Month: March 2011

If you’re headed west to watch the Memphis Tigers in the NCAA tournament, the Tulsa Food Guy has put together a 5-part series on where to eat. View it here.

I’ve spent the past 4 days compiling a list of St. Pat’s parties and specials Downtown. Let’s see what we’ve got:

Kooky Canuck will have its usual Green Carpet Party with Irish menu and drink specials all day. Here’s the list (sorry for the all caps, I copied and pasted from their Facebook event page):

$3.00 – 34oz Green Bud Light Draft
$5.00 Car Bombs
St. Patricks Day Menu
$100 for who wears the MOST GREEN!! Winner will be picked at 10pm.

APPETIZERS : POTATO SKINS , BEER CHEESE DIP , IRISH SODA BREAD

SANDWICH : REUBEN , OPEN FACE POT ROAST/ IN GUINNESS GRAVY

SOUP : COLCANNON POTATOES , IRISH STEW

ENTREE : SHEPHERD’S PIE , CORN BEEF / CABBAGE / WHISKEY GLAZED CARROTS , BEEF IN GUINNESS , IRISH ROASTED POT .

DESSERT : CHOCOLATE POUND CAKE / WITH IRISH WHISKEY CREAM SAUCE , IRISH BREAD PUDDING / WITH IRISH WHISKEY CREAM SAUCE

The Silly Goose will have $3 Irish Car Bombs all day long, as well as Guinness and other specials.

The Peabody will have $2 St. Pat’s chocolate cupcakes in their deli all day long.

TJ Mulligan’s Pinch will have green beer, corned beef & cabbage and jello shots all day. Adam Levin will play 4-8 and MudPuppies 9-1. At 8:45 there will be bagpipers.

I don’t know if Max’s Sports Bar will have any St. Patrick’s Day celebrations, but if you’re a basketball fan they’ll have all the NCAA tournament games on their many TVs. I texted Max’s Foursquare “mayor” Mikey and asked if they’d be doing Thursday poker at 7 as usual, and he replied “Next stupid question?”, so it looks like poker will happen.

The Flying Saucer will have Irish dancers at 6 to kick off the evening’s festivities. Irish bagpipers at 7, music by the Real McCoys at 8. They’ll have an Irish food menu for lunch and dinner, and they’ll have Irish beers like Guinness and Harp on tap, as well as the rest of the Saucer’s beer selections.

Silky’s will have the traditional Raising of the Goat and Blessing of the Kegs. Festivities are slated to begin at 5, but remember that Silky operates on “Silky Time,” so if you get there at 6:30, 7:00 or later, you probably won’t have missed much.

Flying Fish will have green margaritas and 2 for 1 Killian’s bottles all day.

Perhaps the celebration I look forward to the most will be the one at Bardog Tavern tonight. It’s their third annual Erin-Go-Braghless party. Toss your bra on the bar and get your first drink for a penny. Attire suggestion for Suzy, if she’s reading this: Green tube top. They’ll have beer cheese soup made with McSorley’s, Guinness and McSorley’s specials, drink specials.

Today is Escape Alley Sundry’s first birthday. Tonight they’ll celebrate with music by Landon Lane and the Ivories, Smoochie Smith and the Stunning Cunning.

Hope to see everyone out tonight! Weather is perfect and it should be a fabulous evening to get your drink on.

Thanks to LifeHacker, I found an awesome weather site this morning. WeatherSpark has a very cool interface where you can mouse over days in the future, hour by hour, to see what the temperature will be and whether it will be raining. But here’s the really cool part… it has historical data for the past 50 years. I was able to put in the zip code where I was born, back the date pointer up, and see what the weather was like the day I was born. Light rain and temps around 60 for most of the morning, then light rain again late afternoon, then the temp tapered off to the upper 30s. Typical November day, in other words.

In her latest Whining & Dining post, CA columnist Jennifer Biggs says that the Bon Ton Cafe is scheduled to re-open in May. It has been closed since 2008 when the owner unexpectedly passed away. It will re-open as a “retro diner.”

The Big Wig Ball has been announced for Saturday, April 16 at Minglewood Hall. I have never made it to this event, due to conflicts with Hot Wing Fest and Memphis Brewfest, but friends tell me it’s one of the biggest parties of the year. As the name implies, everyone wears wigs to the party. There will be live music by Seeing Red, complimentary wine & beer, heavy hors d’oeuvres, and free parking. Cost is $55 in advance and you can get tickets here.

Having fun with WordPress today at work. The Widget Logic plugin is awesome if you’re building a CMS and need different sidebars to appear on different pages. Time for an expensive trip to the gas station, then a quick lunch. Not sure what I’ll get into tonight, but it’s too nice outside to stay home.

A new concert has been announced at the FedExForum – Foo Fighters, Motorhead and Biffy Clyro will play May 20. Tickets go on sale to the public this Saturday at 10 PM.

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a new fitness center coming to South Main – Klein Fitness, near Main and Vance. Today’s Groupon is for Klein – $45 for a month of unlimited group classes and one 30-minute personal training session. It’s up to a $125 value.

Couple of specialty gyros are on the menu at Elliott’s on Second this week. They have the “Red Sea G,” a gyro made with hot habanero curry sauce and hummus. “If you like mouth explosions, you’ll enjoy the Red Sea G,” owner Harry posted. For those who want to enjoy hummus on a gyro without feeling like a volcano is erupting in your mouth, try the “Lamb Hum.” Both will be available the rest of this week.

The food truck ordinance goes before the full city council today at 3:30. It’s not perfect – trucks can’t operate past 10 PM and can only stay in one place for two hours – but it’s a start. Hope it passes. The Memphis Daily News has more on the food truck ordinance.

The Majestic Grille has St. Pat’s specials all week: Fish & Chips, Corned Beef on Rye, and Shepherd’s Pie. Chef Patrick, being Irish, knows a few things about cooking for St. Patty’s Day.

I got a notification on Facebook that the annual push-cart parade on Beale, scheduled for tonight, has been canceled. Not sure why. It’s something the local bars and restauants do the Tuesday of St. Patrick’s Day week.

Congrats to my BBQ Fest team The Ques Brothers, who received official confirmation from Memphis in May today that we are IN for 2011. I’m ready for a week of BBQ and debauchery!

I’ll be at the Saucer for trivia night at 7. The team is 3 for 3 since new trivia guy David took over. We’re getting another sizable stack of gift certificates together for the next team party! Right now, it’s time for lunch then a few hours of work on WordPress… have a good afternoon everyone!

I came in second at poker at the Silly Goose tonight. Unfortunately that did me no good whatsoever, as only first place gets the weekly prize! So I drank a bunch of PBR and did a shot someone bought for no return on investment at all.

Actually, that’s not entirely true. I earned 5 points toward Poker Jon’s league standings. Problem is, I’ve played so much drunk poker at the Goose and the other locations that it really won’t help.

At least I eliminated Brick (pictured here) tonight.

Damn Brick is photogenic.

I installed the WPtouch mobile theme for WordPress, to make it easier for people on mobile devices to view the blog. Posts will load faster, and there are options to e-mail, tweet, Facebook post, or bookmark blog posts. I hope iPhone, Android and Blackberry users like it. If you don’t, there’s an option to turn off the mobile theme – just scroll down to the bottom of the index page and you’ll see an on/off switch.

Bardog Tavern has a new mayor on Foursquare. Mikey, pictured here, checked in and became the mayor yesterday afternoon right before the St. Pat’s parade. You become “mayor” of a venue on Foursquare if you check in more times (only one per day counts) than anyone else over the past two months.

Mikey also has the mayorship of Max’s Sports Bar. He’s building a nice little portfolio of mayorships. I wonder if he’ll go in Bardog today and order a “MAYORAL beer” and hint around that it would be nice to get it for free, like the former mayor used to do. Wonder if he’ll hint around that he’s available if the chefs in the kitchen need someone to do a food sampling, because, “after all, I AM the mayor.”

Foursquare has changed up their points system and I like the way they do it. Usually, you get 1 point for a checkin. However, if you check in where one of your Foursquare friends is mayor, it gives you 2 points. If you check in with the mayor, you get 3 points. You also get 3 if you check in as the mayor of a venue (so I get 3 points every day at the Saucer).

There are other bonuses. When I checked in at Bardog Friday night, Foursquare informed me that I’d checked in with birthday girl Ruchee, and awarded me 3 points because I hadn’t seen her since we last checked in together at Kooky Canuck two months ago. Wow. Location-based social media is a stalker’s paradise. Yesterday I checked in and the app awarded me +3 for checking in with someone I hadn’t seen since Cooper-Young Fest.

Sunday Fun Day today. Several reasons to celebrate: Selection Sunday at 5 PM, sun doesn’t set until 7 PM, and if driving weather in Tennessee/North Carolina is good, the return of Air Traffic Mike. Going to do a please-let-the-Fire-Sale-be-good dance, then head out for the first beer of the day.

LET’S DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Huge win for the TIGERS!

When a “local” business unexpectedly goes above and beyond, I’ve got to call them out on it.

Last night was the “Blackout” pub crawl celebrating the birthdays of Ruchee and the Nuh-Uh Girl (pictured here). Everyone wore black (well, except the people who forgot or weren’t told about the theme).

The second stop was Local Gastropub. The Nuh-Uh Girl had told us she’d set up some “AWESOME drink specials” including $3 beer. Knowing the Nuh-Uh Girl’s tendency to exaggerate, I expected to be paying $3 for a Bud Light.

I was pleasantly surprised, though. The $3 special included delicious local Ghost River beers. Now we’re talking! I got out my money and got ready to enjoy a Ghost River Glacial Pale Ale.

Bad luck struck, though. Right as the customer ahead of me was being served, the CO₂ tank blew. All the beer lines were down. The bartender thought for a minute and said, “Well, I tell you what, I’ll give you a bottle for $3.” She listed my options and I went with a Red Stripe with a lime. Red Stripe for $3? Not bad at all.

Gotta give them kudos for overdelivering. They did indeed have an “awesome” beer special for the party, and then they made the best of a bad situation to make sure their customers left satisfied. Very pleased to see it. When the place first opened a year ago, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the service, but based on my experience last night it appears the problems have been corrected.

Also gotta give them props for what they did this morning. I’ve complained that they pander to UT fans too much, but this morning they opened at 10 for Tigers fans to watch the game. Good job on that.

They have crawfish boils every Sunday in March at 5 PM. I need to stop by for one of those.

I need to find out who won “Blackout Bingo” that was played last night at the pub crawl. People got squares for accomplishing certain tasks, like tweeting a photo of them taking a bar’s specialty shot, or tweeting a pic of a prominent feature of a bar, like the stripper pole at Raiford’s. My bingo card accidentally got misplaced in the garbage can at Bardog (not sure how that happened) so I didn’t win any prizes.

On to today… St. Patrick’s Day parade on Beale Street at 4. I’ll probably pre-game at the Saucer for an hour then head down there a little after 3. I’m bringing the camera and plan on wandering around a lot and taking pictures. First St. Pat’s parade in years that it’s been warm enough to wear a T-shirt and shorts. Should be a fun Saturday. Let’s get this party started!