A whole week at home??? That's unpossible!

I was on the road for 3 weeks straight and I finally conned one week at home for myself. This hasn't happened since god knows when. There's a shit ton of things in DC/VA that I haven't experienced, it's pretty amazing.

First off, one of the best sandwich places around, definitely in DC, and top 3 in the country: SUNdeVICH. The place is located in an old garage off of N street NW and it's slightly hard to find, but definitely worth your time. I've tried the Kingston, Istanbul (kabob sandwich), Athens (medium rare lamb and tzatziki), and Buenos Aires (rare steak w/ something like a pesto spread). All of them were amazing, the best being the Kingston. It's a jerk chicken sandwich with a pineapple chutney. It's spicy, which is a rare find. I'm not a huge fan of fruit in my sandwich, but the spicy makes sure that the fruity taste doesn't overpower the sandwich. This maybe the best jerk chicken outside of Jamaica. No joke....

One of my critics has said that I use the word "amazing" too loosely, but this place is AMAZING! Go there! This critic says it's very good, but the only time I've heard him use the word "amazing" to describe food was for Le Bernardin. This place has also been rated one of the best restaurants in the world and since the fall of El Bulli (THE best restaurant in the world by a mile), the best seafood restaurant in the world. It continously receives 3 stars from Michelin. So, compared to a $200 meal at Le Bernardin, a $9-12 sandwich, I feel, can be classified as amazing. 

There is one place that I will say don't go to, though it looks nice and tempting, don't do it: Masa 14. DON'T DO IT. It looks nice and trendy and who doesn't like small plates? But I didn't realize that it was "Latin/Asian Fusion". Don't do that shit...stop...stop fusing shit that shouldn't fuse. I guess if your a really good chef and know what your doing, this might work. But it failed...pretty badly...at a high price. My apologizes to my dinner guests, I should have read reviews on it. 

I also finally got a chance to cook this week...doesn't happen much, but I'm not bad. It was also feeling some post-event blues so I made feijoada for make up for it. My feijoada is a little different, here's the recipe:

1 lb black beans, fresh

1/4 white onion

1 habanero pepper

1 jalapeno pepper

2 spicy chorizos

2 spicy Italian sausages 

1 slab bacon

1 bone in pig shank (optional)

Bay leaves

Dendê , 2 table spoons

Black pepper

So, it's fairly simple. Soak the beans overnight. Put beans into a large pot with about 2 liters of water, maybe a bit more, with the bone in pig shank. Heat at high until boiling, then bring it down to a low bubble. Add chopped onions, habanero, jalapeno peppers, dendê, sliced sausages and bacon, bay leaves into the pot. Cook for about 2 hours. I tend to do it for about 4, just because, I feel, the longer it cooks, the better it gets. Before you turn off the heat, take about a large bowl and scope out a bowl of it and taste it, season for taste as you wish. Mash that bowl of beans and stuff up, and pour back into the pot and stir for 15 minutes. I don't like watery feijoada, so this will help thicken the base. Some people may not like that, so feel free to skip it. 

I don't really have a good farofa recipe, but I'm working on it.

Anyhow, hope you enjoyed that. And go to SUNdeVICH. That is all. 

The end to a crazy 2 weeks

I finally set foot in my own home today at 2AM (thanks American Airlines and O'Hare Airport, YOU SUCK!) The last leg of this trip was pretty amazing. It was at Livre Como Vento's event in Champagne, IL. If it wasn't for this event, I probably would never have went there. Driving from Chicago is just corn field after corn field. But who would have thought that there would be a GREAT capoeira school there??? The event was amazing. I personally found my capoeira groove back. It did take 12 hours of capoeira for 3 days and playing Mestre Cabello and Tizsa to get it back. If seeing and taking Mestre Cabello's workshop doesn't put the groove into your game, you are doing it wrong.

It taught me a lot about capoeira angola...the transition hasn't been the smoothest. Mestre Marrom brought up a really good point: You cannot play capoeira with tunnel vision. You cannot go into the roda hoping to accomplish a sequence or perform one move. You have to make the moves make sense and respond appropriately. I've been stuck in this weird funk where my games have been really choppy and unnecessarily aggressive. But I think this event really solved a lot of that. Capoeira is about conversation and if you're not having fun with it, you're doing it wrong.

I also realized that a person's personality really shows up in the roda. You really can't hide anything while playing. One person, who in real life would not stop talking and complaining, all day all long, did the same thing in capoeira. He would just kick and kick and kick. He waited for you to finish kicking, so he could kick again. I will admit that I'm really pensive when I first meet a person and it will take time for me to warm up to you. My games tend to be crappy for the first 30 seconds, then, I hope, it gets better.

I have to say I'm really glad I get a week at home, because if I had to travel this week....I would have killed someone.

Now, time to make feijoada. 

San Diego on someone else's dime

For the record: I still have a job. This may not make sense for some people, but others who read it will immediate know what I mean. I went for an interview in San Diego last week for a small (read 3 people) company that produces niche market HPLCs, crazy instruments that do cool chemistry. I ultimately rejected the offer they gave me, so I'm staying at my current job. This didn't, however, deter me from getting to see San Diego on someone else's dime!

First off, I kind of feel bad for the small company, considering they flew me there, put me in a nice hotel with a view of the ocean, and fed me, but so goes business.

I didn't get to do much in San Diego, considering I didn't have a car. So no SeaWorld, no zoo, you get the idea.... I did get to see the beach and now can say that I have touched 3 of the world's 5 oceans, and I don't believe I will get to the Antarctic or Arctic Ocean. San Diego is absolutely gorgeous. It was slightly cold, like 65 degrees, but it is absolutely gorgeous. According to people that have lived there, it is the 3rd most moderate place, climate-wise, in the world. I would have no problems moving there. In fact, I think it got but onto places I may want to move to, eventually if I ever get out of the DC area.

The position I was interviewing for gave me a compensation that was oceans apart from what I wanted, so obviously I wasn't going to take it. I didn't tell the boss that, so he decided to take me to dinner, to I guess entice me to come work from him and his 2 other people. He took me to Hane, a sushi restaurant. He was Japanese, so I could only assume that he knew what he was doing. Yup... he knew what he was doing.

I tend to not want to piss people off by rejecting food offerings so, I asked no questions of what we were eating and he just kept ordering from the sushi chef. I definitely tried some stuff that I generally wouldn't. Sea urchin being one of them. The texture of sea urchin is WEIRD! It's creamy and soft, and the first taste is good, tastes like the sea with a certain smokiness to it. Then there's the after taste, which stays with you, and I don't find enjoyable to the least. Then there was a litany of other things, fluke, octopus, fatty tuna, raw shrimp... it was fucking amazing. Probably the best sushi I've had...ever. He also informed me that Boston is the only place in the US where you can get unfrozen tuna. Not that I would know the difference, but interesting.

The bill came out to be $200, I feel bad for rejecting him after a $200 meal. This isn't the first time I've rejected someone after they bought me large and expensive amount of sushi... I think I might be a sushi cocktease.

The one thing that was reinforced to me at dinner is: If you can't handle alcohol, don't drink so much. As a golden rule, I will have 1 drink with anyone that is, can be, or will be my boss. The 1 drink is symbolic, it means I accept your generosity, but you will never see the real me. This guy, on the other hand, had 4 beers, and went on about how hiring a new person would allow him to go back to Japan since the sales in Japan dropped from $6 million to just over $5 million. Not something to tell a potential employee. So, the lesson of this story is: don't drink if you can't handle it.

All in all San Diego, for 3 days, was cool and I wish I could go back. The only thing that sucks is coast to coast travel in 3 days time, it messes with your sleep cycle.

St Louis and a quick stop in Chicago

I'm on a plane right now, going to San Diego. It has been sunny in my world for 20 hours. That messes with you... a lot. I also worked the weekend in St Louis, so I'm not 100% what day it is. But I digress... So, I spent the weekend, working, in St Louis. I really didn't have any spare time, because my company understaffed the start up crew for the account and the 3 of us there ended up working 18 hours. I did have some time to hang out with my cousin. I wanted to go to Pappy's, aka the best bbq ever, but it was closed by the time both of us were free. We ended up going to the Central West End, which was, I'm guessing, the cool part of town. We went to SubZero, which is a vodka bar that claims it has the biggest collection of vodka in the US. It also serves burgers and sushi. It's a weird mix.

The food there wasn't all that great. I decided to get the sushi. There is 1 major reason not to get sushi in St Louis: The nearest ocean is well over 1000 miles away, so either there's nothing good, or anything good costs a shit ton. The burgers were ok, according to my cousin. Our original idea was to go there grab a quick bit and chit chat over drinks. It turns out, the place was POUNDING with techno music, so that didn't go over that well. I'm also not a vodka fan. I can tell the difference between Aristocrat vodka and Grey Goose. But I can't tell a $200 bottle of vodka from any of the "top shelf" vodkas like Grey Goose or Ketel One. I had an adventurous drink that fell way short of expectations. Most of the time, cucumber juice makes for a great base of drinks, especially vodka, then add something citrus-y and add sugar, you'll have a great drink, trust me. This drink I had... messed that all up.

Sadly, this time around, food-wise, St Louis was a little disappointing, but I guess you can't win them all.

I then made a half-day pit stop to Chicago. As you may have read, or heard me talk about it, I'm not a fan of Chicago. I think it's NYC Jr. This map is fairly accurate:

 

But things not to miss in Chicago: 

1. Indian/Pakistani food

2. Steaks

I don't think Chicago style pizza is that good. If you don't have time to exit the airport, go to Tortas Frontera. Airport food SUCKS! No matter what country, airport, whatever. Airport food is the worst. There's only a handful of places I will religiously go to for food at airports. This is one of them. It does take 10 minutes for a sandwich, but if you have the time, wait for it. The Cubana is amazing. Well worth the wait. This place might be the ONLY thing that redeems O'Hare, which is one of the more annoying airports in the world. 

Now I'm headed to San Diego. Never been there, and only spent a couple of days in San Jose, so going to Cali is kind of exciting. ESPECIALLY on someone elses dime!