Text 2355, 81 rader
Skriven 2010-10-02 22:17:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: taste of bethesda 625
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I happened to be in town and noticed an ad for the Taste of
Bethesda; mulled over the idea of going, but the Website
wasn't particularly inspirational, so I sort of forgot about it.
But my brother said, hey, the Taste of Bethesda is tomorrow, and
I took that as a plea to be fed, so I said okay.

I needed to run some errands and said I'd meet him in front of
the Morton's booth at 2, pretty easy to remember if you ask me.

Tickets are 4 for $5, proceeds going to some charity or
charities unknown.

Got there at 2 with the expected result. Morton's was selling
filet mignon sliders for 2 tickets, what a deal. Well, they
cut their sliders in half, and they were looking to get 4 each.
Okay, I got 2 halves: the first contained I'd say a generous
ounce of very tender, very tasteless meat, nice and rare; the
second a generous half ounce of mushy, completely tasteless
meat, of unknown doneness, perhaps raw, because of the mushiness,
with a mustard sauce. After waiting in line and bolting down my
food, no brother at 2:15. Okay, that's sort of what I expected.

The Bistro Lazeez booth was just opposite its restaurant: it
was selling 4 wing segments or a thigh for 2 tickets, or
hummus or baba ghannoush for 1. I got a thigh, which was smallish
but tasty, in a Mediterranean marinade that unfortunately had
lavender in it. Still no brother, so I went across to the patio
of the bistro and waited, consuming a couple Stellas in the
process. 2:45. So I decided that enough was enough.

Bumped into the kid just before 3; he claimed he'd been in front
of Morton's at 2:25, which is unlikely, because even though I'm
shortsighted I'm not that bad. He had apparently been eating on
his own and had spent a considerable amount of his own dosh; he
wanted a tribute of 10 tickets, but they came in pages of 8, so
that's what I gave him, and then he said he wanted to go off by
himself, which was both rude and a relief. We agreed to meet at
closing time at the entrance, fine with me.

I tried Ruth's Chris's tenderloin slider at 3 tickets: it was
twice the size of Morton's and had almost a quarter pound of
meat which tasted better than Morton's but wasn't tenderloin -
rather some sort of fajita meat basted in smoke-flavored butter.

OZ Restaurant and Wine Bar (from the Doubletree) was offering
a lamb chop for 4 and a duck salad with spinach, blue cheese
crumbles, and a balsamic-fruit vinaigrette for 3. The lamb
chops were temporarily sold out, so I asked for a duck salad
sans cheese, cheerfully and quickly supplied. It was quite
good, but after a few bites, the lamb was ready: what was
given to me - 3 chops off a baby rack, two singles, rare, one
double, medium-rare. Not the tenderest of lamb - the racks had
been preseared, then thrown on the grill at a somewhat too low
temperature, then cut - but still the bargain of the day.

Divino Lounge offered skirt steak, which was out, empanadas,
which were down to shards, and Argentinian sausage - a short
fat thing, very porky and somewhat salty but underseasoned
otherwise, in one of those squat rolls that comes half prebaked
in trays - 3 tickets.

All standard beverages (donated by Coca-Cola) were 1 - when I
got thirsty, just before 4, almost everyone was sold out of
almost everything, and so I had the choice of Coke or Coke,
so I had a Coke, which was pretty yummy, I admit, though my
head suffered a bit from it.

For not too much food I shelled out 20 tickets and $14 for beer.
With the 8 for my brother and 4 given to some poor starving soul
who arrived late after the ticket booth had closed (he waved a
ten at me, but as I was going to give them away anyhow, I didn't
take it), that's 54 bucks, a terrible bargain.

I was at the meeting point early and saw him get there on
time: he didn't see me, though I was right in front of him.
I decided to wait until he noticed me: it was over 3 minutes:
I'm glad he didn't become a scientist like his father.

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