Saturdays are for Sidetracking

Mallar and I were originally going to go for a long hike on Saturday. Seemed like a great idea -physical activity, nice weather, good site, etc. However, when we discovered that our friend, Zack (the trail expert), couldn't make it we decided we would try to get a little work done instead.

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.

It wasn't long before hunger kicked in, however, and Mallar and I met up to waltz over to the local taco truck. We had a small sampling of different tacos (chicken, beef, pork). They were all very savory and cheap to boot.

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.
My favorite beers of the night: Rogue's Chocolate Stout, Steelhead Brewing Co.'s Jamaican Red and Lagunitas' Hairy Eyeball. Best beer name: Arrogant Bastard Ale.

Amazingly, we managed to cycle home after our full and productive "work" day -fresh night air was delightful.