Getting Comfort in the 'Hood

Sometimes you haven't been to a restaurant in a really long time and then when you finally go, you can't quite remember why you had stopped going in the first place.

I'm talking about Comfort, a mere five blocks from my apartment, and yet I haven't been there for dinner in eons.

Pity, too, because I ran into an artistic music buddy with graphite all over his hands, met a charming man who knows what he's talking about when it comes to men and got reacquainted with a bartender who remembered me from a music discussion in another bar.

Why exactly did I stop frequenting Comfort?

I arrived before my perennially late friend and my backside had barely grazed my bar stool when a friend motioned me over from the other side of the bar. "Come sit with me!"

It was Austin, my talented furniture-making friend and fellow Marionette/Beach House fan.

Knowing my friend wouldn't show up anytime soon, I accepted his offer to sit down and visit for a while.

He was drinking the Crispin Cider and insisted I taste its 6.9 % goodness.

He said it wasn't as good as the Honey Crisp hot cider with shots of rum and brandy, but how could it be without those additions?

Still, it was very fall-like.

The late one finally showed up and planted herself between me and a nearby bar sitter.

We ordered a bottle of 2008 Verona Romeo and Juliet White (garanega and sauvginon blanc blend) and I went back to Austin while she took on the newcomer.

It was her first time to Comfort, so she took a while with the menu, but I went ahead and ordered the soup (pork and corn) and the Surry sausage.

Our bartender Sean had already brought me out a taste cup of the soup, and I'd been impressed enough with all the pig and veggies to order it.

Foolishly, I'd ordered a bowl instead of a cup and wound up with an enormous bowl of pig soup competing with my pig in casings.

Friend finally decided on the pulled pork barbecue, mac and cheese, green beans and squash casserole.

I shared my sausage with Austin because the serving was so generous and because sausage with such perfectly crisp skin needs to be shared and savored with a friend.

It was after our devouring that Austin finally had to leave and we turned our full attention to the newcomer.

Ready or not, he rose to the challenge.

And he was delightful.

Confident, opinionated and extroverted, he was the perfect foil for two females looking for talkative company.

We covered it all; the definition of men, the best way to impress the opposite sex and the irrelevance of age.

If ever we'd met our conversational match, he was all that and a bag of chips.

The music was enjoyable if repetitive, so after the second time I heard Spoon's "Don't You Evah" I was compelled to ask Sean the source of the music (iTunes), which jarred his memory about where we'd first met (the B @ B after the Silversun Pickups show we'd both attended) and led to a discussion of music and neighborhood bars, not to mention another bottle of Romeo and Juliet.

While my friend was sharing the details of her recent relationship with our new compadre, I ordered the chocolate mousse for a diversion, since I had no intention of sharing anything about my own dating adventures (which are necessarily already cutting into my blogging frequency since kissing and telling is not my thing).

Sorry, I'm too busy getting my chocolate fix to spill the beans just now.

After three and a half hours, we were the sole occupants of the room and I realized it was perhaps time to vacate the premises before "Don't You Evah" came on again.

I'm thinking I shouldn't have evah written off a restaurant capable of providing such pleasurable company and abundance of pig.

That I can blog about.