80s night

[gilana]

Last night I had a lovely dinner with sapphira_altair and her friend awfief at Eastern Standard. We all had exciting cocktails; I had a new drink that will shortly be on their menu, so of course I've forgotten the name, but it had tequila, cassis, lemon juice, and ginger beer, and was lovely and light and tart and fruity, and packed quite a punch. sapphira_altair had another new drink that contained rum, rum, rum, rum, and something else -- seriously, four kinds of rum. For dinner I had the grilled cheese, which was nice but unremarkable, but the fries that came with it were delicious. For dessert, the others had the Strawberry Shortcake with brown butter biscuit and chantilly cream (which was nice, but not spectacular), and the cheese platter (which was downright meager compared to our heaping desserts -- tiny portions of one goat, one sheep, and one cow's cheese, all from California), both of which were completely outdone by my Butterscotch Bread Pudding with praline ice cream and salted butter caramel.

After dinner we walked over to the new House of Blues, where Avalon use to be, where bacall had scored us a sweet spot by the railing in front of the bar, with a great view of the stage. Juliana Hatfield was the opening act, and I don't know *what* was up with her. I'm not familiar with her music, but it didn't do much for me, and she just didn't seem to care about being there, to the extent of opening texting on stage (and complaining that her T9 did not recognize the word "bitch".)

But then the Bangles took the stage, and blew her away. They opened with Hazy Shade of Winter, and proceeded through most of their old favorites, including Manic Monday and a moving rendition of Eternal Flame, and some songs I had never heard before. And near the end of the show they totally rocked Walk Like and Egyptian, with Magic Bus thrown in the middle for good measure. They had lots of energy and were clearly having fun up there, and we were having fun with them. Altogether just a lovely night.

Comments

[sapphira-altair.livejournal.com]

(Your username for L is bad)

Man, whatever that rum drink was - it kicked my hot ass. Though I'm still laughing at how excited the waiter was that I wanted to try it. And your dessert totally kicked ours in the pants.

Thanks again for a great time! My teenage self is still squeeing inside that "I saw the Bangles!"

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

She was texting onstage?! That just fails. But I'm glad the Bangles were good. :-)

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Oops, I meant to reply to Gilana!

[coraline]

the bangles and juliana hatfield... my god, i'm back in middle school.
i had no idea the bangles were still playing out!!!

eastern standard looks very intriguing...

[gilana]

I sort of got the impression that it was unusual for them to be playing gigs again, but I'm not sure.

And geez, you guys make me feel old ;)

One of the other nice things about Eastern Standard was their patio, which was heated, so even on a chilly grizzly day we could sit comfortably in a nice open spot, away from the dark and noisy inside.

[trowa-barton.livejournal.com]

Nice

[bacall.livejournal.com]

Thanks for coordinating -- it was fun!