View to a Night

A neighborhood regular walks into a bar and an entire evening's plan goes out the window as she contemplates farm life.

When I got to Bistro 27, I had to run the gauntlet of a group cocktail party surrounding the bar.

As it turned out, they were a group who is the liaison between social workers and Presbyterians and they were presenting someone with a giant gold key tonight.

I didn't pretend to understand.

Because it was Brazilian night, my wine of choice was Vega Douro, the chef's choice for the evening's featured dishes.

I saw another Brazilian regular and when he couldn't recall what we'd been drinking the last time we'd both been there for Brazilian night, I jogged his memory for him.

When his date arrived, she fell in line with our wine choice, too.

Then another neighborhood regular showed up and also went Portuguese.

Carlos' plan was working exactly according to his master plan.

In an annual rite of spring, albeit one much later this year than last, I had my first soft shell crab tonight.

They were doing two Brazilian redneck dishes (as he calls them), the braised short ribs and yucca I'd had a couple of weeks ago and a soft shell Bobo.

The rich dish with its sauce of yucca root puree, palm oil and coconut milk was a siren call I couldn't resist, especially with a molting crustacean front and center.

So I was going to have the crab, natch, but I also couldn't resist the short ribs, making for a very filling meal.

While eating the Bobo, it occurred to me that this might be a Virginia take on Brazilian food, given the crab.

I called over answer man Carlos to inquire if this was actually something Brazilians ate or if he was just riffing on a traditional dish.

Oh, no, he explained, it was very much rooted in Brazilian cuisine although they used their native crabs rather than blue crabs.

After hearing about their local crabs - large, long-legged, hairy and living in shallow tidal pools- I had a whole new appreciation for our own species.

My neighbor told me about his new riding mower, bought earlier today and apparently already his pride and joy, while the chef welcomed his wife and baby girls, daughter, sister, niece and nephew.

All of a sudden, it was turning into a Tuesday night Brazilian party with Portuguese not just in the glasses but being spoken all around the bar.

Before I realized it, I had missed the movie I'd intended to go see and was blathering away with the other bar sitters and the chef as dusk turned to night time.

Eventually the liaison group left, the big parties on the other side departed and it was just the bar group still drinking and laughing.

The rest ended up across the street at Comfort for a nightcap.

The music was  exquisitely awful (Duran Duran, Survivor, Peter Cetera), leading to discussion with a nearby couple about what constitutes bad music.

Our conclusion: depends on when you were born.

They were sipping whiskeys while we stayed with wine, a lovely cinnamon-nosed Bielsa Garnacha with the silkiest of mouthfeels.

Down at the end of the bar, a woman was so obviously savoring her dessert that a guy sitting at mid-bar finally gave up admiring and ordered his own.

A couple of bites in, he caught me looking covetously at his dessert and apropos of nothing, looked at me and said, "You should get this."

The woman at the end, who was nearing the end of hers concurred, saying, "You know you want it."

It's good to know I'm an easy read for perfect strangers.

I ordered my own chocolate mousse and enjoyed it with my garnacha while eavesdropping on the whiskey lecture that was going on to my left.

Truth is, I always feel like an interloper in a place that focuses on a spirit I never drink.

Conversation flowed as I heard about a talented local chef who'd gotten married and moved to a farm to live the back-breaking bucolic life.

And while it's a charming, even romantic notion, all I could think about was how do you get soft shell Bobo and late night mousses when you live on a farm?

Not to mention the ungodly early hours.

I figure our party departed Comfort approximately three hours before any farmer worth his salt was rolling out of bed.

Shoot me now.

I'm more likely to eat a hairy crab than take on early morning chores, even for the sake of romance.

Luckily, no one's asking me to.

Stuck in Mud

Tuesday night has become redneck night in the neighborhood.

Fortunately not in the true redneck way, meaning it's Brazilian redneck rather than, well, you know.

A girl's got to earn a living, so after spending the afternoon writing and the early evening eating, I was ready for some low-key fun with minimal effort to do so.

A light rain, an early dusk and a little melancholy. I needed some fun.

Enter Bistro 27's Brazilian night, and while I'd done it two weeks ago, I had no problem returning to the scene of that crime.

When I arrived, two women were getting ready to leave the bar, both speaking Portuguese with Chef Carlos before they left.

It was a scene that played out throughout the evening, as tables got up to leave and came over to have one last conversation with the chef in Portuguese.

Seems this Brazilian night is attracting all the right people.

It's the Chinese restaurant rule. If most of the people eating are the same nationality as the chef, it tells you a lot.

I began with a glass of Vinho Verde because, rain be damned, it's Spring and I refuse to drink otherwise, at least to start.

A couple moved from their table to the bar for glasses of Port, ensuring that Carlos would begin expounding on Port.

He did a good job and I learned a thing or two, although he shushed me whenever I asked too detailed a question.

I've been told my curiosity can be annoying.

Despite having eaten for a living earlier, I couldn't resist a small plate of the Vaca Atolaoa, a hearty short rib and yucca stew he'd made for Brazilian night.

It necessitated me moving to a Portuguese wine, the Vega Douro, because the chef has one rule on Brazilian night and that's that Portuguese wine goes best with redneck Brazilian food.

And, frankly, who am I to argue?

Maybe if our rednecks drank a little better, their necks wouldn't be so red, if you know what I mean.

As I enjoyed the dish, I got the translation of its name ("cow stuck in mud") and while Carlos said it wasn't the best translation, the falling-off-the-bone short ribs were kind of mired in the dense stew broth.

As I ate the long-cooked ribs and toothsome yucca, a guy came in, looking for all the world like a lounge lizard.

When he was told about the Brazilian specials, he looked skeptical, so I jumped right in, suggesting he try some cow stuck in mud.

He agreed and for a minute, I think he thought taking my suggestion meant we were going to be fast friends, but I quickly disabused him of that notion.

Luckily for me a friend arrived, got wine and sat down next to me for some girl talk about men, play-going and vacations.

The lizard was soon forgotten until he got up to catch the Marriott van home for the night.

Brazilian rednecks I can handle. Lounge lizards, not so much.

The Port-drinking couple got up to leave, asking me if I was a regular at Brazilian night.

I'm two for three, so I guess that's a yes.

Color me tickled to have a weekly Brazilian pop-up in the neighborhood.

Redneck Special

A woman walks in to a bar for a Brazilian.

My neighborhood joint, Bistro 27, has started doing Brazilian nights on Tuesday.

That means that the Brazilian chef now gets to make some of his favorite soul food one night a week.

Soon, they're going to add live music to make it even more fun.

Tonight I found a seat at the bar and was soon joined by another regular.

He made a point to tell me that he used to be a timid eater, but Chef Carlos had gotten him to try all kinds of oddities, things like hearts and tripe.

He was almost bragging, I think.

Chef explained that the two dishes he'd made were essentially Brazilian redneck food and with them, he was pouring Portuguese wines.

Praise the lord and pass the pork.

The wine was Vega Douro, a tasty red table wine that only got better the longer it was open.

Or maybe that was just the longer I stayed.

My first course was two little fried meat pies of ground beef and spices, served with a saffron aioli and mesclun.

I could already tell I'd make a fine Brazilian redneck.

While eating those, a couple more guys showed up at the bar, one from Philly and one from London, so all kinds of conversational opportunities opened up.

We found out the Englishman had been at 27 last night and come back tonight for another kosher meal, his main requirement.

The Philly guy was in town for less than 24 hours on business and after ten minutes talking to our little group, was convinced he'd found the best possible restaurant he could have landed in.

With a gregarious talker like Carlos ("My food is good and I have an accent!"), he was probably right.

Just about the time a New York businessman joined the bar, I got my next redneck plate.

This one was pork short ribs and Chorizo in a Brazilian stew kind of sauce, with a grits-like component and, most brilliant of all, barely wilted collards, served with rice.

It was served with a small mound of yucca flour so you could thicken the sauce if you wanted to.

The rich sauce, with its palm oil and coconut milk, coated the ribs I ate with my fingers, although they were falling off the bone so I suppose I could have used a fork.

As if.

But it was the thinly-sliced wilted collards that added so much to the overall taste.

The contrast of the long-cooked meat and fresh, vibrant-tasting, barely-cooked collards was sublime.

Holmes was meeting me at 27, having made it through tax season without killing a single client, and he was ready to celebrate the end of his crushing busy period.

I'd cleared the decks for him for the main part of my evening.

It took no time at all to convince him to join me in Brazilian food and Portuguese wine.

He also jumped right into the five-way chatter, weighing in on every topic bandied about and coming up with a few of his own.

He's good that way.

A restaurateur from Virginia Beach replaced a couple of the out-of-towners when they had to return to their hotels to get some shut-eye before another big day in the business world.

Soon after her came her beloved, celebrating his birthday and eager to talk about what a pain it had been getting into Richmond from Maryland tonight.

I quickly shifted the conversation to music and everyone's first show (the newcomer's had been Bachman-Turner Overdrive, oh my!) and things got looser.

Holmes and I knocked back a chocolate mousse (causing me to feel a bit guilty when his girlfriend called from her sick bed and he told her what he was doing) before I had to go.

I invited Holmes to join me for music at Strange Matter, but  he was too tired from the past two weeks of work hell to manage it.

I thanked him for his sparkling company and headed west to Strange Matter, arriving just in time for Australia-via-London quartet, Splashh.

After a terrific meal sucking bones and savoring collards, nothing could have suited me better than the sunny, garage pop of these four guys.

Turns out this is their first time in the U.S., so Richmond got to show them what American audiences are like.

They were apparently already enjoying our whiskey.

With the band spewing out infectious, boppy songs that made it impossible to stand still, I have to hope they saw us unable to resist their effects-laden guitars and aura of major fun, AKA, a great, music-loving audience.

I could easily see them headlining before long.

The main event was Generationals, a band from New Orleans, and the reason I'd worn my "Rebuild New Orleans" shirt to the show.

Their sound check took forever it seemed, but that gave the late-coming crowd time to arrive and grab a beer and fill up the space in front of the stage.

"Have you heard our record, Heza?" they asked of the crowd, who clapped and yelled to say they had. "We really appreciate you being here on a Tuesday. There's a lot of stuff you could be doing instead. Like Netflix and stuff."

Please, don't remind them.

The band's breezy guitar pop lacked the sass of Splashh, but the songs were strong, the execution good and they seemed genuinely happy to be playing for us.

They mixed it up, doing songs from "Heza" as well as what they called "oldies, but goodies," meaning stuff off their 2009 and 2011 albums.

Wow, that is old.

Clearly they knew they were dealing with a young audience, as when they asked, "You guys remember the '90s? Some of you were probably born in the '90s!"

And while I was old-school enough to just stand back and enjoy their hooky, little songs, some of those '90s babies had other ideas.

Between songs, a girl handed one of the guitarists her phone, squealing, "I'm face-timing Olivia at William and Mary!"

To their credit, the band took the phone and talked at it, presumably to a dumbstruck Olivia who, despite repeated entreaties, never said a word back.

"I'm pretty sure this could never have happened at another time," the guitarist said, passing the phone on to the other guitarist before returning it to its owner.

Personally, I had no use for Olivia or her friend too busy face-timing to just enjoy a good show on a Tuesday night.

Must be a generational thing.