And speaking of dance... heehee... I am also enrolled in a 5 week dance class (at Century Ballroom Studios) that promises to teach me the full Beyoncé Single Ladies video routine!!! It is hilarious. There are a range of ages in my class -from 18 to 55, I'd say. There is even one male participant in the class. Perhaps he was inspired by Justin Timberlake's SNL spoof of the video. The choreography is do-able but as soon as we speed it up and try to work with the actual song it gets nuts. It's so fun. I don't know if there will be a final performance yet but Mallar keeps teasing me about when he can come watch my "dance recital".
On Tuesday of last week, Montreal-native, Patrick Watson played at the recently re-opened Crocodile. The Crocodile is a an iconic club here in Seattle. It's a small venue (opened in 1991) but it is a true local music scene hot-spot as it has launched the career of many bands (from Pearl Jam and Nirvana, to Death Cab for Cutie and Modest Mouse). It closed suddenly in 2007 but reopened in March of this year, remodeled and refurbished. We were lucky to see Patrick Watson in such a fun and intimate setting.
Patrick Watson is an innovative musician who combines indie rock, classical music and cabaret theatrics in a really riveting way -especially live. Mallar and Patrick were pretty much neighbors in the Plateau back when Patrick was putting together his second album, Close to Paradise. He can recall overhearing numerous practice sessions coming from Patrick's apartment across the street. Patrick's latest album, Wooden Arms was released just this month. It was exciting to be introduced to his new music in a live setting. The show was unbelievably good. I don't think I have been that pleased with a concert in a long time. It was thoroughly entertaining and also unpredictable. Patrick and his band experiment a lot with sound and use the most unusual things as instruments -pots, pans, megaphones and plungers, kazoos -it was really spectacular. The sound was complex and yet really congruent and beautiful. I would go to see him again in a heartbeat.
Mallar had a few things to get done at his office in Fremont, so we biked the gorgeous route over to "the center of the universe" and while Mallar popped into the Allen Institute, I found myself a nice café. I had some thesis reading to do and was happy to find a place in the sun to sit and do it.
The Fremont Coffee café (above) is this beautiful old house with a large verandah that has been converted into a coffee shop. There is quite a bit of outdoor seating and even a small water fountain to add to the tranquil vibe. It was a pleasure to be doing work in such a relaxed setting.
With a little over an hour to kill before hooking up with Mallar's coworker, Stefan, it didn't take much to convince ourselves to find a nice place to sit and consume more food and drink of the Mexican variety. We ended up on the sun porch at El Camino. Mallar had a Margarita which looked good (but due to a really bad tequila experience of youth I steered clear) and I had a Jarritos Tamarindo soda (that really brought back memories of Mexico). We had some surprisingly good chicken wings and some decent tacos.
Our "work day" wrapped up at the Hop Scotch Spring Beer and Scotch Festival located at Fremont Studios. The event is a benefit for the Seattle International Film Festival.
We didn't really know what to expect other than an opportunity to sample a range of interesting beers. Our entrance fee of $20 got us a sampling glass and 6 tokens each (1 token per beer). We paid for another 4 tokens to split between us and so walked in on a hunt for 8 special beers each. Stefan was with us at this point and to be truthful, I think all three of us were a bit disappointed to walk into the dark and cavernous setting of the event. It was such a glorious day outside that one would have hoped for a beer garden of sorts. Instead, the studio looked like a night club with large clusters of people around the beer taps.
Highlights of the drinking and dining experience included: the Cracked Coconut Martini I had as an aperitif (dangerously good), the lamb satay (shown in picture), the duck (a house specialty spiced with star anise and cinnamon) and the Hong Kong Scallops (their house-made oyster sauce is really really good!). Here's to future occasions that call for a return trip (or two or ten).
King's Hardware is a great place for beer and burgers in Ballard. King's Western-themed decor (complete with taxidermy on the walls) is kitschy cool and reminiscent of another Linda Derschang fav closer to home, called Smith (more on Smith another time). King's was once (you guessed it) a local hardware store and has been converted into a great space to imbibe alcohol and eat greasy food. We did not try the "after-school" burger with peanut butter and bacon but in due time...
The Hopvine Pub is a neighborhood favorite -it is actually surprising that I have waited until now to extol its praises. Mallar and I have been to the pub quite regularly for several months. The Hopvine serves really great pizza and has a tasty variety of beers on tap. The staff is always friendly and on the ball and it just feels really easy to spend time here. It is not a pretentious crowd of "look at me" types nor does it feel as though you are intruding on a cliquey sub section of alternative society. It is just come-as-you-are easy.
We took our friend, Jon, to the pub last week. He is studying medicine in Kingston (Ontario) right now but was participating in a conference here in Seattle and stayed with us for a week -our very first "overnight" guest.
