Let the Dating Begin

No one should have to stumble upon a Santa crawl and see late night drunken drag jolly old elves.

Luckily, we'd been fortified by hours at a bustling Acacia beforehand. We were lucky they found room for us to eat at the bar given how steady the influx of people was.

An out-of-town couple came in just behind me and he was marveling at how "cool" the vibe was for Richmond. Like we can't do cool here.

My only regret was not asking where they were from, although his accent had a definite Jersey sound to it.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But it's always great to hear someone say they have a 9:00 reservation given Richmond's tendency to want to eat early. A staff member expressed the same thought.

It was a festive crowd, too, with lots of sequins, bling and stilettos on the women while the men looked like they do every other month of the year.

They're men, after all.

We went Willamette Valley with WildAire Cellars 2009 "Timothy" Pinot Noir, lovely for its grassy nose and red fruit taste.

The prospect of a 28-degree night sent me straight to soup, in this case a creamy local elephant garlic with Chorizo that impressed us both.

Warm soup and hot sausage, a marriage made in winter heaven.

I followed that with an Asian spiced pork terrine with pickled pumpkin, a lively take on a classic dish.

It paired well with the crusty bread that has replaced the crustless rolls Acacia used to serve, which I hated.

I mentioned to the bartender how much better I liked the new bread and he said I was the first person to express that preference. Could that mean bland white rolls are more to most people's taste?

Because we'd come in late, by the time we finished eating, most of the room had cleared out, but we were allowed to linger over our wine for girltalk.

From there, we went to FanHouse where we walked into a room of garishly dressed people in variations of a Santa suit.

There were guys in red football jerseys and reindeer horns, a guy in a red Santa smoking jacket with leopard lapels and girls in tight red dresses with jingle bells hanging suggestively.

A costumed woman walked up to the bar and asked for an Absolut neat. The bartender said they were out of Absolut at that point.

"You mean I got dressed up like a reindeer for nothing?" she screeched. He calmly explained that he had four other kinds of vodka to choose from.

She was not a happy reindeer.

Given her reaction, I asked a nearby elf, who seemed less volatile, what was going on (Santa Crawl) and if they were being driven by a non-drinker (they were).

It gave me faith to make my own drive home afterwards.

My friend and I used the incredibly loud crowd as a mask to discuss our "number," our relationships and our sell-by dates.

I hear you, I hear you. Time to take myself off that shelf.

It's the Making Drinks That'll Be Tough

There are shooters and then there are shooters. This one began with the jamminess of fresh blackberries and pink peppercorns on the nose, ending with a lingering basil finish. It was as far removed from a Jager Bomb as can be imagined (not that I've ever done a Jager Bomb).

And of course, it came courtesy of master mixologist Bobby of Julep, except that tonight he was mixing and pouring at Fanhouse, his new Wednesday night gig. As much as I hate the TVs there, I was curious about what the night might hold.

Bobby's inaugural night at Fanhouse was as good an excuse as any to meet up with a friend recently returned from Paris whom I hadn't seen since my birthday festivities at Ipanema, here (he made sure to remind me of my loopiness that night, but qualified it with, "It's really hard to tell if you're drunk."). I dubbed tonight "The Summer Drink."

For a change, I had better stories to share than he did, although he disagreed on my handling of a couple of recent situations, insisting I should have just gone for it. "Are you crazy? What are you waiting for?" he asked (true love?).

I got a huge kick out of hearing about him and his friends doing re-enactments of a couple scenes from Godard's Band of Outsiders, one in the Louvre and the other dancing at a cafe. Best of all, a cafe patron actually realized what they were doing and said something to them. Talk about satisfaction!

An unexpected girlfriend spotted me from the far end of the bar and sent a few non-spitballs flying in my direction to catch my attention, but her aim was off and one hit a nearby beer drinker looking for a refill. She was not amused, even after my friend apologized and assured her that no actual spit was used in the making of the wads. No sourpusses at the bar, please.

A guy asked my friend and I if we'd move down a stool and as soon as he and I looked at each other, we knew we'd met before. And when I spoke, he said, "I recognize that inflection. We've definitely talked before." His brain made the connection faster than mine; he was a photographer I'd met when his show opened at the Belvidere.

I saw the WRIR DJ who seems to be at every single event I attend; we'd just seen each other at the Interpol show Thursday. I think we may be leading parallel lives in different bodies.

A friend who couldn't make it tonight had told me to have a Crazy Dumpling for him, but I had more like six of them and more for me than for anyone else (okay, S., one was for you). It was clearly the appetizer of the evening and we saw easily a dozen plates of dumplings go by as we sipped our drinks and chatted.

It was when we asked for our bill that Bobby lured us into staying for the purple shooters with the secret alcohol component. When we finished those and really got up to leave, I made it barely three steps before hearing my name called. It was Jason from Olio and he invited me to join him and his cohort Ricky for some wide-ranging conversation, beginning with a compliment on my (90s!) dress and including a dissection of Richmond Mag's Best of foolishness.

It led to a discussion of the personal qualities of a great bartender, especially the ability to engage and to amuse. After one of my many smart-assed remarks, Jason said, "You have a quick wit, Karen. You'd make a great bartender." All except that I don't know a thing about bartending except tequila + ice= Karen's drink. But I thanked him anyway for the compliment he intended it to be.

I was reminded of what Angus Winchester, a global bar consultant, had to say about how so many bartenders today have lost their sense of fun and that it's important to remember why people go to bars to start with.

"Bartenders get paid to flirt with girls and boys all evening. It's about hosting."

Come to think of it, I can host and I can certainly flirt. Maybe it's time to consider a new career path...

Let Me Put It This Way

You have to be careful when you blog about an evening in which you run into two other bloggers at the start and then finish the night with them. You don't want your version to differ too much from theirs and you don't want to over-share the good stuff. Here's the allowable version:

A friend and I walked into Bacchus and saw a practically full bar when I heard my name called. It was a couple of blogger girls, one of whom I'd met previously, and they played musical chairs to accommodate us. Our server told us that it would be a while before we could order food because the kitchen was so busy (actually, I think it was her that was in the weeds). When allowed, my friend and I had dinner (for me, a salad of Belgian endive, Granny Smith apples and Gorgonzola plus a bowl of smoked chicken chowder). The food arrived amazingly quickly considering her dire predictions. And speaking of dire, who would have expected to hear Cameo's "Word Up" at Bacchus of all places?

A friend joined them, an intuitive newcomer, who then proceeded to "read" us. She provided all kinds of accurate revelations about my friend along with suggestions for better ways to handle her issues. When it was my turn, she just stated the obvious about me and told me I'm always going to do well. Well, yeah, how long have I been hearing that?

Fan House was suggested next and that involved an extremely diverse crowd age-wise, as well as listening to high-volume club music from ten years ago. We observed a first, a "lime birdy" also known as a PBR with a lime. Now, I don't drink beer, so what do I know, but the beer-drinkers in our little group were as surprised as I was. Is it wrong, unnecessary or just stupid?

On the way to the bathroom, I ran into owner Sonny, who somehow remembered me from my first visit. He was just back from filming on a battlefield all day (his primary job, after all, is film making). He told me about the menu changes coming next week (all I'm saying is venison, fillet and 500 degrees). At the bar, too, so that's something to look forward to.

I'd gone to the bathroom to escape a very drunk guy who'd been doing his best to hit on me in his most unintelligible slur. Obviously he'd seen I was drinking Albarino, and when I got back from the loo, he had two glasses of white wine sitting cozily together, perhaps in anticipation of us doing the same. I grabbed my coat and the girls and I left en masse.

Racine involved multiple discussions of age and age-appropriate dating. One blogger had an equation for that: divide your age in half and add seven and voila! That's as low as you can go and probably lower than I would, but a formula makes it seem acceptable, no? And for beer-drinkers who had just ridiculed lime birdies, they surprised me by both having one. Nearing the end of it, one said, "Well, I never need to do that again!" and the other responded, "Really? Cause I definitely will!"

We used the age equation as an excuse to ask lots of guys their ages, including our server, the guy in the booth behind us, and a DJ from WRIR and then did our own math. The music was all over the place, although I can't remember the last time I heard Interpol's "Untitled" in a bar; I was so impressed I had to mention it to the bartender who agreed wholeheartedly, "Yea, I know, right?" he said. "I love that song. My band does a version of it."

When Faces' "Stay with Me" came on, a nearby guy started dancing and singing to it, telling us it was his all-time favorite song, to which I challenged, "And you were what, about four when it came out?"

He paused mid-move, started laughing and admitted, "Five." Then he sat down quietly.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Opera> Fan House> Rollins

A gorgeous sunny day like today calls for being outside...except when all your plans are for indoor activities. Not that I'm complaining considering what thoroughly enjoyable activities these were. I'm counting on there being other sunny days, but how often can you start with Mozart, move on to a new restaurant and finish with spoken word? Not enough, I'm afraid. Not enough.

A friend had suggested we see Don Giovanni at Center Stage and it sounded like a great idea to me. There were four of us, not a one who'd seen it, and with the vastly improved acoustics of the Carpenter stage, we were expecting great sound, which we got. Don Giovanni, the consummate player, had a theory about women based on their hair; with blonds you get gentleness, with brunettes, fidelity. Choose your priority, gentlemen. But my favorite line came from the besotted Masetto who, after allowing himself to be won over by his fiancee's physical entreaties, says, "We men are so pathetic." As long as you know.

The opera was long (over three hours) and for dinner my hungry friend and I wanted to check out the new Fan House in the old Verbena space. We couldn't have made a better Sunday night selection. As it happened, the guy sitting next to me at the bar eating was Sonny, the mastermind behind the menu. He saw us perusing the menu and offered to assist in any way he could. We braved it ourselves but got a major nod of approval based on our choices.

The grilled calamari salad was beautifully seasoned with perfectly cooked calamari. The beef kabobs had a savory sauce that he told us came from a region on the China/Russia border; it made the dish. The tuna tartare trio was tartare three ways, all outstanding in their own way. The tofu was probably the biggest surprise in that it was absolutely sublime: scallions, sesame oil and salt and a flavor to die for. The Surprise dumplings are billed as a family recipe and a secret and for good reason. The portion was generous and the flavor unlike any dumplings either of us have had.

Music was courtesy of Pandora, with Phoenix as the starting point, so I liked everything I heard. It would have been much better to discover it was somebody's iPod and thus chosen specifically, but at least it was all current, worth hearing and loud enough to enjoy.

And last, but certainly not least, was Henry Rollins at the National doing his particular brand of spoken word. It hasn't even been two years since I saw him at the Canal Club, but he's so topical, informed and well spoken that you can never really see the man too often. He described the Internet as "allowing people to hurl invective with impunity," in his opening discussion of the First Amendment. But then he also covered his child-like role-modeling, telling kids that"the nasal cavity can hold a lot more than you think." Segueing from children to teens, he observed, "I know how teenagers are. That's why there's Joy Division records."

Discussing his extensive travels, Rollins said he takes a huge hard drive of music to introduce foreigners to and that his mission was to be "like Johnny Appleseed, there to spread the funk." One kid was so awed by the music Rollins shared that he could only get out two words: The Stooges. I find it oddly reassuring to think of Henry Rollins as our musical ambassador overseas.

But mainly Rollins advocated overcoming cynicism, which he called "intellectual sloth." His solution? Engagement in the world. "Make as much trouble as you can and support the Strummer-Jeffersonian belief."

I'd like to think I'm already doing that.