Curious Notions

One thing I’m extremely grateful for are good friends. Namely, Chris and Cindy who came up to visit because they noticed I’ve been bummed. Seriously, who can be bummed with friends like that? Cindy and I haven’t seen each other since over a month ago when I went to Houston just for a day and had gelato with her. Saturday night we all had Madam Mam’s, then introduced Chris and his younger brother to Book People, Waterloo Records, Sparks, and the table top s’mores at Halcyon.

Then we went to my sparsely furnished apartment where we spent the rest of Saturday night playing poker …. for no money. Just beer and “questions.” We bought in by answering questions and each chips were seconds of drinking you can distribute as desired.

They introduced me to new beers. Leinenkugel which was DELICIOUS. Blueberry tasting beer. And then there was Blue Moon which was a citrusy beer. I’ve found two more beers that I can handle (in addition to the Dos, Shiner, and Kirin). Delicious.

Sunday was another day full of new things we had lunch at Polvos on South First St. Ehh. It was okay? Trendy and popular and the fact that everyone gets their own salsa.. that’s a little quirky but I wasn’t all too impressed with the food. I ordered the Trashcan Plate. Hehe. Cindy has a photo on her photo blog here. Should have just gone to Don Juan’s and spent half as much money there. Cindy left after lunch. Chris and I went back home and napped.. afterwards we tried one more new place before he headed back to Houston. An Italian place near campus called Tony’s Vineyard. Aside from the hole in a wall feel that I love in my food diggs, the ambiance, and finally the chill but nice waiter… I wouldn’t recommend the place.

I had the mushroom soup. Tasteless. Chris had some kind of tasteless pasta with crab meat and shrimp…

But I finally got one thing off my Life’s To Do List. Escargot. I’ve yet to encounter them on a menu yet and they had it on their menu! I asked the waiter about it before I finally succumbed..

“So have you ever had it?”

“Uh, we order them…”

Huh. I ordered the soup and initially chickened out of the snails. Chris egged me on and finally ordered me the delicacy. The waiter smirks and a few minutes later he serves me….

I stare at it while Chris laughs to himself. It just looks a lot more disgusting than I anticipated. It looked like snails! The waiter walks by again and asked me what’s taking me. I asked him have one with me. Egged him on, “Come on.. live a little.”

Waiter and I forked our respective snails and at the same time popped it in our mouths. Quick .. only not quick enough. Too chewy. Took awhile for both of us to get it down. What a sport, that waiter. The texture.. very very much what I thought a snail’s texture would be. Rubbery.

I only finished two and a half of those little buggers. Waiter tried one and Chris tried one.

I don’t think I’d do that again on my own accord. But I can finally scratch that off my official list of things to do before I die.