Thursday, May 07, 2015

Part Dos de MPS

I doubt any of the three people who read my blog still remember how I said I would tell about the dining part of the evening, but since I said I would and since I am mostly done grading (damn you, 2 stragglers!), and I am avoiding real life/cleaning my house, no time like the present for completing way past due writing assignments!

So....after getting to take our informal tour of the Guthrie, Hightouch and I hailed a cab to take us to a trendy little Farm to Table restaurant...The Bachelor Farmer. Apparently we were able to get a table because our reservation was for the exact moment it opened! So when we tried the (locked) door, a cute young man popped his head out and said we could wait at the "little bar" downstairs and gave us somewhat ambiguous directions.

There was a burly young man in a huge sweatshirt waiting near a fence who wanted to see our ID. "Sure," I said, laughing. He said, "You're going to want the purple door." What kind of direction is that? We approached the back of the building which looked more like an industrial facility than a cute little bar. There was only one door, so we opened it. At the end of a hallway there was, in fact, a purple door. We went in! Cute bar! Dimly lit with round booths. I want to say there was a jazzy burst of trumpet to let us know we had truly found the speak easy...but....

It was so dimly lit we had to use the candles to read the menu. I had a Presbyterian because, why not? It had whiskey. Say no more. Our drinks were lovely, with big square cocktail-hipster ice cubes. We told our waiter we had reservations up stairs so he settled the tab and then gave us some more vague directions, something like "you want the first door past the sign." Okay, we get it. Speak Easy. Secret. Vague. Yeah.

The Bachelor Farmer was just as charming as its name sounds. The wallpaper was blue and Nordic seeming, in a warm way. Hightouch made me laugh by reading to me from the menu: "Parsnips baked under a brick." I can't explain that one.
In any case, the highlight of the meal was the toast course, which involved toast, of course, and farmhouse cheese, onion-bacon jam, mushroom pate, and toasted seeds. Say what you will, but toasted seeds are the thing. Coming soon! Everything was delicious, but the toast course is what we will remember.

We decided that we always have fun when we travel because we are Aspirational Eaters. Pretty soon we are going to write a manifesto.

So that catches you up to about a month ago.

I'm exhausted.