#194 - my last day of freedom.

mom. dad. hi. you've previously mentioned to me that you occasionally check out your favorite son's blog posts...even the ones on that website with a swear word in the name. that makes me extremely happy but in this case, i'd like to take this opportunity to suggest ahead of time that you skip this one. i mean, i wouldn't want you to think that i'm some sort of debaucherous lush or anything & when you're done reading, you probably will. sorry. i completely understand if you decide to go further though. after all, parents are pretty must just like kids, so when you tell them not to do anything, they usually do it out of pure curiosity. anyway, don't say that i didn't warn you.

...so after a calendar year that i was fully employed for about a quarter of, yesterday i started a new gig...one where i have to WEAR A TIE & report to work BEFORE 10AM. i know...OMG! for at least a half decade now, i've just slapped on a pair of jeans & rolled into work any time between 10am & 11am. yay, adulthood!

with my impending first day of work just three days away, on friday around 2pm i met up with an old friend (who will remain nameless) in midtown at lexington brass for a lil' "last free weekday" food & drink action. i hang out in midtown with the frequency of halley's comet, but i just had to go this time. this friend is a cool dude to hang out with, one of those types that you may only see once or twice a year but every time you do, it's like you're best buds who chill all the time. it also doesn't hurt that, since he makes a good amount of $, he never lets me pay for anything.

i started off with the yellowfin tuna burger & paired it with an order of truffle fries & a captain lawrence pumpkin ale, a beer that i've had many times but have TOTALLY neglected to feature during pumpktoberfest. the burger was served on a tasty roll that held up aight under the pressure of the tuna burger's juices. topped with greens, a cucumber of sorts, sesame aioli & avocado, it made for a nice combination of flavors. my only complaint was that i ordered it medium rare & it didn't look so at all. as for the fries, they were light & crispy & well-seasoned, but i still don't get why peeps need to truffle the hell out of everything.

as for my friend, dude ate a million crab claws, some fried oysters stuffed with crab, some sauteed spinach & a second order of truffle fries. he also had himself a sidecar and, by the time he was done, about a rocks glass worth of chilled clear don julio. we rambled on & on about life & politics & government & penn state & a thousand other topics. since he's apparently a regular there, over the course of three hours, we also chatted with pretty much every waiter & waitress in the place. he told them i was a famous food writer. i acted coy but less so than i would've if i hadn't had three pumpkin beers.

we eventually left & walked around midtown, hitting up some crazy classy hotel bar (where i had a brooklyn lager) & some crazy shitty irish bar (where i had a guinness & some dude was taking the loudest dump ever in the stall). in our travels, we passed a girl outside grand central who, like a valley girl, uttered the words "tee hee hee hee hee...soho!" my friend loudly parroted her. she turned around & told him not to be rude. eventually, we headed down to 14th st, where i went to beauty bar to meet librarian friends for a hot librarian happy hour & he headed home. after a brooklyn lager there, a group of us walked down to the village, where i had myself the below slice at some random pizza joint. meh. meh. meh.

i arrived back in brooklyn some time before midnight, hung out at a friend's place for a bit playing cribbage & splitting nano-kegs of sixpoint sweet action & by the time 1:30am rolled around, i figured it was time to get my ass home...

snack: pulled pork sandwich
drink: elysian night owl pumpkin ale

...but since i OBVIOUSLY hadn't consumed enough food & drink yet, on the way home i stopped by 200 fifth in park slope to pick up a late night snack. their kitchen is open til 3am on the weekends, so it's not the first time i've stopped by there late night. in fact, you may remember 200 fifth from this june's "sailing the seas of sauce" post about their super saucy wings. initially, i was going to order up some wings but eventually, i opted for their pulled pork sandwich. i know. i know. pulled pork has long since jumped the shark...more so for pulled pork sliders. still, at that time, after that day, i was all about BBQ pork. 

when i got home, it was hoover time. while i really wasn't in any state to be complaining about the finer points of food & inhaled it accordingly, there were a bunch of things to complain about. for the most part, the BBQ-slathered pork was quite juicy. it also contained a few bites of fat. they were quite pleasing at that hour but straight-up pork fat isn't usually my style. beyond that, the sandwich failed, as the bun couldn't handle the juices & the toppings were nothing more that a big chunk of tomato, a big chunk of onion & a slice of lettuce. YAWN. looking back on it, i probably should've told them to hold everything except for the pulled pork.

i also made a stop off at my declared best bodega in brooklyn & grabbed myself a 22 oz bottle of elysian night owl pumpkin ale, one of three pumpkin beers made by seattle's elysian brewing co. pumpktoberfest lives! from what i hear, compared to their other two pumpkin creations--the dark o' the moon & the great pumpkin ale--the night owl comes in 3rd. too bad the other two aren't available in NYC. still, it's a damn good pumpkin beer & i've actually written about it once before as part of our first ever pumpktoberfest. as it's one of my fave pumpkin beers, i decided to give it a second shout out.

when i first tried the elysian night owl back in 2009, i enjoyed it but wasn't blown away by it. apparently, my palette's changed a bit over the past two years. these days, i feel that out of the many pumpkin beers i've tried, it's one that truly gets the balance between pumpkin flavor & pumpkin pie spices right. the body's great, as it pours a hazy orange color that develops a nice half-inch head. it's brewed with tons of pumpkin & pumpkin seeds, so you get a solid pumpkin flavor. this flavor's accented by nutmeg, clove, cinnamon, ginger & allspice, but they don't take over the flavor. there are still bottles of it here & there in stores, so if you see a bottle, definitely try it out. PUMPKTOBERFEST: IT'S NOT JUST FOR OCTOBER ANY MORE.