Last night, I was lucky enough to hang out with these gals for a few hours in Columbia!
Lily, Carla, and I have met before, but this was our first time meeting Lizzie – everyone is so sweet, of course! (and no, there were no drinks thrown at any faces). I know we talk about the power of the blogging community and feeling like we belong and blah blah blah, but there’s nothing like talking face-to-face about our blogging experiences to bring everything full-circle. It’s a little surreal to have your blogging life manifest in real life! It’s even more surreal when you all start taking pictures of your food – suddenly you’re not the only one anymore!
We went to Cellar on Greene, a wine bar that specializes in tapas-sized portions in the Five Points area of Columbia.
I chose a flight of 3 wines, a Chardonnay, a Viognier, and a Shiraz blend, all scoring 90 points or higher by Wine Spectator Magazine.
I love when places serve flights of beer or wine – I love trying different stuff, and it’s such a gamble to get a huge glass of something random only to end up not liking it! For my first course, I got a summer squash bisque:
Holy crap, this was AMAZING. I’m never a huge soup person so I don’t have much to compare this to, but it had the right amount of herbiness and spiciness to it. I want to try to make some myself, now!
My second course was pan-roasted Coho (wha?) salmon with fig jam, strawberry-zinfandel syrup, creamy polenta, and prosciutto-wrapped asparagus. This was good, but nothing out-of-this-world amazing. Of course I scarfed it all down, though!
My tongue is still burned from dessert - “undercooked chocolate.”
I suppose it was like a chocolate lava cake inside a ramekin, and it had little hints of citrus to it. It was good, but it was kinda bland. I had been eyeing the turtle cheesecake on the menu, and I wish I had gotten that instead.
After we finished up at Cellar on Greene (lesson learned: we could’ve sat there for another hour; when planning blogger meetups, budget more time than you think you need, or at least don’t schedule anything immediately afterward!), we headed down the road to join my friends for trivia at a sports bar.
The evening may or may not have ended in a pants-dropping, tie-breaking dance-off down the bar by my dear friend Charlie. He won our group 2nd place overall with his sweet moves! [pictures omitted to protect the not-so-innocent]
A good time was had by all. :)