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A lovely night out
Nov. 7th, 2011 07:00 pmWent to town with Bruce yesterday for some R&R.
We hit the cinema for Puss in Boots, which was pretty amusing. Excellent animation, of course. Didn't really care for Humpty, as either good or bad, but both Puss and Kitty were fun.
Then we went to dinner at a place called Catacombs Pub, which was quite enjoyable. One of the appetizers is "hot Bavarian potato salad". If you're anything like me, when someone says potato salad, you picture soggy chunks of potato drowning helplessly in slimy mayonnaise-based sludge. How appetizing... there is apparently a different, and much better, way to make potato salad though! Thin sliced potato, with herbs and bacon, tossed in a nice vinaigrette, and then melt cheese over the top. It was quite the yum. The Catacombs does a lot of pizza, and the oven is sort of surrounded by the dining area, so you can watch the chef make your pizza. Also, they have the brilliant idea of serving s'mores for dessert. Now, as I'm sure you all know, you can't just trust other people to make s'mores for you and get it right! So they bring you graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and a little pot of fire, and you toast your own marshmallows at the table. I am now firmly of the opinion that this should be an option at many more restaurants. Though I'm sure they were going "traditional" with the Hershey's chocolate and the jumbo puffy marshmallows, I think it'd be a good idea to use home-made marshmallows and a bit higher quality chocolate... things I should keep in mind if I ever throw a party, I suppose. :)
Then we headed across the street to the Knitting Factory for an evening of humorous musics, courtesy of Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants. Coulton was, as expected, quite good. Sadly, not a very long performance from him. That bit about being the opening band, I suppose, but I could have done with more than half an hour! They Might Be Giants was... a mixed bag, I guess. I've been to one of their shows before, and they rocked. Last night's show though, was off to a rough start with a terrible sound mix. It was really difficult to hear what was going on; I could barely follow the songs I knew, and the stuff from their new album was just a mass of indecipherable noise. Added to the sound problems, there was the incredibly bad idea of directing painfully bright, randomly flashing lights directly at the audience, and I very nearly decided to walk out. Thankfully, they got the sound issues a bit straightened out with time, but the first half hour of their performance was... pretty shitty. Sorry, TMBG, I am still a fan, but it's true. The start of your show sucked. Once they got the sound mix under control and it became possible to understand lyrics, things got better. I remain confused though, by the apparently random video clips being shown on the large screen behind the band.
We hit the cinema for Puss in Boots, which was pretty amusing. Excellent animation, of course. Didn't really care for Humpty, as either good or bad, but both Puss and Kitty were fun.
Then we went to dinner at a place called Catacombs Pub, which was quite enjoyable. One of the appetizers is "hot Bavarian potato salad". If you're anything like me, when someone says potato salad, you picture soggy chunks of potato drowning helplessly in slimy mayonnaise-based sludge. How appetizing... there is apparently a different, and much better, way to make potato salad though! Thin sliced potato, with herbs and bacon, tossed in a nice vinaigrette, and then melt cheese over the top. It was quite the yum. The Catacombs does a lot of pizza, and the oven is sort of surrounded by the dining area, so you can watch the chef make your pizza. Also, they have the brilliant idea of serving s'mores for dessert. Now, as I'm sure you all know, you can't just trust other people to make s'mores for you and get it right! So they bring you graham crackers, chocolate, marshmallows, and a little pot of fire, and you toast your own marshmallows at the table. I am now firmly of the opinion that this should be an option at many more restaurants. Though I'm sure they were going "traditional" with the Hershey's chocolate and the jumbo puffy marshmallows, I think it'd be a good idea to use home-made marshmallows and a bit higher quality chocolate... things I should keep in mind if I ever throw a party, I suppose. :)
Then we headed across the street to the Knitting Factory for an evening of humorous musics, courtesy of Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants. Coulton was, as expected, quite good. Sadly, not a very long performance from him. That bit about being the opening band, I suppose, but I could have done with more than half an hour! They Might Be Giants was... a mixed bag, I guess. I've been to one of their shows before, and they rocked. Last night's show though, was off to a rough start with a terrible sound mix. It was really difficult to hear what was going on; I could barely follow the songs I knew, and the stuff from their new album was just a mass of indecipherable noise. Added to the sound problems, there was the incredibly bad idea of directing painfully bright, randomly flashing lights directly at the audience, and I very nearly decided to walk out. Thankfully, they got the sound issues a bit straightened out with time, but the first half hour of their performance was... pretty shitty. Sorry, TMBG, I am still a fan, but it's true. The start of your show sucked. Once they got the sound mix under control and it became possible to understand lyrics, things got better. I remain confused though, by the apparently random video clips being shown on the large screen behind the band.
