Party
Cathy received an email from a local bar that pretends to be an Irish pub, offering her a free meal worth $12 for her birthday. She won't be here on her birthday, having to drive north and work for a couple of days, so we decided to get together with a couple of her friends last night and quietly celebrate.
The Field, despite its local recognition as an outstanding watering place, also serves decent food. What we didn't know was that they also have a trivia contest on the last Tuesday of the month. Derek is our trivia champion, although I have beat him at Trivial Pursuit a time or two (the questions are more for my generation than his), and he was brewing a batch of wine in Boston and willing to help out our "team" with the answers. Actually, we would have done quite well without him and his Google link but being able to find out such things as what number Babe Ruth wore gave us the two point edge that allowed us to beat the next highest team (who were also cell-phone enabled). Cathy took home two music CDs, a Guiness tee shirt and another coupon for a free dinner, this one worth $30.
One food item on the menu seemed curious, what they called a boxty. For most of the regular items on the menu you could get the same item as a boxty, which was a giant potato pancake wrapped around the item in question. I got the Irish stew boxty. That is a lot of potatoes. Next time I'll just get the Irish stew and forget the wrapper. It was good, but I don't need all of those carbohydrates.
Their draft beer of the month was a hefeweissen, a cloudy, semi-sweet, mild beer served with a slice of lemon. I found it went very well with the food, although Delia didn't like it very much and Cathy didn't try it at all. Cathy was too busy sampling the various Irish and Scotch whiskeys available to be interested in mere beers.
The pub was over half full when we arrived and was still about a quarter full when we left. There are a few tables outside on the sidewalk and they remained full all of the time which, I suppose, helps bring other customers inside. Tables and chairs were old and heavily constructed, with the booths or benches well padded and comfortable. It was kept clean although the antiques used for decoration helped give the impression that everything inside was old. The walls were decorated with old photos and posters.
There is a larger Moose McGillicuddy's across the street and a slightly smaller Irish pub just down the block, on the corner. Not every street in the Gaslight District is so rich in Irish places to drink or eat but I imagine there are others, just as there are probably other Thai places besides the one we passed on our way back to where we parked the car.
It is the concentration of interesting places that make the Gaslight the attraction that it is.
Comments (3)
I love to play trivia. We played 5 times on our cruise and won each time. People were decidedly unhappy to see come in by the end of the cruise!
We have a couple of very good Irish pubs in downtown Minneapolis. They have good food and interesting atmospheres.
Brewing wine? Hmmph!
In the sense of a witch's brew, yes. You add the fruit, sugar and yeast to your cauldron and allow the combination to fester until it begins to produce gas, then you pour off the good part to continue to fester while the gas escapes, bottling it when it no longer has a gas problem. You leave it in the bottle long enough for it to form a layer of sludge in the bottom, then you drink everything but the sludge.
That is how you make wine.
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