Tuesday, May 24, 2011

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.

Haiku: Poetic Food and Art on Urbanspoon

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