The walk home was not so favorable, because it was downpouring, but nevertheless it was still fun! Thank gosh the nice waitress at Nola gave me some nice compostable plastic bags to double tie my nice camera up in for our run through the rain! Now go check out the inside and some grub.

Apaprently, Nola has a great coffee bar (thanks for the tip Joanne!), but the other kind of bar has a very colorful assortment of infused vodka in huge glass iced tea containers. The dining area has some random and funny subtle decorations. This place definitely has character and I loved that we had live music (Tuesdays!) to relax with.

Here was our menus and simple tap water with some cucumber slices to give it a nice fresh flavor. I loved that.

Laurita got the orange crush: ‘Nola’s delicious orange rum infusion, tall glass, sugar rim, half an orange squeezed in and topped with tonic.’ She was very slow about drinking it, might not have been sweet enough for her. But like the good sister I am, helped her finish it after we finished our dinner!

I got a strawberry margarita. And I have never had such a flavored margarita, and you wanna guess what my opinion was?? FAVORABLE!!!! I loved that darn drink soooo. mucccch. Subtle strawberry, very tangy from the lime, just overall refreshing and deeelish.

So Laurita and I were very daring for our dinner choices, as we picked the same thing! It was the ‘Gorgonzola Burger- Local Grass-fed Beef Burger topped with Roasted Squash, Grilled Onions, and Gorgonzola Cheese.’ I loved that they used local, fresh and different ingredients for a burger. I wish the patty had been a bit bigger, but the toppings were very tasty. Sweet potato fries came with it, and they were a bit over baked for my taste, but I still ate them happily.

So that about sums up our meal! It’s a super cool place and they have very decent fresh and local fare. Kinda reminds me of One World near Hopkins homewood campus but its a little more newly renovated! Go check it out if you want a coffee and tasty bite to eat!

So my good old friend Pinal was in town the weekend of the 4th of July and so we decided to get together and two of our other friends, Offie and Karen joined us! Offie really wanted to go to Fells point and so I started thinking about great places to eat down there. Ned had raved about the outdoor seating and exceptionally tasty food at One Eyed Mike’s in the past so I chose that!

The food was great, the service was great and I love how a hole in the wall kind of bar can have such a lovely outdoor patio and tasty things to eat! And they have lots and lots of grand marnier and that is always a good thing.

Jen (my new roomate Jen in FREDERICK!!!) just told me a great fun thing about One Eyed Mike’s. Apparently they close at 1 am, but they spread the “info” right before then and everyone buys a shot of grand marnier and they turn out the lights and everyone does a shot. The thought is that is much more kind on us patrons to turn out the lights and have a fun shot instead of turning up the lights and start yelling! I like it. We didn’t stay that late, but if we did that would be nice. The other cool and most important thing about OEM’s is the bottles and bottles of Grand Marnier. You can purchase one and keep it in the long cabinets for your enjoyment whenever you want!

I love this hanging sculpture, right behind the bar.

So after a nice visit to the bar and a surprise appearance from Dara and her husband Tom (love seeing you everywhere lady!) we went back to the back patio and had our dinner. We started with a cheese plate and that was a very good idea. There was a cheddar, comte, bleu, gouda, and one other that escapes me. Paired with some tasty cracker, nicoise olives and sausage bites, it was deeelish.

Then we got our sandwiches. Pinal got the meatball sub: ‘A generous portion of homemade meatballs and marinara sauce served on a toasted sub roll with melted provolone and parmesan cheese.’ Have you ever seen something so tasty?? Yeah he loved it, everyone loved their meals. I don’t exactly recall what everyone especially liked about their sandwiches but the plates were clean about 20 minutes later, so there ya go.

Offie got the reuben: ‘Lean pastrami that’s warmed and smothered in sauerkraut, served with swiss cheese and thousand island dressing on toasted rye bread.’ Oh that fresh meat just looks so appetizing.

Karen got the Duke: ‘This is One-Eyed Mike’s answer to a hearty club sandwich.  Served on triple tiered toasted white bread with smoked turkey, Virginia baked ham, bacon, lettuce, tomato, onion and mayo.’ Defnitely one heck of a club sandwich! All of the club sandwiches came with chips and either coleslaw or pasta salad.

Here’s my coleslaw. Not as good as Andy Nelson’s in my opinion, but very fresh and tangy. And there was my french dip au jus! Oh au jus I love you!

Here was my french dip. I don’t get these sandwiches very often so I don’t really have the taste repertoire built up to be an “authority” but this one was good. The bread was perfectly toasty to hold up to the au jus and the meat and cheese were perfect. I could defnitely go for this the next time they eat there!

And here was the lovely outdoor setting. Idyllic, no??

Go check out the decor and many things that we feasted on…

See all the fun flags?? It reminds me of Cafe Golden west and thats always a good thing. And it reminds me of being in Guadalajara 6 years ago…

Here’s the long bar with nice lights and nice drinks.

Here was my first drink: a mango margarita. I liked it very much. But for the second round I went with the cucumber and melon margarita and although the flavor was a bit strange, I still drank it. Everyone had a multitude of different margaritas that night. Well cause one Thursday is $5 margarita night and we just like to party.

Then we started eating: first a trio of salsas. One of the red’s was very hot, one very smokey and little green in the middle? Well it was just right. I think cause they used tomatillos..

And then came guacamole! I remembered good things about the guac on my first visit here. They make very good guacamole. But then again, how hard is it to make guacamole good? ehhhh, I digress!

And to eat those delicious things above, we had chips. And these chips aren’t the run of the mill tortilla variety, they do a Terra chip kind of thing with lots of different root vegtables. They are definitely one of the highlights of eating there.

This was my entree. I got the pork and pineapple tacos. At first the sweetness felt strange to me with the pork, but after having some of Neds, I realized that this was a good combination. The flavoring of the pork is pretty good. I guess I’m used to barbeque when it comes to shredded pork, but this was pretty good. The sides on the plate, left me wanting something more. Black beans and rice and good and all, but I think they could come up with something better. I love that they grill the fresh tortillas.

Ned got the short rib tacos. Auntie Helen and Scotty have raved about these short ribs, so we had high hopes. I think it was pretty good, the flavor was kind of strange to my palate. Ned liked them, but he liked my tacos better.

Amanda got a quesadilla. I think it was a roasted chicken quesadilla. She liked it very much, I wish I had tried it, because I think I would have liked it very much too!

Megan got the Tequila braise bison burrito. She has gotten this entree once before and she, being the health nut that she is, loves getting bison instead of pork or beef. And it has sweet potatoes inside too. I think I would have liked this, if I tried it.

And here we are together. I love these friends of mine. They really make my times in Baltimore fun.  And as for Diablita? I would rather have Fiesta Mexicana if I was in the mood for real Mexican food, but the food here is more than adequate when it comes to . But they make some mean drinks here and the atmosphere is fun, so all in all its a good place to hang out.

So for our June cookbook club, Alayne hosted, and pretended to make a barbeque feast, and it was held at Joanne’s house!

But really, we all planned to make nice baby shower food and you can see it below! So the above picture is when she walked into the SURPRISE!!

This picture you can tell that shes very happy.

And here’s a nice one in her I’m the big mama chair!!

And here was our spread. The food was really amazing actually. To see it more up close go to our Charm City Cookbooking page!

Here below you can see all of the bloggers who participated! Chris Ann, Mary, Kristin, Jen, Carabee, Beth, me and Dara! I love these ladies, there are always so many interesting things to talk about and I’m glad I got to meet two new bloggers (Jen and Carabee!). Well so the premise of this party, unbeknownst to us, was to eat and greet and taste espresso! (well the espresso tasting was the surprise!). Chris Ann and Kristin are going to be selling one blend of coffee on their site and we got to help them pick which one we liked the best!

So we tasted, and snacked, and toured and ate some more and had a lovely evening. And we even got some fun gifts! First off, I won a gift card to Melting Pot, (which I already bequeathed to my sister Laurita) and then got a beautiful handmade fork magnet, a pearl BlogLove necklace and a sweet headband! I’m waiting until my Great Grapes Panel premiere on July 25 to break out the necklace, but I have been wearing this headband every other day since then! Now go check out some more fun pictures from that night.

Beth and I had fun taking pictures of each other while taking pictures. Silly I know, but such are we.  Thomas, the owner of Zeke’s coffee, gave us a nice history of his business and gave us some coffee lingo knowledge too for our tasting. (Like the foaminess, oil, etc…)

Here’s the facade of the bean roasting facility in Lauraville, actually right behind Chameleon cafe. We took a nice walk from his shop and got to see behind the scenes!

Here are the huge burlap bags of coffee beans, waiting to be roasted. Tom explained to us about the roasting and that their technique uses hot air that comes from underneath the beans when its in the “pot” and the beans float freely and bounce around during the whole process, which ensures nice even roasting. And they can get even temperatures with their equipment too.

After they are done roasting, they go into these tubs, each labeled with the variety.

And in the next room is all of the bags waiting to be sold! He said he would sell this whole rack in one week of visiting farmer’s markets, etc. Wow! I bought my dad the Amistad variety, one from Costa Rica and he liked it.

Then after our tour, we ate some crepes, with nice shrimp and mushroom fillings, respectively. And there was the fresh fruit too. All delicious!

Thank you so much LoveFeast ladies, I feel so honored to be invited to such a lovely event.

This all came from my discovery of a nice Father’s Day card that was mailed to Abuelito while I was relaxing after a tiring day from packing the pod and running around to finalize leaving my apartment and buying cute baby stuff for Renee! Actually the Comcast line was not so bad, so I shouldn’t complain too much… and Babies R Us is quite amusing to browse…

Grandma showed me the card Jen and Bobby sent abuelito for Father’s Day (and this was quite amazing, because somehow the card was mailed to him while THEY were on their honeymoon!) and I got to thinking, how can I do something nice for abuelito for Father’s day?? I opened the New Best Recipe cookbook and discovered the omelet, something so simple and yet so amazing (or so I’ve heard, did you know I detest eggs in that state??). So after my marathon movie watching later that night (Orphan and Away we go), I awoke with four hours of sleep and went mad in the kitchen! Below you can see my nice breakfast.

So making omelets reminded me of the passage in Mastering the art of french cooking that to practice making omelets one should take beans and practice flipping the pan to get those nice omelet folds perfect! So anyway, Grandma actually cooked the bacon for me, so that was cool. I stuck to the omelet making (I did two; one for the lady and one for the sir). Go check out more pictures below!

Here’s where it all begins, butter. yep, thats how every great recipe starts!

Then we got some mise en place. I cut up some sliced ham, got the cheddar cheese out and cut up some fresh chives. Auntie Martha planted the most amazing herb pot for grandma’s porch and so I snapped those chives right up!

Then I mixed two eggs with salt and pepper and whoosh they went into the hot buttered nonstick pan!

Lastly was the cheese and chives and ham (well there was no ham on this omelet, but you get the picture!)

And some flicking of the wrist ensued and I got exactly what you saw in the first picture! I definitely need some more flicking of the pan and wrist practice, (Ned’s demanding I make him an omelet some weekend morning soon…I guess I will… )

Omelet, bacon, buttered english muffins and orange juice. It was the perfect menu for the morning and I was so proud of myself for cooking eggs expertly! I think Julia would be proud too.

And what about my papa?? Well he decided to go kayaking out west and so I decided to go help paint at my new place and so we met for dinner in Frederick. We walked along carroll creek from my place to get to five guys and ben and jerrys. We ate outside and it was the perfect way to end Father’s Day with my daddy.