Only Fools Rush In

Now that my sleeping habits have gotten adjusted back to the Eastern Time Zone I am sleeping later into the morning. I made it to 4:45am today! I’m not in a mood to rush anywhere this morning, so I’ve decided to bum around the house (and write this blog post) and will drag my ass into the office in a little while.

Amer, Amara, A Mano
Not Latin verb conjugation, these are names of bars/restaurants in Atlanta all within a mile of one another. If you ever want to confuse the public go ahead and name your bar/restaurant similarly to two others that are close by. I saw all three of these establishments last night, two of which I actually entered.

Two Out Of Three Ain’t Bad
The night started out at the “Surfer’s Den” at Beetlecat. The decor is what the ITP Estate’s basement could have been had I turned it into a bar. For those of you who can’t remember or have never seen the decor of my basement, it’s been over ten years since I’ve had a party, it’s “1960s modern” — wood paneling, shag carpeting, a bar covered in orange Naugahyde. Surfer’s Den takes it to another level, with period furniture, artwork, and touches such as stashes of 8mm film reels and 45rpm records.

Our large group of people, twenty-four I believe, gathered at Surfer’s Den for pre-meal drinks and appetizers. I liked the whole vibe of Surfer’s Den, and if I were twenty-five years younger would claim it as my hangout.

Due to the large size of our group we drew pieces of paper to see which of the two entree restaurants at which we would eat. The two unknown-to-us options were Barcelona and Char. Since I have already eaten at Barcelona (twice even) I felt fortunate when I chose Char. Those that chose Barcelona didn’t actually get to eat there as the restaurant “lost” their reservation, and apparently also had an issue with their kitchen. This group wound up hoofing it to Amara, a restaurant that has opened since I used to take Highland Ave as part of my morning commute to Dunwoody.

At Char, a Korean BBQ-grill-style restaurant, I ordered two appetizers — fried tofu, Korean deviled eggs — and an entree of oxtail stew. All of the food I ate was amazingly tasty.

“Dem Bones” (Atlanta, Georgia, United States)
Dem Bones
These were the remains of my delicious oxtail entree at Char.

My friend Darren’s oxtail is better, but this stew was worth going back to eat again.

While at Char we received updates from the other group because were scheduled to meet them again for dessert. They had eaten dinner at Amara because of this we thought that we were going to meet them at Amer, which is a few doors down from Char, for dessert. We were wrong. We were obviously not the first to be confused by the similar names because the bartender at Amer gave us detailed directions to Amara.

Unfortunately Amara’s dessert game was weak. We should have gone to Inman Perk instead so I could have had coffee instead of another beer for my dessert course.

My evening ended at 10pm when I left the group, who seemed as if they had no desire to end the night. After walking back to the M6 which I parked on Austin Ave, I drove home and nearly immediately fell asleep upon hitting my bed.

Now With No Alcohol, For Now
Along with packing on the pounds I have decided that I have been drinking too much alcohol recently. I’m no longer “on vacation” so it’s time for me to be a more responsible drinker again. Of course with my birthday being Saturday I will imbibe then, but tonight and tomorrow I am going to try and remain alcohol free. Shocking!

Have a great Thursday.

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]

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13 Responses to Only Fools Rush In

  1. Stacy says:

    No links to the establishments? I went and Googled them anyway. 🙂 But I thought you used to do links for us, your dear ITP-readers (heehee). I’m sure ox tail must be good since so many folks I know eat it. I just can’t bring myself to though. It looks so nasty.

    I remember having some great times at your parties, whether it be Super Bowl in the downstairs lounge or Dinner-Go-Round upstairs. Did we do a gift exchange there once too? I remember sitting in your front room, but I don’t remember if it was that or just before/after dinner.

    I know you have a lot you’d like to do with your house before having folks over again, but maybe it’s a good time to finally focus on some of that. I mean, you’d have to fix things up to sell it anyway if you go down that route. Why not fix it up and enjoy it for a bit, bring back the heyday of the Paulie parties again? 🙂 I remember my Mom saying it once, that she wished she had fixed the house up years before so she could enjoy it a while instead of just selling it.

    • Even though I am being a bum this morning I blogged from home using my mobile setup. It is much harder for me to do links when I blog with my iPad because it’s more difficult to cut/paste URLs and I don’t have the convience of the keyboard shortcuts that I have on my laptop.

      In addition to Super Bowl I hosted a Halloween party, an art exchange, a Christmas gift exchange, a couple of Sunday Morning Runners groups, and a birthday party or two. I honestly don’t understand how so much time has passed since I’ve hosted a party.

      I am contemplating repairing the ITP Estate this year so that I can enjoy living here again, and have people over for parties and such. The process of finding the right people to do the work, and committing the tens of thousands of dollars that will be required always makes me recoil with fear, however.

    • Barb says:

      the re-gift exchange party is where Allan got the See No Evil, etc monkeys! He loved that gift exchange.

  2. Time for me to be an adult and get ready and go into the office…

  3. Steve says:

    I remember the first time I ever saw ox tails on a menu- it was the employee cafeteria at the Sheraton. I still don’t believe I’ve ever eaten them and I consider myself fairly adventurous when it comes to food- just ask Debbie about me eating “science projects”.

    No joy in the satellite world yesterday- hopefully the meetup will happen today. I know Debbie is ready.

    We went to a “new” place last night for dinner. They sold a place in Hogansville and we thought they had left, but were surprised to see they had reopened a place that had closed. Sadly, Debbie’s meal was poor, while mine was fine. Hopefully they will get back their A game.

    Great seeing everyone at lunch yesterday.

    -FP

    • I contend that if you can eat chicken on the bone, like drumsticks, you can eat oxtail.

      Good luck with the satellite install.

      • Stacy says:

        I’ve actually only very recently been able to eat meat off bones. I always had to cut it off before eating.

        Is your job that flexible that you can go in at any time? That is really awesome. I love places like that: ones that treat you like an adult and know you’ll get your project done and don’t micromanage.

        • Even showing up at 9:30am I beat the other mobile developers. Two of the guys, the two whose last day at “XYZ Corp” is tomorrow, routinely show up after 10:00am. The other, who is on vacation this week, normally get in at 9:00am.

          Here’s the best part: since I have established myself as someone who gets in early if I want to leave at 4:00pm today no one would question me. 🙂

  4. Barb says:

    I’ve never had oxtail either, but that isn’t because I don’t want to. I just haven’t.

    nothing exciting at our place last night, just packed for MN, and watched some of the new season of Broadchurch. Flight leaves at 9pm, get into Minneapolis at 11pm. What fun! No idea what all we are doing up there, my brother is in charge on the activities.

  5. Stacy says:

    Completely off topic, a friend posted this on her FB just now:

    “I learned a new word yesterday that basically describes this entire presidency: Fremdschämen. This German word describes feeling embarrassed or ashamed by someone else’s actions.”

    And of course I thought of you and your German learning. And that, dang, I wish English had a word for that.

  6. Quality riding today. Outstanding stage.

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