Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Hellllooooooooo long lost bloggies!

So I'm going to deliver the bad news first...

Official word from the doc -
achilles tendonitis. GAH! He said it wasn't too bad and it was good that I was coming in early on, but that I should definitely stick to cross training and 'anything that doesn't cause pain' plus pop a bunch of Advil and 6 weeks of physical therapy.
SO NOT HAPPY! And of course while I was at the doctor's office, I wasn't feeling any pain whatsoever. AND he equipped me with a heel lift which, after running 2 blocks to get to work from the doc's office and switching to heel striking, did not cause me any pain...hm...no pain, ey? ;p

I'm going to check out this physical therapy thing and do the elliptical (VOMIT) machine the rest of this week, but there will be no tapping out of the marathon. No freaking way. There's probably no way I'll be able to run the whole thing (unless some sort of miracle takes place in the next week or so) so plan is to run/walk and worst case scenario power walk the whole thing. The last time I ran/walked a long run, I think I did 4:1, which I think is totally doable right now. Either way, it's happening.

I am pretty bummed about the whole thing mostly because I put a lot more into my training this time around and was feeling really good and strong. I was looking forward to running w/V and possibly PRing. The whole thing sucks, but I know I shouldn't push myself to run through pain...I know it'll ultimately end up bad. Whatevs...we'll see how it all goes.

Now for
fun weekend recap...

Friday was the beginning of our
whirlwind weekend. Selin arrived and we almost immediately headed out to one of our favorite dim sum places - A&J Restaurant in Rockville, Maryland. It's small, only takes cash and has a paper menu of delicious treats you mark up and give to your waitress. I forgot to bring my camera and was clearly too distracted by all the food to use the camera on my berry so here are a couple shots I found on Yelp:
The front two dishes are staples for us when we visit A&J -
Cucumber Salad in Hot Garlic Sauce and Potstickers. The cucumbers are cool, refreshing, spicy and slightly sweet (not to mention garlicky ;p).

Another staple dish -
Scallion Pancakes. These are light, crispy, doughy disks of goodness. I like to make a puddle of soy sauce, vinegar and chili sauce on my plate to dip the pancake in...YUUMM :)

Other tasty treats I couldn't find pictures of:
Pan Fried Beef Bun (closest thing to a soup dumpling around here), Cold Noodles in Hot and Sour Sauce, and Bean Curd Rolls with Assorted Mushrooms. There are a lot more suggestions (and photos!) at foodwanderlust too!

After some digesting and vegging out, we met up with friends for dinner at Proof in Gallery Place.
This time I DID remember my camera, but it was way too dark to take any decent photos without a flash (and yes, I felt weird taking flash photos of my food) so here's one courtesy of Google Images:
We sat at the round table in front of the wine wall, but only ordered one bottle of wine between 9 of us. Thanks to Selin, we had an additional 3 delicious bottles
of California wine (none available at the restaurant - they ask in advance) for the low corkage fee of $25 a bottle. Not bad considering the bottles at Proof start around $40.

Dinner was tasty and pretty light. I started with a salad of
Roasted Beets with Pea Shoots and Kaleidoscope Carrots (with sherry mustard vinaigrette, Stilton and toasted hazelnuts). I wish I was able to get a picture of this salad! It was a perfect combination of salty, sweet and earthy. The beets were slightly sweet and went great with the potent Stilton. The hazelnuts (which I forgot were in the salad) were a nice surprise crunch!

Jamie started with the
Crispy Pork Confit (sweet soy glaze, Thai jicama salad and lime-pepper emulsion) and didn't know that was all he ordered. I guess there was a mix up and they thought he wanted the first course serving when he really wanted the main course serving. So we ended up splitting my main course - Wreckfish with Corn and Mushrooms (can't find it on the online menu). The fish was perfectly cooked and had a nice sweet/smokey sauce to go with it. The corn and mushrooms - heaven...then again, they are two of my favorite things ;)

After getting nice and toasty at dinner
(and apparently starting a 'super asian' evening theme), we all jumped into cabs and attempted to grab some drinks at Marvin.
Now I enjoy Marvin on say, a random weeknight or early evening, but 10:30pm on a Friday night? No no. I think we stayed for about a drink each and then decided we all needed to pay a visit to The Big Hunt.
I love the Hunt for many reasons 1) super casual 2) always some sort of seating 3) roof deck option 4) cheap 5) wing nite 6) fond memories and 7) this baby
Ladies and gentlemen, the
Black Velvet (Guinness and Strongbow). I mean, I'm sure I could get this somewhere else, but it just screams Big Hunt to me. Sometimes I think it's weird I like it so much, especially since I rarely drink cider OR Guinness...what can I say, the combination is deliciously refreshing ;) I also tried a pumpkin ale of some sort and um, NO. It smelled really good, but I really wasn't into the taste of it. :(

Even though we are all creeping on 30, we decided we were going to go out like we were barely 21. Heellllo Jaegerbombs!
My end of the table merely pointed and photographed at the shot takers before we hopped on over to the next bar...
(is this turning into a bar review post?? meh?) A friend of mine had mentioned Public Bar recently and I immediately poopoo'd it because of the location. I just assume anything in that general area (near Sesto Senso, 1223, Andalu - or whatever it is now) is going to be crowded and full of really young, clubby types. Not really my thing. However, I will say that at 1am, Public Bar was actually pretty fun. If anyone remembers what Five was like...picture that, but with a ton of TV screens playing all sports, all the time. So bizarre, yet SO fun at the same time.
See? Everyone's having fun and rocking the peace signs...even random lady in the front!

Phew, MAMMOTH post! I'll leave you guys with that and fill you in on the following day (on barely any sleep) with my two nephews. Talk about energetic! Hope everyone enjoyed their weekends!

CONGRATS to everyone that ran Chicago this weekend!! :)

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha, bar and restaurant review! As a DC-er, I LOVE this :) Proof sounds deeelicious - will have to check that one out!

BIG HUNT is my Faaavorite bar in Dupont! The roofdeck option is a huge seller for me, but I also love the prices and the atmosphere. My second favorite place to sit is right at the top of the stairs, you can look down and people watch all night. Very Entertaining ;) haha

on another note - I hope the foot feels better! I'll be at MCM for the 10K - once I figure out the course maybe I can try to find you while you're running and cheer you on! Or join you for a few miles ;) that'd be fun!

Karena said...

Yaay! I'll keep everyone posted as MCM gets closer so you can keep an eye out for me and V. I will definitely welcome the company...run/walking is not one of my favorite things GAH!!

stephanie said...

tell the big hunt i want my fake ID back!! they took it away in 2001.

We Are Not Martha said...

So much fun stuff!! $25 corkage fee sounds crazyyy, but we don't really have any BYOB places in Boston, so I'd take it!

Sues

Paige @ RAN said...

Ahhh sorry about the tendonitis:( Mine has gotten much better with the use of some anti inflammatories and orthodics my Dr. gave me. I also took it easy for a couple weeks.

Sounds like you had a blast at dinner/drinks!

Olga said...

sounds like a great time! Love dim sum, love Proof, looking forward to one day having bruch at Marvin.

Selin said...

God that was such a fun day/evening! You forgot to mention the post-dim sum naps we took while watch the OC on Soapnet. Hahaha sooo lazy.