I recently did a local event that was essentially like a local business/restaurant crawl? Several local area businesses (not my locality, but a friend’s) had special tasting menus, gave you a stamp for purchasing something off that menu, and you could turn in your stamped “visa” for a grand prize raffle!
One of the places I newly discovered was Kaldi’s Coffee Bar, which is a really cool coffee shop that definitely gives chain spots a run for their money. The ambiance is great and the offerings are yummy! I had some delicious macarons, they have the most decadent looking desserts…
But guys.
I have a new favorite coffeeshop beverage.
Christine at justbella.com knows what I’m talking about
I have never been much of a coffee drinker. It’s so bitter to me, and I have not really acquired that taste. This may be because I was over-eager for “grown-up drink” as a child and so my dad gave me black coffee when I was age 7. X_X
I do, however, love lovelove tea. Tea is my favorite. Tea soothes the soul. It calms my mind. It makes me feel like I can be a better version of myself.
… getting a bit carried away, but I love tea!
I started drinking Earl Grey tea with my trip to London this past summer. (That post is coming, I promise you guys it will be out before I die.) Before that, I mostly drank green teas, oolong teas, or whatever generic Lipton/Nestle tea was available. I really love Earl Grey because I think that the bergamot gives it just… the most delicious fragrant notes. Mmmm… one of my souvenirs for myself was a little tin of Earl Grey that is one of my favorite little gifts for myself after a long day.
Back to Kaldi’s. So I spotted “London Fog” on their tea menu. I had heard of this drink before and I just vaguely knew it as an Earl Grey latte. I think lattes are all right, considering I don’t really like coffee, and I haven’t had some good Earl Grey in a while, so I ordered a small cup for myself. I actually didn’t know that they made lattes (“lattes”) with tea, so I figured swapping out bitter coffee for yummy tea would be a great upgrade.
Sean of locallovesnanaimo.com knows, too!
OOOOOOOH YUMMMMM it was so delicious. Sweetened Earl Grey tea with steamed milk and some vanilla. Such a simple combination but so delicious. I will now ask for this wherever it is offered. It is up there with bubble tea as far as favorite beverages go, that’s how much I loved this. I would probably love it even more with steamed soy, since I don’t really like milk that much.
I am eager to try to recreate this ASAP at home so that I can enjoy more of this goodness, especially when winter inevitably rolls around again. Here’s a great recipe I found on Gimme Some Oven, who also is mindful of people who aren’t fancy enough to have milk steaming apparatus in their kitchens AND makes hers with lavender, which makes it somewhat more of a Lady Grey beverage but I love Lady Grey anyway! Lavender is an ingredient I’d really like to be tasting more of in my foods and beverages.
Also, I need to get me one of these nifty glass mugs, they just make hot drinks look so great.
I imagine that other Earl Grey varieties would also make delicious London Fogs, like French Earl Grey with hints of rose…. mmm.
I’ve never really frequented chain coffee places, but I may have to see how Starbucks’s “Earl Grey latte” holds up.
I am so obsessed with this right now. The taste of this London Fog is still lingering on my lips…
Have you ever had London Fog? If so, do you like it? What’s your go-to drink to order at a coffee shop?
This was one of the more eventful and social weekends I’ve had in a long time. Being the extrovert that I am, I was really glad to get to spend time with friends.
FRIdAY
I guess we can kick off with happy hour on Friday. One of my coworkers unlocked a work achievement, so we had sangria and bread and hummus at Levante’s. It was a bit chilly, but we asked to be seated outside. The waiter seemed completely bewildered by this request, but I don’t know, my group wanted to sit outside. It was nice to wrap up the week with some work buddies, and I’m glad I have work buddies to hang out with!
During this time, I was checking with some friends about a birthday dinner I was going to later. I had checked the map and thought I got the location wrong. No way we were going to the Biergarten Haus that was a 25 minute walk away from the nearest metro station? Really?
Yes, really. After about 5 minutes of bickering on the phone, I decided that my boyfriend shouldn’t wait for me at his place (where I was going to drop off my work bag and lunchbox) and that I would meet our friends at Union Station, where we would all walk to Biergarten Haus together. I wandered around the mall of Union Station, admiring the architectural details (it’s a truly beautiful building) and had some guy tell me that “they’re coming, don’t you worry” only to then see about a dozen Chinese tourists round the corner.
Oh yes, this man thought I was waiting on Chinese tourists because why not. -____-”
Anyhow, the walk wasn’t so bad with everyone together. I would’ve really hated having to walk there by myself. You go a mile through this residential area in eastern DC (keeping in mind that southeast DC is one of the most dangerous areas in the country) and finally stumble upon a very lively street. That is completely not metro-accessible. Even the buses don’t go out here. (WHY)
BUT Biergarten Haus is pretty authentic as a German beer place, and everyone really loved their brews. There was German music playing and I had schnitzel and the environment felt good. There is a lot of outdoor seating and the patio is supposed to be heated, but it was chilly that night. I liked it but it is really out of the way.
My drink of the evening was the Erdinger Kristall Weiss, here pictured with the three wurst platter of bratwurst, bauernwurst, and knackwurst and the Jägerschnitzel with sauerkraut and spätzle.
From there, we went to FM Karaoke, which is a Korean karaoke/noraebang joint that I have not been to before. My boyfriend’s best friend really wanted to sing “All of Me” by John Legend, and he claimed that while our usual karaoke place didn’t have it, FM Karaoke did. I always notice one interesting thing with my boyfriend’s group of friends and that is that even though it’s all Asian guys (I was the only girl in the group) every time we hang out, there are almost never any Korean people in the group. However, we still go to Korean BBQ and Korean karaoke relatively often. Both are places where it’s helpful to have a Korean person available to translate and interpret and butter up staff.
Singing “Careless Whisper” set to some Korean drama/music video, with “Let It Go” on queue and soju in people’s bellies.
REGARDLESS it was a bangin’ good time. I have noticed some very major differences between karaoke-ing as a bro (I’m a half-decent bro when I put my mind to it) and karaoke-ing with girls. There is a lot more rap (I mean a lot more) and a lot less Taylor Swift, Spice Girls, Ke$ha, etc. And when I rap to impress potential new bros, I go hard. I only know a handful of songs, but I do pretty well considering I have negative street cred and have a children’s sing-along voice.
You think this is a game? I memorized the lyrics to this song when I was 11, with exactly zero idea of what they meant.
I get to combine my ability to sing Rihanna and my admiration for Eminem here by doing the entire song on my own.
This song is weirdly popular with my boyfriend’s friends, so I had a lot of exposure and time to learn the words.
I don’t typically sing these at karaoke, so it was a special treat (slash torture) for my new bros. I sang “Let It Go” and couldn’t belt that note that early in the evening, but I managed fine for “Titanium” (David Guetta ft. Sia) and we had a tambourine so I think the night went well.
Korean karaoke does hold the distinct advantage of understanding the importance of a tambourine.
ON SAMEDI (SATURDAY)
My boyfriend and I met one of my closest friends for the DC Bunny Hop Bar Crawl. Some of you may remember I don’t drink much, but I wanted to explore the DC bars a little bit and i thought this was just a nice occasion to get out and hang out.
We started at The Front Page at around noon to pick up our 21-verified (but you still get ID checked) wristbands, souvenir mugs, and a ticket for a free beer after 4 PM. We started at Mad Hatter, an Alice in Wonderland-themed bar that I’ve visited before for my college roommate’s birthday, for some brunch. Even though there were some brunch specials for bar crawl participants at other places, we wanted to just sit down and have a nice brunch nearby, and this was the closest participating bar to us. I got me some eggs benny (well, technically I splurged on “eggs Chesapeake” because I wanted crab cake) and we got to catch up on life.
Eggs Chesapeake at Mad Hatter
Not wanting to limit ourselves to once place, we headed to Ozio to get our $3 mimosas, which didn’t turn our color-changing cups a different color as promised. It was really quiet at Ozio, and we could hear something electric crackling… so after nursing our food comas and spending a long time catching up on life even further, we headed to Sign of the Whale.
Yo. This place was packed and bumpin’ and it was 3 PM on a Saturday. Lots of people dancing to loudly playing “Forget You” by Ceelo Green when we showed up. We each had a jelly bean shot, and I’m not sure what is in it but they tasted pretty good. (That’s a good bet that the alcohol content wasn’t very high, just the way I like ’em :P) We were in and out of Sign of the Whale, as it was rowdy and also getting a bit on the late side.
Our next stop was The Mighty Pint, where we had each had a Captain Morgan & Coke. At this point, we found that our color-changing cups did, in fact, change color with cold drinks and we were glad our cups weren’t defective. We took our time with our drinks and by the time we finished, it was close to 4 and we were able to head back to Front Page to pick up our free beers.
After a quick coffee stop for my boyfriend at Panera, we headed back to Front Page where we each kicked back with a free Bud Light and tried to guess what the relationships between other people in the bar were. Girlfriend meeting the guys friends for the first time? Honeymoon-phase couple? First day-date?
Me, Molly, and Ben
THEN we stopped by Hello Cupcake for some yummy cupcakes. They all looked so good and inviting but I settled on a cookies-n-cream one, which tasted like a cookie but had that cupcake texture and was topped with a teeny cookie. So good. I haven’t had Hello Cupcake since someone brought me one my freshman year of college and this was my first time in the shop.
Mollys “you tart”, Bens red velvet, and my cookies-n-cream cupcakes from Hello Cupcake
My brother also came home this weekend, so it was nice to spend some time with him. All in all, it was definitely a good weekend. 🙂 And significantly less traumatizing that my Easter Adventure of 2011, which I wrote about on my Xanga and may share with you again next Easter.
How was your Easter? What are your favorite happy hour bars? Dupont Circle in DC is an area just crawling with bars and not a whole lot else, really.
Sip of Starrshine 