Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Day 214, August 2 / Palm Speciale


Day 214 /  August 2, 2011

Palm Breweries  /  Steenhuffel, Belgium

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OK, I think I’ve got a problem.

Groupon
Living Social
What’s the Deal
Open Table
Home Run
The Capital Deal
Specialicious
Even Deal Chicken.  Yes, Deal Chicken.

I’ve signed up for ALL of these half-off e-mail deal-of-the-day coupon sites.  You know the drill, you buy a $40 restaurant gift certificate for $20, or a $60 gift certificate for $30.  So every morning, I have to make split-second decisions as to whether I want 50% off of Indian cuisine in Rockville, 53% off a mani/pedi in Sterling, or $20 off a dog waxing in Alexandria.  If I don’t act today, the deal is gone forever!  I just can’t pass up a good deal!

I’m actually sitting on about 10 of these coupons right now, with expiration dates approaching in the next couple months.  My Living Social coupon for Brasserie Beck in DC expires on August 9, so I tried to make a reservation there for last night – we were going to be downtown anyway, since we were dropping our daughter off for the Taylor Swift concert.

But since it’s the last week of the coupon, Brasserie Beck had pretty much no reservations available, only at 5pm.  We decided to give it a try anyway, maybe get a seat at the bar or patio.  It was a madhouse!  Packed!  We waited about 10 minutes in line for the hostess, then gave up and decided to find someplace else.

Fortunately, just last week I had purchased a Groupon for AGAINN, a gastropub just around the corner from Brasserie Beck.  (FYI, AGAINN, pronounced a-gwin, loosely translates in galeic to “with us.”)  Well, they were out of my first two choices of drafts, Eggenberg Hopfenkönig Pils and Wells Bombadier.  So I settled on a Palm Amber Ale, which the menu said was from England, but is actually from Belgium.

Nice website, average beer.  Definitely your beginner’s Belgian Ale.  The brewery pitches it as “the sociable beer, for every day, for everyone.”  It had mild carbonation, mild taste, less hops than average.  In this case, too mild = Passable.

BTW, I was able to fire up the Open Table app on my iPhone and book a table at Brasserie Beck for next Monday!

3 comments:

  1. You will love Brasserie Beck. What did you think of Againn? I've only had lunch there, but I was pretty impressed.

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  2. Againn definitely had an interesting menu - it seemed like every dish had something to prove, with at least 1 ingredient or side dish out of the ordinary. We started with the house cured prosciutto, made from "the first pig we brought into the restaurant." I didn't ask.

    Linda had a relatively normal hanger steak with frites and a watercress salad, and, for the 2nd time in my life, I had pork belly. Yeah, that doesn't quite help out the 50 pounds quest. It's basically a slow-roasted small cross-section of pork, with layers of fat, meat (muscle) and skin. Looks like this: http://bit.ly/pgICsB and it's quite tasty.

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  3. Wait, I'm confused -- are you working on losing or gaining 50 lb?

    Cheers
    HHH

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