Friday, July 16, 2010
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Beer Club VICTORY!
Ahhhh! We finally got our 25 beers for the Mellow Mushroom Beer Club! Hello Koozies!
#24: New Belgium Ranger IPA. With the Fat Tire craze that has swept the south over the past year, we thought we'd give another New Belgium brew a try. Two thumbs up!
#25!!!!! RED OAK!!!! We knew we were gonna save one of our all-time favorites for the big 2-5 and here it is...RED OAK. Yay! It was hard not to order my go-to beer every time I went to the Mellow Mushroom, but it was fun sampling all kinds of new things!
So there you have it, friends! 25 beers for the Winston-Salem Mellow Mushroom Beer Club!
Here is a quick re-cap of our journey....
(it's also fun to see the evolution of Trey's facial hair over the past few months...from no beard to beard to no beard)
(it's also fun to see the evolution of Trey's facial hair over the past few months...from no beard to beard to no beard)
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
NYC 2010
Lessons learned from this trip:
-I would be worth the extra money to take a direct flight after a night of mayhem.
-US Air Shuttle gives free beer and wine.
-In the future, if it is 100 degrees, sunny and no breeze I will not be standing outside for 5 hours.
-There is no really good place to see the contest at the actual contest. Honestly, you’re probably better off watching it on TV... but that’s no fun :(
-You know you are a special breed of girl when you spend a weekend in New York with the gals NOT drinking martinis and going shopping, but instead spent it watching an eating contest and tossing back tequila.-It is funny when you get personally introduced to others as 'Hungry Sisters' and 'Silly America'
-We (Sadie, Jamie, and Carrie) can actually go on a trip without getting into one single fight!
This year we opted out of the ‘Great American Road Trip’ and flew to New York City for the event of the year: the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest. Lots of controversy surrounded the event this year, from rumors of cheating to contract disputes.
What we did:
We got to NYC on Friday around lunch, and immediately set out for some pizza. We found a little hole in the wall pizza place and it was quite delicious. After walking around Times Square, we headed back to the hotel to meet Valerie, our roommate for the weekend! None of us really had any plans going into the trip, so we just kind of played it by ear.
That afternoon, we decided to go out to Hoboken to find the Cake Boss, but our plan failed. I think a show was being filmed and the line was really long to get in…so we saw the outside of Carlo’s Bakery. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to eat any of the Cake Boss’s baked goods, BUT our hotel had free warm chocolate chip cookies waiting for our consumption in the lobby, and that was awesome.
Saturday, we had our NYC tourist-y day and tried to do as many cheap/free things as we could. We rode the Staten Island Ferry (for free), we had a picnic at Union Square park (cheap), we toured the Brooklyn Brewery (free), and we sampled Brooklyn Beers (not free but delicious). We were going to go mess around in Central Park and find scenes from Home Alone 2 and Enchanted (free), but we were tired, so we just sat and watched people in the park. We met up with Valerie again and we went to the hotel, basked in the glory of the air conditioner. That night we ate at this Mexican restaurant, Cancun, and wandered around Times Square.
Sunday, we woke up around 7, had some breakfast at the hotel, and set out for Coney Island. We got there around 8:45. We got close to the front, but our location was pretty crappy. We were around some interesting folks: two crazy dudes who kept invading our space and some Jersey Boys with their guidette girlfriends. You probably saw them if you watched the broadcast on TV. They were cool and all but we couldn’t really see around them. By about 10, it started getting a little bit miserable; it got hot. Really hot. I expect this weather here in North Carolina, but not in New York! I guess all of ya’ll northerners got a taste of what it’s been like here for about a month and a half.
Anyway, the pre-contest festivities occurred--neat eating contest, circus things, trampoline people, Badland's rapping, etc. (you know, the usual...). The contest started and was over before we knew it (also...the usual). Joey Chestnut won by eating 54 hot dogs and buns. To be completely honest, the contest was kind of anti climactic this year. We all knew who would win since Kobayashi was out of the picture. Speaking of, at the end of the contest, while we were still standing there watching, Kobayashi jumped on the stage and got arrested, and somehow WE MISSED IT. THE WHOLE DERN THING. We didn’t even find out that this went down until like 15 minutes later.
We headed over to Ruby’s to sit down and finally feel a cool breeze...and finally found out about Kobayashi's escapade. When we got there the power was off and it was actually cooler outside than inside (and it was like 96 degrees outside). The power came back on while we were there (yay!) and a crazy drunk man gave Jamie money to play some jamz on the jukebox (yay!), I drank the most refreshing $2.00 bottle of water of my life (yay!), and all became right with the world once again.
Sunday night: the after party! What can I say that wasn’t said last year? It was fun and is always nice to get to hang out with people you only get to see two or three times a year. Tequila shots flowed like water and we supposedly walked back to the subway like zombies while cursing the name of Joey Chestnut who yelled at Valerie. haha. It was (apparently) a fun trip to the back hotel. The next morning's McDonalds brunch of chicken nuggets and french fries were just what we needed to recover from the night o' fun and prep for the day o' travel. The flights home kind of sucked; it was a little shaky from NYC to D.C. and then we had to layover for three hours in D.C. yuck.
We had an awesome time in the big apple, but were all three pretty glad to be back in home. Being in somewhere as crazy and busy as New York City really makes you appreciate simple, small-town life in the south....but, of course, we do hope to be back next year!
Thoughts on Kobayashi:
From the beginning of the whole contract dispute, I have always had thoughts that this might just be a publicity stunt. I've watched enough professional wrestling to know a 'work' when I see one. I mean, when you think about it, and as much as I hate to say it, the whole Kobayashi controversy was what made the contest; what everybody was talking about the next day. With the whole resistance to the police officers and all of these 'Free Kobi' websites, it almost seems too dramatic to be true. But a small part of me thinks it is true. Ahh. I don't know. I guess only time will tell and we'll see how this all unfolds!
The rest of our pictures: NYC 2010 Photo Album
Local Dish WS
I am now a contributor of Local Dish Winston-Salem! This blog that talks about all of the awesome food here in Winston-Salem. Check it out & see my first post about Mr. Barbecue!
--Sadie
--Sadie
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