After Action Report

I think Dr. Abby said it best: "Best Blogger Bash Ever." The run down of who was there is at The Phil Harwell Blog-Type Thing. There are already some reports up at Dark Bilious Vapors and Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker. Dr. Abby also has lots of pictures.

Some random thoughts: Phil has a one year old, and looked kinda happy to be with the grownups for a while. Dr. Abby's mom (whose name I'm sorry, but I didn't catch) was really interesting. I'm glad to have met her. She had stories of living in a 600 year old home in England. We swapped some stories, and I think I won with my story of kittens being born in my bed while I was sleeping in it, but she came very close with her story of accidentally baking a mouse! Yeah, it was that kind of party.

Finally got to meet Chris (the Pesky Fly), who was pretty cool. He can socialise and not foam at the mouth or scream "No blood for oil!" Just kidding. He's alright.

I didn't get to talk at all with Bruce (Who came down from Baltimore for a rally with EJ and then came to the blogger bash. Phil has his blog URL.) or Abby's famous dad. I did at least get to chat with everyone else. Very fun group. We managed to socialise for something like three hours very easily.

A word about Dish. As Abby's pictures show, it's a very large space and cleverly minimalistic in design and decoration. Early on, it was pretty quiet, but as all the hip people started to filter in, it got quite noisy, and the music was bumped up a bit. I had trouble hearing some of the conversation, but seemed to be alone in that. (I do have bad hearing now, thanks to years of loud music. A warning to all you young people.)

Our server was Jen, who was (is?) a blogger herself. The staff there was nice, not hip-snooty. I don't drink myself, but everyone seemed to be enjoying their variety of libations. I remember seeing margaritas, sangria and oatmeal ale. I'd definitely go back and would recommend future blogger bashes be held there again.

Next time, we need to get the party table back in the back. See the first pic from Dr. Abby; it's the raised, Japanese-seating area in the back of the space, through the arch above Eric's son.

The food was great. It's tapas-style, which means small appetiser-sized dishes meant to be shared. I tried about six things and not a one was bad. One, the chicken "hot packet" was so good I had another. Chicken, potato, white cheese, black olive, seasonings and some red/brown sauce. Very spicy and totally delicious. Best of all, everything was between $1 and $4! Can't be beat. Mr. Mike recommends it.

Someone did see Rachel of Rachel and the City go into the bar (restaurant?) across the street, but she never made it over to us. We were expecting quite a few others, who didn't show. TOO BAD, you missed out.

Don't make the same mistake twice, OK?