La Fogata Grill

After we spent Saturday playing with puppies at a local animal shelter--I was thisclose to convincing Boyfriend to let me bring a beagle home--and bemoaning the never-ending rain that has plagued Columbus recently, it was decided (not by me) that we should do something more cultured on Sunday. Boyfriend has spent entirely too much time in Europe, so he figured we should go to an art museum. Despite the fact that I've actually spent more time in Europe than he has, I did not figure we should go to an art museum.

We went to an art museum anyway.

Evidently, the Columbus Art Museum...or Columbus Museum of Art? or Art Museum in Columbus? or Museum of Art of Columbus?..whatever, it's some combination of the words "Art," "Columbus," and "Museum," with a few prepositions thrown in...has free admission on Sundays, which is almost like a Happy Hour but without the alcohol, and thus without the happy. As a recovering English major who actually took an art history class once, you'd think I'd have a half-way decent appreciation of art, which in any case is really just a picture book without the book part that's been framed and stapled to the wall. Right?

Yeah, I have no appreciation of art. So luckily for me, the Art Columbus Museum is very kid-friendly in that there are lots of fun activities in each of the galleries to amuse children while their parents ooh and aah over art that, let's face it, the parents probably don't appreciate either and are just putting on a show so that the other grown-ups, who also don't appreciate art and are also putting on a show, won't judge them; when deep down, everyone would really rather stop looking at the paintings and just play with the puzzles like the kids, anyway.

I, being the cultured no-nonsense grown-up that I am, forwent the show and bee-lined for the puzzles. Actually, my favorite part of the museum was an exhibit (clearly intended for children) where you got to make your own art. They had twist-ties that you could make sculptures with and then leave on little stands to display. I made a chicken (which I put on display) and also a penis (which I did not). They also had a chalkboard shaped like an apple with the question "What can you do with an apple besides eat it?" written above it, and you were supposed to write your answer on the chalkboard. I wrote "use it as a bong." Which promptly got erased. Probably by a real grown-up.

Boyfriend at least made an effort to enjoy the art. He made me go on a tour with him. We lasted about ten minutes and then I started getting horrible college flashbacks because the tour guide kept asking the group ridiculous questions like "What stylistic differences do you notice between these two paintings?" which Boyfriend actually answered once or twice, and then he got bored and we left.

To counteract that futile foray into the world of art, we decided to get drinks. La Fogata Grill is yet another faux-Mexican establishment in the Short North with a nice outdoor patio and a long list of drinks that come in really big containers. We missed their Sunday brunch mimosa special by about half an hour, so went with margaritas instead; Boyfriend with classic, me with strawberry. I happily om-nom-nommed the free chips and salsa while appreciating the view, by which I mean I people-watched the gay bar next door.

I speak enough Spanish to get by, but "fogata" was not in my repertoire of vocab; my Authentic Mexican Boyfriend told me it literally means "faggot." I, aghast, told him there was absolutely no way these people named their restaurant/bar--which, did I mention, is RIGHT NEXT DOOR TO A GAY BAR--"The Faggot Grill." Because that is both appallingly homophobic, and also potentially confusing to any thirsty homosexuals who are new to the area.

No, apparently, "fogata" is, actually, "faggot" in the very literal sense of being a pile of wood. At which point I wanted to smack Boyfriend upside the head, because why couldn't he just have told me "fogata" means "a pile of wood" to begin with?

I actually have nothing else whatsoever to say about our La Fogata experience, which is why I spent so long talking about the Art Columbus Museum instead.

Haiku and Lucky's Stout House

Friday night was date night, which makes it sound like Boyfriend and I planned some sort of romantic evening of romance; in reality, I'd been craving sushi and was a bit tired of cooking (yeah, I'm the one who does all the cooking. To compensate, I make him do the dishes), plus the new Morgan Spurlock documentary was finally in Columbus, so we decided to kill two birds with one stone (not a practice I would advocate in the literal sense) by grabbing sushi for dinner and heading to a movie, with some drinks in between.

Boyfriend recommended Haiku for dinner, which despite the poor review my beloved Urbanspoon gives the place, he said he had been to and enjoyed. Even though we called ahead, by the time we reached the Short North restaurant, they had somehow lost our reservation (and that of the group that walked in after us). After more confusion that I deemed particularly professional, the hostess finally gave us a table...indoors, because that had immediate seating, whereas the patio was a half-hour wait.

Haiku has a pretty extensive menu, and to be honest definitely leans more to the restaurant side than the bar side, but their interesting cocktail list made me decide to count it as a bar anyway. Boyfriend had some sort of drink whose name I don't remember, but it was basically a really fancy mojito. I had a kiwi-lychee martini, which was absolutely fabulous. It had a lychee in it, to start with, and I could definitely taste the fruit flavor, but it wasn't overpowering to the extent that it was just any old fruit cocktail in a martini glass--it definitely had that martini bite to it. Needless to say, I really enjoyed it.

Our dinner of three different sushi rolls (one vegetarian, the other two with fish) was also delicious, though I think they went a little heavy on the spicy mayo.

After dinner, we decided to grab drinks to kill time before the movie. At this point, I should mention that Boyfriend is really awful at parking his car.* Not that he can't get between the lines or he crashes into cars/objects/people, but rather that he is the most indecisive parker I have ever encountered. The night we went to Level, he spent at least ten minutes trying to parallel park in a really tight curbside spot, only to abandon the venture, drive around the block no fewer than four times, and eventually return to the same really tight curbside spot. On this particular night, he planned to park in a lot a bit down the road from the theater, but couldn't decide whether or not he was actually allowed to park there, since there were signs haphazardly strewn about claiming you had to have a permit or some nonsense like that. Originally he was going to park on the front left side, then opted for a middle right spot near the back door to a restaurant, then changed his mind and tried to back up to the first spot, at which point an employee came out of the door near the second spot and started staring at us. After a few minutes, Boyfriend finally decided to park, at which point Employee went back to doing his/her (I couldn't really tell) job at his/her place of employment. We got out of the car and started walking down the street.

We made it about half a block before Boyfriend started freaking out and wondering if he should move the car. We were standing on a street corner in front of a tattoo shop debating how likely the Columbus Po-Po were to actually give us a parking ticket when a tattooed young gentleman walked out of the tattoo shop to smoke a cigarette and struck up a casual conversation with us. Turns out he was also new in town, was a tattoo artist, had a habit of tattooing monkeys on himself when he gets bored, and he gave us his business card (which I think I might have lost already) and tried to sell us tattoos. BOGO free for that night only! $175 minimum! If Boyfriend wanted a tattoo, I might have gone for it, but the tattoo idea I vaguely have in mind for myself wouldn't cost nearly $175. Also, I'm afraid of needles.

We ended up at Lucky's Stout House to kill time before the movie started, where the special for the next three minutes was...something about cheap beer. Boyfriend asked if we could buy in bulk; of course we could! This smelled like a college bar, after all. We each got a Rogue's on tap and a Bud Light.

You know something's up when I'm drinking a bottle of Bud Light, and in this case it happened to be that while Boyfriend was doing the ordering, I was distracted by an old guy in an OSU cap who struck up a conversation with me when I joked that "I can't wait til I'm so old and wrinkly that I don't get carded anymore" to the bartender. Old Guy was clearly drunk, which I knew not only because he was acting drunk, but also because he had both a beer and a shot of something in front of him. Like one in each hand, double fisting a beer and a shot. Talking to Old Guy was actually funny for a couple minutes cause, I mean, he was an old drunk guy. He asked me where I went to school and how I ended up in Columbus, and it is true that I enjoy talking about myself (otherwise I wouldn't keep a blog, amiright?). Then he started talking about how banks are evil and soon there will be only three banks controlling all of America. Then he mentioned how he only ever buys from American companies who don't outsource, because he "[doesn't] speak Spanish. I don't wanna deal with that shit," which was kind of awkward since, ya know, I was there with my Mexican boyfriend and all. I sort of smiled and nodded and didn't really contribute much to the conversation, but I think he was drunk enough that he didn't really notice one way or another.

Friend...?: made? I definitely made something, but I'm not quite sure it was a friend.

In any case, we downed our Rogue'ses and a bit of our Bud Lights before it was time to head off to the theater, which happened to be right across the street from McFadden's, the "Irish" bar we patronized in my last post, and shared a building with the Ugly Tuna Saloona, a fun-looking place that we're probably gonna have to hit up this weekend.

In other news, the movie was enjoyable and I definitely recommend it for anyone who enjoyed "Supersize Me."

PS I think all the movie theaters in Columbus serve alcohol.

*Okay, yes, often during our adventures, we are driving. But true to our Colgate educations, Boyfriend and I are very careful to remain under the legal limit, and any night we plan to go for more than a drink or two, we take a cab. Please drink responsibly.

Village Idiot, McFadden's, and Park Street Cantina (and Taco Bell)

Since graduation, I've been slaving away with the traditional post-collegiate job hunt, and it is just as horribly exhausting as it sounds. So yesterday when Boyfriend (his name is John Paul, but you can call him Boyfriend) got off work, we decided to take a break by checking off a few more Columbus-area bars.

We started out in the Short North at Village Idiot, a dive-y sort of bar with TVs, a pool table, and graffiti art decorating the concrete floor. Despite the spectacular happy hour specials--on Wednesday, it's "$3 everything" for all the liquor on the shelf, plus $2 and $3 beers til 9pm--the place was remarkably empty, with a couple guys playing pool and some older folks wandering in and out periodically. Boyfriend and I weren't quite sure what to make of the place. It looked like a dive bar, but as Boyfriend pointed out, it was entirely too clean to be a real dive bar. The cleanliness was just fine with me, but Boyfriend said, and I quote, "I like it when my feet stick to the floor when I walk in." Village Idiot is also right in the heart of what we're coming to know as Columbus's Hipsterville, a very dangerous area for two people from a preppy liberal arts college in New York who occasionally pop their collars in a non-ironic manner.

Despite the location, the bar was gloriously hipster-free and we enjoyed a couple Bell's Oberons, which Boyfriend claims are similar (but undoubtedly inferior) to his beloved Sam Adams Summer Ale. After that, we took advantage of the $3 everything deal and I asked the bartender to make me something unusual and girly, to counteract the testosterone that was radiating from Boyfriend's whiskey and coke. I ended up with some sort of vodka drink that tasted like a watermelon Jolly Rancher, which Bartender named "Something Special."

Friend: made!

Next, we headed down the road to McFadden's, a two-story Irish (or "Irish," I''m not quite sure which) bar whose happy hour we were about half an hour too late to take advantage of.  Instead we took them up on their drink offer of the day: $1 bombs. We sat on the second floor outdoor balcony, which gives you a nice view of the very uninteresting road and the other bar on the other side of the sidewalk. As for the bombs, well...turns out I had no idea what a bomb was. I thought it was like a sake bomb or a Jager bomb, where you drop a shot of something into a beer or whatever. Turns out I was wrong, and the bomb is just the thing you drop in and not the whole drink itself. So I got a weird little strawberry-flavored shot, and Boyfriend got a watermelon-flavored shot, and the waitress seemed very confused when we declined to order anything else to go with them. We did our sickeningly sweet shots and hurried on to the next location, the drink deals at McFadden's being not quite good enough to keep us around for long...maybe we'll be back for St. Patrick's Day.

I wanted to stop at Gooeyz, which was right next to McFadden's, because I'd seen them on the list of Wednesday happy hours. When we walked in, however, we discovered that Gooeyz wasn't so much a bar as it was a gourmet grilled cheese restaurant (really) that happened to serve like two kinds of beer and some sort of cheap wine. Pass.

So then we went to Taco Bell, about which I have nothing further to say due to the fact that if you've ever been to any Taco Bell ever, then you already know what it was like: a public restroom where also there is food.

Taco Bell must have put us in a faux Mexican mood, because from there we hopped over to Park Street Cantina in the Arena District. I was actually pretty impressed with the Cantina; we saw it and decided to stop on a whim, and it had a nice Tex-Mex feel with a huge bar and a lot of outdoor seating. We were about 45 minutes too early for the $5 pitcher drink special, but we ordered some Dos Equis and got the free chips and salsa that came with it. While we were enjoying our authentic Mexican beverages (Dos Equis is a personal favorite of mine; Boyfriend is from Texas so it always reminds me of visiting him there last summer), I happened to notice a man sitting at the other end of the large horseshoe-shaped bar who was wearing a fabulous half-cowboy, half-sunhat hat.

Now, probably everyone who has ever encountered me after about one-beer-and-a-half knows that sometimes I get into a mood where I like to collect things...by which I mean go up to people and ask if I can have some specific item that belongs to them. It's a very specialized skill I picked up in my youth (read: college) at frat parties, where the fraternity brothers often have really fun themed hats or whatever that I decide I want to wear, too. This is precisely what happened with poor Hat. To be fair, Hat's hat was pretty cool. It had a big blue bow-thing on it. And I'm pretty sure Hat's hat was a girl's hat, even though Hat was an old lonely man sitting there drinking a beer by himself.

So I did what any sane, compassionate individual would do: I told the bartender that I had a mission for him, and asked if he'd go tell Hat that I'd buy him a second of whatever he was drinking if he would let me wear his hat. Bartender replied with something along the lines of "No way, Jose."

Friend: not made.

Bartender Two, however, was a bit more accommodating; he waffled for a bit, and explained that he didn't think Hat spoke any English. I asked what language Hat spoke, and Bartender Two said Russian.  So I told him that a common language wasn't really necessary to trade a free drink for a hat, and all he had to do was point at a beer, then point at Hat's hat, then make a little back-and-forth motion to indicate a trade. Bartender Two countered my offer and said that he wouldn't ask for Hat's hat, but he'd buy me a drink if I went and did it myself.

Friend: made!

...So I did. Hat was a very nice old man who handed over his hat and let me wear it without even questioning why on earth some little white chick in a Mexican bar was accosting him for his personal property. Turns out Hat was Nicaraguan, not Russian, and he got his hat in Cancun, and also he teaches biology at Ohio State.

Friend: made!

The rest of the evening was relatively uneventful. I enjoyed my free Dos Equis, courtesy of Bartender Two, and Boyfriend kinda-sorta made a friend with the manager, who he thought had a Texan accent, but turns out Manager is actually from Ohio. Friend fail.

This weekend there's a beer festival in Columbus, and we're also planning a pub crawl for Friday and/or Saturday night, hopefully with guests who will join us on our Drink Columbus adventure for a bar or two. So...stay tuned?

Level

Last week, Boyfriend and I ran out to grab a drink after dinner at a bar we'd admired the few times we'd stopped by the Jimmy John's next door. He's been in Columbus about three months now and I'm only pushing a week, so there's still a lot of drinking ground left for us to cover. This particular bar had an outdoor fire pit and a wonderful spilled-beer frat smell that had me nostalgic for my college days (a phrase I can use now that I've been an alumna for a grand total of four days) and some truly collegiate drink specials to match. To make a long story short, when we were a few $2 Bacardis and $1 PBRs in, I had the sort of brilliant idea that only slightly buzzed individuals can have: to patronize every single bar in Columbus...and to blog about the adventure, of course.

A challenge of this sort requires some ground rules. There are, according to GoTime.com, exactly eight hundred twenty-six drinking establishments in Columbus; we'll attempt to get to all of them within the city limits--my apologies, suburbs--and we'll give preference to bars with happy hours or other drink specials (the better to save money with, my dear). In the course of our adventure, we can't return to a bar until we've checked all the others off our list. All that's required to check a bar off the list is a single drink, but we'll at least try to make it something interesting. And finally, being new to the area and unable to turn down a challenge, we'll try to make a new friend at every place we stop, with "friend" being defined in the drunk sense of "we had a conversation and now we're BFFLs even though I don't know your name."

Monday night we formally kicked off the Drink Columbus challenge at Level, a lovely drinking lounge in the Short North. We chose Level for the all-day happy hour they have on Mondays, which included $1 domestics, $2 drafts and imports, and I think there was also a wells special. We grabbed some seats at the bar and some Sam Adams Summer Ales, Boyfriend's favorite part of summertime. We were seated directly across from the liquor selection and I couldn't help but notice the bottom shelf Three Olives Vodka, which came in what I can only describe as an alarming variety of flavors. Most perplexing amongst these was the "Purple" flavor, which evidently is not the same as the "Grape" flavor. A very charming and somewhat ambiguously gay bartender explained that the Purple is of Purple Drank fame, with the Grape being more traditionally grape-flavored. I couldn't turn down Purple Drank Vodka, so Bartender made me a cocktail with soda water, blueberry juice, and, of course, Purple.

Friend: made!

While I was enjoying my Purple, three twenty-something men bee-lined straight for the bar and ordered up a storm of shots. Or rather, two of them ordered up a storm of shots, with the third waffling for a while before placing an order of "chilled Patron with a pineapple juice chaser." Both his friends and the bartender (not my Bartender friend, a different one) suitably mocked Chilled Patron for his girlish drink order--I think the bartender mentioned something about his vagina?--before his friend snagged the pineapple juice chaser and downed it, leaving Chilled Patron without a tasty pineapple aftertaste.

At this point, I felt it was necessary to recommend to Chilled Patron, Shots One, and Shots Two that they try a shot of Purple. Chilled Patron countered my offer and asked if Boyfriend and I had tried the Three Olives Vodka that was flavored like Mountain Dew, which is rather questionably called "Dude." Shots One--or was it Shots Two?--ordered us all a round of Dude shots, which I thought very generous of him.

Friends: made!

Shots One, Shots Two, and Chilled Patron, who were apparently only quickly pre-gaming a company function, took off after we all made the appropriate number of jokes about tasting Dude.

So I'll call Drink Columbus venture #1 a success!