree house outside the bar.
Le Virtù
After a nice amount of beer enjoyment (Nick insisted on buying us a few extra rounds of Trögs even though he was drinking Yards himself. Hum…), we were in desperate need of dinner. We took a pass on Izumi up the street since the place was still pretty crowded plus we didn’t feel like sushi that night. We walked into Los Caballitos but there was a 45 minutes wait even at way past 9:300PM! We had a decent meal at Le Virtù last summer followed by a disastrous one. I was very hesitant when we walked in this time but it was getting late and they could seat us immediately.
The antipasto platter was impressive. There were frittata, crostini with roasted pepper, grilled eggplant, grilled artichoke, mozzarella, cheeses, olives, prosciutto and various other cured meats, olive paste, plus a few other items. I could just have that as a meal.
Scrippelle M’Busse The soup contained several “crepes” holding pecorino in a chicken broth. The crepes were soft and tender but filling. The soup was excellently done with chicken pieces in it.
Waiting for the main course.
“Handkerchief” pasta in braised duck and beef ragù with shaved parmigiano. The pasta was very tasty and satisfying but the duck was the dominant taste in this dish.
Seven pecorino crepes layered with tiny meatballs, tomato sauce, spinach, mozzarella and parmigiano. This dish reminded me of a lasagna. I believe it was the same type of crepes used in the soup. They were puffy and fluffy in this dish. The “tiny meatballs” were indeed tiny! They were the size of something you pick out of a nose! Aside from the disappointment with the size of the meatballs, the dish was indeed quite palatable. Although I would like to see a bit more sauce in it.
We realized that it was the newly minted billionaire and Eagles owner, Jeff Lurie, sitting at the table next to us.
Le Virtù delivered a pretty solid meal. The antipasto was quite awesome. The soup was a good comfort food item with a nice home-made touch. We enjoyed both pasta dishes but I much preferred the handkerchief with the braised duck and beef ragù over the seven layered crepes. The service was quite nice but not in the outstanding category. We were a bit surprised to find that the absolutely horrible waiter who contributed greatly in ruining our experience there the time before was still working at the restaurant, although as a runner on this night. He must be related to the owner!
Day Nine Beer Tally: Founders Backwoods Bastard, Breakfast Stout; Yards Ginger Beer, Tröegs Hopback (multiple rounds thanks to Nick).
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