It’s here! It’s here! It’s here! But…we’re not here! We’re still in DC!
Brickskeller Bar
We were sitting comfortably in our favorite dive bar in DC as the Hammer of Glory was coming down tapping the ceremonial keg at the Opening Tap event at the Visitor’s Center in Philly that signaled the official start of the Philly Beer Week.
We were meeting our good friend Monica who now lives and works in DC at this beer haven because…Monica doesn’t drink beer! I still don’t understand how she could have survived 20 some odd years in the Navy without developing any taste for beer, even crappy beer. However, she did take advantages of her distaste for beer by trading her beer rations for other goodies on the ship.
With some encouragement from our friendly bartender who had brought out every single bottle of large format Southern Tier beer in the house for us and a dare with our new formed friends sitting next to us, we decided to do our version of “Educating Monica” starting with a bottle of Southern Tier Mokah. Instead of starting Monica with something light (that tastes like beer), we decided to go for the chase and give her something totally un-beer-like with a bang. This might be the very last beer that she would drink for a while, or this espresso and melted chocolate heavy hitter in a bottle could be the one that would open her eyes to a whole new world. In the excitement of the moment, we forgot to snap a picture of Monica trying a beer. This is a very close simile of the real Monica, although her fiery red hair is much shorter now in real life (Humm…she doesn’t dress like this to her job in the high power corporate world everyday either, I think).
It’s a group effort to go through the extensive beer list.
I have a lot of admiration for a single female that would walk into a bar by herself and knows a good beer to order. With her friends upstairs at a sold-out tasting event featuring industry heavy weights like Sam Caligione, Jim Koch, etc., Lindsey grabbed herself a Flying Dog Raging Bitch and had herself a good time glued to the cold air coming out of the air-con.
After we each discovered our common link with Austin (she, just moved from the city, via Henry Ave. in Philly; us, heading back there in a month for another visit), our conversation turned to…, what else but food, beer, and spots that we both like to hang, especially our favorite BBQ places outside of Austin and the collective scream of the name, “Uchi”, when the word “sushi” was brought up.
Watermelon in a can 
A LEED certified restaurant that practices farm to table, Founding Farmers is owned by a farmers’ collective with a heavy emphasis on sustainability. It sources its ingredients locally and makes everything in-house from dressing to pastas to bread.
We were lucky to snatch ourselves 2 seats at the crowded bar instead of enduring a 45 minutes wait for a table at 9:15 at night. We were fully occupied by watching our bartender making different cocktails from the restaurant’s very interesting cocktail list which ranged from old fashioned traditional to modern day hipster drinks. Unfortunately, most of the beers on the draft list were kicked by the time we sat down. Fortunately, one of the two beers left was something that I had not had before. The Welhenstephaner Heffe Weissbier is a wheat beer from Germany. This 5.4% summer brew may not be the perfect pairing for my dinner but its delightful quality worked magic in this crowded restaurant for me.
Like a super sexy woman walking down the street, I couldn’t keep my eyes off this item on the menu. The bread arrived piping hot with an aroma that made me want to do a nose dive into this skillet of soft yellow corn heaven. The bread had a nice consistency, not grainy, not greasy, nor overly sweet, and with lots of sweet corn mixed in. I really liked the concept of the whipped butter in a pool of honey in the side cup. A dip of the bread in the mixture was heaven in the mouth. At only $5.00, this 8 inch skillet of hot corn bread with honey butter was a cheap date with a super sexy woman.
When you see something on the menu, you have an image of what it might look like. Sometimes you get exactly what you expected; sometimes you are disappointed; sometimes, you are pleasantly surprised. The Bacon Lollis are pieces of Nueske’s bacon candied with cinnamon and brown sugar. Let me clarify: It’s candied pork belly! If you were looking for thin crispy breakfast style bacon strips, you would be disappointed. This was a nicely sliced pork belly done at its best. There is absolutely no redeeming health value to this dish but being baked instead of fried may make you feel less guilty about eating it.
First things first: The mac n’ cheese was awesome. It was al dente; it was cheesy; it was creamy; it was sauced right. It was just gourmet good! The beef was herb crusted with the crust crispy in some areas. Unfortunately the seasoning wasn’t applied evenly which left some spots being bitterly salty. The outer layer of the meat (never know the actual technical term) was super tender while the meat further inside toward the center was…good. I was surprised that a chunk of fat in the cut wasn’t trimmed off the meat and I was somewhat not happy that the steak was served with a heavy ladle of butter over it. However, I did like the heavier consistency of the sauce with its deep flavor and a strong essence of onion. At $28.00, it was a nice hunk of meat done pretty well. I wouldn’t be happy if I had to pay more for it; but I was satisfied with what appeared in front of me for that price. However, I would ask the butter to be left off if I get it again. In addition, I wouldn’t mind at all if I had to pay more for another serving of that mac n’ cheese.
This was the fish of the day. It was tender and surprisingly moist. Since most kitchens overcook fish, I was not disappointed with this catch of the day at all even though I found the by-catch, green beans and spinach, kind of boring.
Our bartender disappeared for a good 10 minutes after we ordered the dessert. We were wondering what happened to him when we saw him coming through the bar with our not-your-grandfather’s banana split. There were thin slices of nice and moist red velvet cake. There was an awesome vanilla ice cream; a very good chocolate ice cream; and another scoop of strawberry ice cream which, I think, was outshined by its other two counterparts. There was a phenomenal light raspberry sauce by the pastry chef and 5 different toppings sprinkled over the entire assembly. I quite enjoyed this excessive over-the-top dessert and was impressed with all the individual components that were made in-house (OK, the awesome miniature mini-mini malt balls have to be sourced outside, right?).
Day One Beer Tally:
Southern Tier Mokah
21st Amendment Hell or High Watermelon
Welhenstephaner Heffe Weissbier
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