Every year my company gives us the entire week off between Christmas and New Year’s, so naturally I go somewhere that’s the opposite of home since obviously I’d rather spend $500 to go somewhere awesome than spend it to go home to Dallas.  Last year I went back to Rio by myself, but this year friends M&W were up for some international love as well – so after brainstorming a few warm vacation spots that made sense like Belize and the Caribbean, we somehow ended up deciding to go somewhere totally not beachy like Istanbul.  Since M&W actually care about quality family time for the holidays, our Istanbul trip was to start post-Christmas and go through New Year’s.  I, however, wasn’t about to waste Dec 24, 25, 26 just sitting around jerking off by myself, so I decided that this year I would spend Christmas by myself in Amsterdam, a sensible choice since they’re not uber Christian and they party all year long, unlike somewhere like Greece where the entire country shuts down for Jesus.

After taking an overnight flight, I arrived in Amsterdam on Christmas morning, excited to start my Christmas day stoned alone and visiting Jewish places like the Anne Frank Huis.  After reading several websites talking about how Amsterdam for Christmas gets “so lively” and there are “numerous Christmas markets open for tourists,” I was a bit caught off guard to find literally no one in the streets on this dreary Christmas morning until well past noon, when maybe a few people started showing their faces in the streets and I guess there was one stand in one of the squares selling hot chocolate.  So on my first day, I just ended up aimlessly wandering the streets of Amsterdam, eating a rum raisin pancake and getting drunk off that for breakfast (which was actually really amazing), eating some Dutch fries, poffertjes and bitterballen throughout the afternoon, then doing things I hated like going to museums because those were the only things open.

Rum Raisin Pancake

Dutch Fries

Poffertjes

Bitterballen aka fried mashed potatoes and gravy

After a day filled with staring at art I didn’t give a shit about at Rijksmuseum and the Van Gogh Museum and not being impressed, followed by visiting the Anne Frank Huis (which I did in fact find fascinating, reinforcing my love for Judaism over Christianity), I had planned to meet a friend’s friends at a bar called Durty Nelly in the Red Light District for a nice Christmas dinner.  The dinner was, in fact, very nice, especially after hitting up a few coffeeshops, where you can just walk in and order any kind of weed or hash or pre-rolled joint you want.  Here was my Christmas dinner, and my Christmas pot menu.

Christmas Dinner

Coffee Shop

Day 2 was a little better once I decided the kind of museum I needed to visit was somewhere like House of Bols, which is a museum showcasing the history of Bols, the #1 brand of jenever liquor.  Jenever is a junipery gin-like liquor, which I thought would be disgusting since gin is my least favorite liquor, but it’s actually really good.  I absolutely loved this museum – there was a taste testing station, a scent tasting station, and then at the end of the self-guided tour, you’re led into a bar where you can choose your own Bols cocktail that the bartender will shake up for you,  and you also get two shots of any flavor Bols you want to taste.  Given my love for Disney, I picked the Little Mermaid as my Bols cocktail, and Lychee Bols and Yoghurt Bols as my two shots.  They were all maybe the best gin drinks I’d ever had in my life.  The Yoghurt Bols sounded repulsive, but one sip and I was hooked.  It tasted just like really fresh drinkable yogurt injected with booze.  If I actually ate breakfast, this is what I would want to have every morning with my cereal.

Little Mermaid

After I got a nice buzz going after my morning museum trip, I spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the city, got high by myself again at a different coffeeshop, then enjoyed some great Indonesian rijsttafel (rice table), which is a must-do in Amsterdam.  I was starving (duh) so I ordered the rijsttafel for myself, but got turned down by the waiter who told me that dish was “for two people only, too big for one person.”  I glared at him, told him “that’s what she said,” “does it look like I have someone else with me,” and then demanded he bring me the fucking rice dish because I can most certainly eat for two people.  I sure showed him.

Before

After

On Day 3 I continued my trend of visiting alcoholic museums only and spent the morning at the Heineken Brewery, which is an interactive museum where you learn all about the history of Heineken, go on a simulation ride where you experience what it’s like to be brewed like beer, then end the self-guided tour with the freshest glass of Heineken I’ve ever had in my life.

Heineken

I loved it all.  I ended my Amsterdam trip at the Pancake Bakery with a delicious split pea soup with huge slices of bacon and an Egyptian-style pancake with minced lamb inside.

Split Pea Soup with Bacon

Egyptian-style Pancake with Lamb

Now on to Istanbul to go meet M&W.  Little did I know my next 6 consecutive days would also be filled with lamb.

Last Friday, J’s twin sisters M&M were in town visiting the Big Apple for the first time in their lives.  I was excited they were in town and wanted to show them a fun time in NYC.  The night had gotten off to a rocky start earlier when roommates and I went to Hane for 2 for 1 drinks, and roommate K blacked out by 10pm and started screaming to random people that I was the devil incarnate (not far from the truth — I do lack a heart, although this all came out of nowhere).  In order to avoid conflict I broke off from the roommate crowd with SP to go to this hole in the wall/speakeasy next to Niagara on 7th and A called Lovers of Today, where I invited M&M to join us.  Apparently this was M&M’s lucky weekend to visit NYC because 2 seconds later, we run into Kristen Wiig and Aziz Ansari at the bar WHAAAAAA!  I try to keep my cool and casually approach them, tap them on their shoulder, and tell them “I love your work,” followed by “Tom Haverford and Ron Swanson are the 2 best characters on Parks & Recreation.”  Kristen Wiig smiles and thanks me, while Aziz Ansari asks me if I’ve seen Steven Seagal around in the bar since he’s supposed to meet up with him.  I told him no.  One of the better celeb sightings/interactions I’ve had in my life.  Kristen Wiig was even tinier and much shorter than she looks on TV, and Tom Haverfor was… well, he’s a small Indian.

Then Saturday was the annual Santacon, the one day out of the year where all young NYCers dress up like slutty Santas or dreidels and bar hop around all of Manhattan.  I of course partake every year since I partake in anything having to do with an all day drink fest.  F and G host the 8am pregame every year right before the start of Santacon, and this is the timely invitation I received this year:

Big news: Next Saturday, Hurricane Claus will directly hit the NYC metro area. Preparing for Santas flooding the streets is not a trivial matter. Over the past years, Hurricane Claus has been picking up remarkable speed and experts believe this year SantaCon will officially overrun the city. News reports call for extended showers of adult beverages combined with gale force holiday cheer spreading through the city beginning early morning on through the evening. Head to the store now to stock up on milk and cookies before the shelves are cleared and the Santas get the best of you. Bloomberg is yet to post the evacuation zones but I’m fairly certain my apartment is in the clear.

For those of you brave enough to ride out the storm, I encourage you to join me beforehand to prepare for one of the best days of the year. We’ll have a tasty breakfast sammich, a delicious beverage or two, maybe dance to some Mariah Carey, then head out into the fray. While you’re definitely going to make new friends during the day, you’re better off heading out actually with friends so do the smart thing and join the Santamob before taking on Hurricane Claus head first.

After pregaming for about 4 hours at F/G’s place on free mimosas, beer, a can full of alcohol infused whipped cream, and delicious breakfast sausage-and-muenster sandwiches, I braved Hurricane Claus… except this year one of the first stops was South Street Seaport, so I lost my entire crowd within seconds.  Before I knew it, it was just me, M and SP drinking by ourselves and making new weird friends, until we found our friends hours later.  After drinking for an entire day, we moved on to S’s second annual 4loko party, where there was some aggressive dancing all night long and some aggressive puking happening in the elevator post-party by B.

Finally, this past weekend was M & W’s holiday daytime party, or more properly called Jesus’s (89th) birthday.  Why 89?  Because according to Melissa Gorga of Real Housewives of New Jersey: “How old is Jesus?  He is 89 years old.“  This was going to be the birthday party of the century.  M was in charge of baking all the sweets, while W was in charge of cooking all the savories.  I attempted to help them out in the kitchen with the hors d’oeuvres, but my lack of culinary skills led me to being asked to just do what I do best — prepare the booze.  So I heated up the spiked apple cider instead, and let me just say, spiking apple cider with Jack Daniels Honey = best holiday invention discovered by woman.

Here’s everything that M&W handcrafted for Christ’s birthday — I consumed all of it like bread and wine:

Savories

More Savories

Sweets

And the ultimate dessert — crown of thorns cake, red velvet to symbolize Body and Blood of Jesus Christ our Savior, with chocolate covered pretzels, hand-adorned by M:

Crown of Thorns

All the food was incred and I had a totally foodgasm.  Joy to the world, the Lord has cum!  Happy Hanukkah everyone.

Duck Fat in Turkey

Thanksgiving was quite the feast with a humongoid turkey, green bean casserole, candied yams, two kinds of stuffing, courtesy of S.  Here’s what other people brought:

• AC, who is also quite the chef, made bacon mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts hash, chocolate mousse pie, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and boiled custard
• G, who apparently loves making ice cream, brought homemade vanilla and butter pecan ice cream
• AP, who is black, of course made collard greens
• M, who is S’s lady friend, brought a cheap bouquet of flowers that no one knew what to do with
• F, who loves to party, brought one bottle of wine
• AB, who somehow got blackout at dinner on 2 glasses of wine, brought a bag of rolls

The feast was incred:

Turkey

Candied Yams

Sausage Stuffing

Green Bean Casserole

Thanksgiving Buffet

Pies

Here was my plate #1:

Plate #1

Here was my plate #2:

Plate #2

Ok that was the same picture, but I did in fact have 2 identical plates of Thanksgiving feast.  And then a dessert sampler plate of all 3 pies, ice cream and boiled custard, which is maybe one of the most delicious things I’ve ever had in my entire life.  I’m pretty sure it’s just heavy cream and eggs, and I could literally feel my left arm getting tingly and a stroke coming on, but I couldn’t stop drinking it.  I drank half the Nalgene bottle of boiled custard for dessert, then the other half for breakfast the next morning.  I still have a tingly sensation in my left forearm from my arteries clogging up.

Boiled Custard

I was feeling great during Thursday’s dinner until all the food suddenly hit me, and I desperately needed to go start World War III in S’s bathroom, but I just held it in painfully out of respect for all the guests in the living room.  In order to assuage my abdominal discomfort, I just continued to chug glass after glass of red wine, and by the end of the night, AC and I had gone through 4 bottles of red wine by ourselves — a Layer Cake wine, a Malbec, a Chilean wine, and a Rioja.  I looked in the mirror and I had a striking resemblance to a character out of Twilight with this purple/black ring all around my inner mouth.  At least I had scared everyone off with my gothic looks instead of with my Thanksgiving bowel movements.

Friday afternoon I think everyone woke up with the worst tryptophan hangover.  I couldn’t do anything all day except continue to drink more booze and boiled custard and eat Thanksgiving leftovers.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

After some motivation, S, G, AC and I headed to the bars later that afternoon for some day drinking and football watching that I didn’t give a shit about, followed by some more drinking and dancing at Bro J’s and Solas.

Saturday afternoon I think everyone woke up with the worst booze hangover.  I couldn’t do anything all day except continue to drink more booze and watch the Iron Bowl at Bar 515.  I didn’t necessarily keep track of how many pitchers of Miller Lite we went through, but I was feeling pretty good all afternoon.  After one of the teams I didn’t give a shit about lost, S, G, B and I headed to Rodeo Bar, where I had one long island ice tea, and I was still feeling pretty good.

It was only when I left Rodeo Bar around 8pm that all the booze suddenly hit me.  I was just a block away from home, but all of the sudden I desperately needed to pee and I knew I couldn’t make the extra block to my apartment.  Not again.  Over the past year, public urination had become more and more of a frequent occurrence for me, but I just couldn’t help it.  I looked around to make sure no one was looking, pulled down my tights, and peed on the sidewalk right in front of one of those really beautiful $4M apartments on 18th Street between 1st and 2nd Ave.  I instantly felt 10 times better, until I got home and suddenly needed to rush to the bathroom to puke up all the chicken nachos and quesadillas and one too many pitchers of Miller Lite that I had consumed earlier in the afternoon.  I couldn’t even remember the last time I had thrown up food day-of, but I was really upset with myself.

S, B and I were supposed to meet up again at 9:30pm to start pregaming, but clearly that didn’t happen since I was completely blacked out on my couch until I woke up at 1:30am to find 5 missed calls from S, B and M.  I felt like dying but knew I had to rally, and somehow made it out to DBA Bar to meet up with them 15 minutes later at 1:45am.  I threw up some more liquid on 3rd Street on my way to the bar, ordered some water at the bar, then immediately threw up the full glass of water I had consumed 10 minutes later in the bar bathroom.  My projectile liquid vomit was truly impressive.  I was a mess.

I knew I needed to leave, but B convinced me to stay, and he was quickly becoming 10 times more blackout than I already was.  While I sat there trying to keep down a glass of water, B was sitting there taking shot after shot of Jameson with the bartender.  By 3:30am, B had taken about a dozen shots of Jameson and then tried to close out his tab but drew boobs on his credit card slip instead of writing in the tip.  Given his blackout state, for a split second I contemplated how easy it would be to take advantage of him, but I decided tonight was not the night to become a 4-time friend rapist.  Instead, I put him in a cab, tried to stop him as he too urinated on the streets of Manhattan, then gave up and walked the 2 blocks home.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

This year the game was at Yale, which means 8am party bus to New Haven.  After a night at the Standard Biergarten for the pre-party, I woke up Saturday morning pumped and simultaneously feeling like death.  I wake up roommate M, who is also in poor shape, and we both pick up S to go head to the bus.  M had brought his flask of Svedka, I had brought my usual HY goods of 2 bottles of champagne and a bottle of Jim Beam, and S had brought an entire fucking cooler.  Talk about over-generosity.  Everyone was told to just bring booze/food for themselves, and S brings 100 Bud Lights, a bottle of champagne, an entire handle of Corner Creek, and a dozen sandwiches and wraps.  Good thing I hadn’t had breakfast because I just ate 2 wraps from S and 1 breakfast sandwich from F, and I was ready for my booze.

I’m not sure when I stopped feeling like death and the booze started to kick in, but I think it was when I was about half way into my second bottle of champagne and F started to play “we found love in a hopeless place, we found love in a hoooopeless plaaaaace” and “I will never be the same without youuuu, withouuuuttttt youuuuuu.”  Whenever I hear techno music I can’t help but start jumping around like I’m on a shitload of drugs (I wasn’t but probably acting like it) and jumping on everyone in sight, which is what I did in the bus and consequently fell into at least half a dozen people and gave myself half a dozen bruises.  All worth it.

When we got to Yale, we immediately invaded the undergrad finals clubs tailgates, stole all their booze and made them serve us their burgers and hot dogs.  The food was great.  I don’t remember the rest, but apparently it was quite the eventful HY this year.  For example:

1. Our friend P got arrested by New Haven popo even before he got to the tailgate.  For being blackout?  Well, kinda.  Because he had thrown a pile of leaves in a cop’s face.  P, you make me proud.  I’m not sure why he got arrested though to be honest — must have been bad luck because I similarly threw a bunch of balloons in a cop’s face my senior year at Harvard but nothing happened.  Except that he tattle-taled on my house masters and dean and tried to get me to not graduate from Harvard, but I did with zero issues.  As black people (and I) say, Fuck the PO-lice!
2. Someone got run over by a U-Haul and died or something, apparently some 30-year-old person who had no affiliation with Harvard or Yale.  My first reaction was, why was a 30-year-old at an undergrad tailgate… but then I remembered I am not that far from that.  Anyway, I guess that’s what people are starting to do to non-HYers who are crashing HY tailgates — talk about elitism.  You can also bet your ass U-Hauls will be banned from HY tailgates for the rest of our lives (as if banning kegs wasn’t bad enough).

Anyway, the tailgate ended way too quickly, and it was time to return to our party bus before I knew it.  The return ride was even more amped up with techno and dancing, and I felt like I had seriously just been to a 3-hour mobile Avicii concert.  The rest of the night went downhill from there — M/F/I ordered a shitload of Chinese, I passed out on F’s couch, I was kicked out of F’s apartment, then passed out on my own couch.  I think it was only like 10pm at this point because I woke up at 6am, and I was wide awake and couldn’t fall back asleep.  Naturally I had to find something or someone to do, which is what I did 15 minutes later.  Nothing like a 6:15am booty call.

It took a full 24 hours to recover from the weekend, and my arms are still sore as hell from swinging from the party bus like a monkey.  Go Crimson.

The weekend already started out fantastic when I arrived to my hotel starving to find the best gift bag ever come to my rescue.  This was one serious gift bag — there was an entire bag of jelly bellies, and entire bag of Godiva chocolates, popcorn, cheese straws, granola bar, cheese crackers, 2 vitamin waters, 2 apples, 2 oranges etc etc etc!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gift Bag

I was so impressed.  After chomping into half that bag, I took a delicious 3 hour nap before getting ready for the ceremony at Halcyon House at Georgetown.

While being just a guest meant not having a bride tell me what dress to wear, how to do my hair, what earrings to bring, how much to drink, etc, it also meant not having anyone tell me when to be where and how, and I was completely lost.  I had no idea when I was supposed to arrive to the ceremony — was it acceptable to be fashionably late to these things?  Apparently not, according to all my other friends, unless I wanted to be caught creepily walking down the aisle next to the wedding party.  So of course I show up to the ceremony a good 20 minutes early, only to find that I am the only guest there early besides family.  Derrr…….

Well everyone else eventually arrived, a good 30 minutes fashionably late.  And it was a beautiful ceremony filled with my favorite Jewish traditions.  When the ceremony was done, cocktail hour began upstairs with some incredible butler style hors d’oeuvres, including lamb chops and a guac table.  Yes, a guac table.

GUAC TABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had never seen a guac table before and I was completely overwhelmed.  But at this point in the night I was more concerned with getting in line for the bar to get my scotch on the rocks to get the party started, my drink of choice at weddings (and the best part was that the bartenders were serving all the drinks in wine glasses, including my scotch on the rocks).

At the start of the reception we were all welcomed with the most exciting sign:

MENU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JUST LOOK AT THAT!!!!!!!!!!!  Unfortunately the multiple wine glasses full of pure scotch were kicking in by now, and all I remember are memories of “rearry dericious” with regards to the appetizer/dinner/dessert flights but no specific memory beyond that.  However, it’s comforting — and simultaneously disturbing — to know that apparently even in my most blackout-ness I always somehow remember to take pictures of everything I eat:

Appetizer Flight

Entree Flight

Dessert Flight

Beyond that, who the fuck knows what happened but it was a blast.  All I remember from the rest of the reception is getting super excited for the hora, the bride slipping off the chair during the hora (terrifying for a split second, but she was fine), screaming for joy when the band started playing Taylor Swift, dancing with more than one suitor exuberantly, and having one of the best nights I’ve had in a really long time.

Here’s what actually happened that night:

• According to G, I was “falling all over the dance floor, flashing your undies countless times, eating other people’s desserts, and falling on the stairs… other than that, you were pretty normal.”
• According to C, I was spitting like a true chink the entire night and getting in a seriously aggressive face slapping war with him.
• According to W, I was “totally behaved at the wedding.  Everyone was having a good time jumping around on the dance floor.”

I didn’t really know whose story to believe since I have zero recollection, but I do vaguely remember falling on my ass at least 4-5 times throughout the night.  After the reception ended, I somehow miraculously made it to the after party where the bride and groom were still raging strong — what a champion couple.  I on the other hand didn’t make it long before I tripped over some poor girl, fell again on my ass, and then I knew it was time for me to go.  I guess it was no shocker that I left empty handed that night, or rather, empty pussied.  I passed out in my hotel bed only to be woken up at 4am to a text from NYC f buddy T (what a tease) to whom I explained my situation, and even he encouraged me to “Go find some dick.”  Appreciate the thought, but it didn’t happen.  Even W (who is a straight male with a girlfriend) got more numbers from dudes at the wedding than I did — apparently man dates and bromance were in.

The next morning I woke up at 7am to the worst splitting headache and nauseating feeling in my stomach.  I look over at the floor, and my beautiful silver heels look like they’ve murdered someone or something because they are covered in red stains.  Apparently when I fell over the girl at the after party, I brought down a glass of red wine with me and spilled it all over my shoes.  Either that or I was on the dance floor pouring wine into my shoes then pouring it back into the glass.  I wouldn’t put it past me.

Anyway, getting over the confusion of how my silver shoes were covered in wine and trying to piece together the night, I went to the bathroom where I puked some disgusting green liquid, which I at first thought was the spinach soup I had for lunch before the wedding ceremony, but yeah nope, nope, that was pure green bile.  After spending a few minutes worrying about the integrity of my esophageal lining and tooth enamel as a result of my alcoholimia, I quickly got over it, chugged 2 Execedrin with one of my vitamin waters, and I felt like a million bucks when I woke up 3 hours later.

I was starving and grateful that there was a post-wedding brunch at the Fairmont Hotel, which was an incred spread of everything I wanted — bagels and lox, plenty of breakfast meats, scrambled eggs, fruit, oatmeal, yogurt, etc etc.

Brunch

I couldn’t believe how quickly the weekend had flown by, but it was seriously the most fun I’ve had in the longest time.  I was sad to say goodbye to all my kitties, but the “adventure” didn’t end there.  Like NYC, DC has some really odd cab drivers, and I unfortunately got one of them on my way back to Union Station.  I hop in and the driver is this huge fat black guy with dreads who looks like he’s been smoking and selling pot since he was born, who tells me “Welcome, welcome aboard!”  What.  What a creep.  I smell something sweet, and I look behind me, and the rear window is literally a shrine to creepy bobble heads with baskets full of blow pops, to which he points and tells me, “Take one!  Make yourself at home!”  I was slightly terrified I was actually going to get raped in this cab, and not in the good way.

Luckily I made it safely and un-raped to the bus station, where I took the Bolt Bus back to home sweet NYC, where I was hoping to get back in time for my Sunday night TV since my bus left at 1:30pm.  Somehow with Veteran’s Day traffic, it ended up taking 7 hours — yes, 7 hours — to get back home.  After the frustration of the unacceptably long bus ride and all my pent up tension from not getting laid at the wedding, I was grateful that T was back in NYC on Sunday to be there for me in this time of need.  I was glad I was able to close this epic weekend with a bang.

This morning’s walk of shame was never filled with more soreness — my body was covered with bruises from my multiple falls on the dance floor/stairs/bar, my feet were all blistered from the hours of insane dancing in 5 inch heels, and I couldn’t move my neck from the wedding aftermath.  A true sign of an amazing weekend.  Congrats M & J!!!

Anyway I thought about it for two seconds and was like fuck it, they owe me a free dinner, and I made the decision to get myself invited.  I emailed the alumni director demanding I be put on the mailing list, and in contrast to my bitchiness she was incredibly nice and overly excited that I had reached out and encouraged me to let her know of any and all other alumni she had left off the mailing list.  I took that quite literally and proceeded that very day to forward the dinner invitation to 20 other people who were three years younger than me.  Interestingly enough, I recently reconnected with high school class of ’05/college ’09 people through Texas sports watching in NYC.  I don’t give a shit about Texas sports, but I do enjoy beer, wings and a room full of dudes, so obviously I partake.  Also ’07-09 have always been the better classes over ’06 so I was confident that when our powers combined we could turn this stuffy, “business attire” reunion dinner into a complete open bar shitshow.

So the dinner was this past Wednesday, and we successfully turned it into a complete open bar shitshow.  Arriving to Trattoria Dell’ Arte in Midtown West, I was curious who all would be at this event.  Would other random people from my high school be there that I hadn’t seen in a decade?  Has anyone gotten fat?  Has anyone gone gay?  Answer: nope.  I get there and literally the only people there are myself, my puta J, the headmaster (who hadn’t aged a day in the 10 years I hadn’t seen him), my choir teacher (who of course before he even says hi to me is like ARE YOU STILL PLAYING THE PIANO?!?!?), and then the 20 class of 09ers I had invited to this dinner.  Proud.

I thought this dinner would be family style, but it was quite the nice sit-down dinner with the open bar I expected, a starters table with plenty of antipasti, and then penne pasta to start, three choices of entree, and cannoli and chocolate mousse for dinner.  I had a glass of red wine during the headmaster’s speech, a glass during antipasti, a glass with my penne, a glass with my medium rare steak, and a glass with my chocolate mousse and I was having a grand old time.  I suddenly really liked my high school that night.  Probably a temporary feeling.

This past Thursday we had an impromptu roommate dinner, which we hadn’t done in a long time.  Roommate M had a Groupon to this place Bento Burger, which sounded fascinating — Japanese burger fusion.  Having never been to this place before, I of course immediately turned to the world wide web.  Their website looked pretty awesome, but what was even more intriguing was what came up on Google Images for “bento burger.”

Frog Bento Burger

Monkey Bento Burger

Bear Bento Burger

Obviously I chose to believe what I saw on Google Images over what was on the Bento Burger website because that made more sense.  I coordinated after-work meet-up with roommate M at King’s Cross next to B Bar with A, who apparently was holding a NYC Triathlon Meet Up event there and picks the weirdest bars to go out to.  There were a total of 3 people there, including A, and neither of the other 2 were triathletes.  This bar was also one of the saddest places I’d ever been to in Manhattan, where we were literally the only customers there.  Upside?  The bartender was so grateful he had paying customers that he got us all free shots of Avion Tequila (can you say… Entourage?), which was a great way to kick off our Thursday night.  The weird part though was that the bartender encouraged us to try out Avion by — instead of taking it as a shot — sipping on it slowly and enjoying the flavors by mixing it with some iced water.  What?  Who was this guy.  If you’re a tequila, act like a tequila.  Don’t try to be a scotch.  This made me hate Entourage even more.

After we were done with King’s Cross, it was off to anime-land to get our bento burgers.  We arrived all excited, and when we finally found the restaurant, the first thought that crossed our mind was: rape town.  I mean, we were right in the middle of nowhere East Village, and this restaurant was dark and hentai with the only people there being one bartender and one waitress (and they were WHITE).  There were definitely no anime bears and frogs and hello kitties, and this place definitely wasn’t run by the Japs.

We sat down and ordered some drinks, which were actually quite delicious, and we started out with some calamari and tempura green beans, which were awesome.  To make our meal even more enjoyable, Corona was having a promotion at this restaurant, and since we were the only customers there, they gave us free Corona after free Corona after free Corona.  We win!  After that we all ordered our bento burgers, and I ordered mine medium rare with Asian rice bun.  I assumed that meant they were actually going to be buns that were made of sticky rice, but instead, it was just a burger patty, and a side of rice.  Hmmm… regardless, it was incred.

My Burger Bento

After our burger experience, our next stop was Brother Jimmy’s for the Yankees game.  I don’t give a crap about the Yankees but I do enjoy beer so our Thursday night continued and I stumbled home shortly after the Yankees lost.  Successful Thursday night.

I knew this event was going to be a failure going into it because I had inadvertently organized it on Rosh Hashanah, and half of Harvard is Jewish.  Yeah, fucking Shana Tova people.  This is when I really wanted to pull a GET A LIFE JEWS and wave my swastika pillow sham at them.  Ugh, whatevs.  As an honorary Jew, I should have known.  It was really my fault… actually, I fully blame this on my Jewish friends who should have told me.

Needless to say, the only people who showed up to the event right at 7pm were myself, because as the organizer I had to, and M, because as a best friend of the organizer I forced her to and she wasn’t Jewish.  And S who showed up a few minutes later because he too is a good friend.  So with nothing else to do, we started drinking heavily by ourselves.  For the past few years my “thing” at Brinkley’s has been getting dirty martinis in a tall.  I can’t remember when, but one of the times I was there, they served me a dirty martini in a tall because they had run out of martini glasses, and I fell in love.  I loved how the olives floated around in the tall glass, and ever since then, that’s all I’ve ordered at Brinkley’s.

Thursday I started out with 2 dirty martinis in a tall before my other friends started to show up, both of which S bought for me because he felt bad for how pathetic this event was turning out to be.  W, N, F, and my roommates showed up a little later (clearly since this was my event I didn’t just invite “Harvard 06″ people — obviously I invited 05-09 and my non-Harvard friends)… and some other 06 people I didn’t recognize.

Some lessons I learned for my next event:

1. Don’t call it a Harvard party — it’s an oxymoron and no one will come
2. Make sure I make it clear that these events aren’t actually organized by the “Harvard Activities Committee” — the “Harvard Activities Committee” = just me, and was just a term I made up to make myself sound legit… that obviously backfired
3. Don’t organize it on a holiday
4. Start event later so people get that it’s supposed to be “going out hard on a Thursday” vs. happy hour

Despite points 1-4, my party did get HOPPIN” around 10pm and tripled in size when the entire Harvard 07-09 football team in NYC showed up.  They always know how to have a good time.  It was pretty much like being back at the Kong again.  By this time I was definitely on tall martini #5, none of which I had paid for at this point (not sure how I pulled that one off).  Everything gets blurry after that, but I’m pretty sure I had at least 2 more tall martinis after the boys arrived and, before I knew it, started engaging in some shameless heavy petting action at the bar with an 09er.  None of us can remember what happened after this.

Apparently we all blacked out because the next morning I got at least a dozen emails from friends being like “GREAT PARTY.”  I guess any party can turn into a great party when you’re on 10+ drinks and in a room full of football guys.

Subject Line:  whatcha doing tonight

Body:

im not going to this but i totally think this screams your name.

http://thrillist.com/links/2348616/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5iYWNvbmVyeS5jb20v/direct

Its called Baconry and its a bakery that puts bacon into anything it
makes. Its online but they are having a launch party tonight where
they will be giving away there stuff.

Party at 730p tonight at Tenth Rail: 413 10th Ave, nr 33rd St; Hell’s
Kitchen; 212.643.0873

Website
Read more: http://thrillist.com/food/new-york/baconery_american_bacon_breakfast_delivery_online-shops_snacks_websites#ixzz1ZFKQWkaA

WHAT!!!  OBVIOUSLY I’LL GO.  I immediately gchatted the only other friend I have who is almost as enthusiastic about food as I am — J.  I knew I could count on her.  After emailing this out to my closest 20 friends, she was of course the only one who wrote back.  I know my friends well.  Fuck the rest of you.

Because this sounded like an amazing event, J and I were concerned about how much free food we would actually be able to score at this event, thinking this launch event would clearly be over capacity.  The event started at 7:30pm, so just to be safe, we decided to meet up at 6:45pm so we could get “front row seats” at this launch event and ensure enough bacon consumption.

When we got there, we realized we were in the shit hole of Manhattan — all the way on 10th Ave where I hardly recognized the city anymore, and this restaurant was next to the largest McDonald’s I’d ever seen in the city (it was two floors, what!!).  Seriously, what was this place, and where the fuck was I.  J and I sucked it up, went inside, had a happy hour drink while we waited for the crowds to arrive.

The crowds never arrived, but the party did begin promptly at 7:40pm, and it started with some appetizers that were amazing looking but had no resemblance of bacon.

Chicken/beef skewers and vegetable quesadillas

Pulled pork sliders

Lots of good food.  No bacon.  What was going on?!?!  I thought the sliders were bacon sliders, but no sign of bacon.

After chugging two more $3 margaritas, the Baconery goods finally started to appear.  It was every kind of baked good you could imagine, all filled with bacon — bacon pumpkin muffins, bacon brownies, bacon blueberry muffins, bacon rice krispie treats, bacon chocolate chip cookies, bacon oatmeal raisin cookies, bacon M&M cookies.  It was absurd.

Bacon pumpkin muffin

Bacon brownies

Bacon rice krispie treats

@Baconery was getting at it.

At the end of this event, J and I were so full we didn’t even want to start to think about Rosh Hashanah.  We had eaten way too much pig to start the high holidays so soon.  Whatevs.  In the words of Ana Gasteyer’s son on Curb Your Enthusiasm:  “GET A LIFE JEWS.”

Shana Tova!

If you’ve ever been to Carmine’s you know it’s family style, and they bring all the dishes out onto these humongous plates.  No joke, I think the person coordinating this dinner over-ordered by like 25 people.  We literally had like 10 courses.  For each group of 5 people, they first brought out salad, then fried calamari for appetizer, then another appetizer plate of sausages, stuffed mushrooms, mussels, clams, fried cheese, etc; then they brought out some delicious penne pasta, then angel hair pasta with garlic tomatoes; then they brought out parmesan chicken, then some really good marinated chicken, then steak (!!!), and a side of steamed spinach.  Then we had a dessert plate of chocolate cake, ice cream, chocolate covered strawberries, etc.  Not to mention the pitchers of beer and bottles of red and white wine that never ran out at the table.  It was incredible.

What was even more incredible was that understandably we did not finish all this food, given most everyone got completely full after course 3.  I have to admit even I thought it was too much food, which really says a lot.  By the end of dinner, there were plates and plates and plates of food that were literally untouched.  The people at my table were overwhelmed by the amount of leftovers, and they started to discuss what to do with all this food.  “Well, we can’t take them with us… how are we going to take all this food in with us to Jersey Boys?  I think L has to take it all since she’s going straight home.”  Clearly that was the plan I had in mind all along, but I had slowly throughout the course of dinner been planting that idea into people’s heads… like INCEPTION.  http://inception.davepedu.com/

I am so good.

It was raining that night and it was impossible to catch a cab back home, but with both hands carrying two very, very heavy bags of 7 large aluminum trays of leftover food, I was determined to bring it all home, even if that meant sweating in my nice suit and heels that would have to get dry cleaned the next day and getting soaked as I walked several blocks to the Times Square subway station and awkwardly smelling up the entire subway car with Italian food as I took the NRQ and L back home to Stuy Town.  It was hard work, but worth it.  The look on my roommates’ faces when they saw the 7 aluminum trays full of delicious Italian food was as if they had just seen the biggest tits they’d ever seen in their entire lives on a tiny 5’0″ girl.  Yes, they got a foner — a food boner.

This is how much food there was when I brought it home:

Carmine's Leftovers

After 4 days, there are just 4 trays left now.  Roommate L has eaten 3 of them by himself.  I am slowly making my way through the leftover angel hair pasta with garlic tomatoes.  I thought this would be enough food to last us like 3 weeks, but apparently it’s going to be more like one week.  That’s still ok.