Sunday with the BEP!

Tonight is the Black Eyed Peas concert! The opening acts are LMFAO and Ludacris. With a 7.30 start, we figured our 6 o'clock reservation at Charlie's Place would give us plenty of time to get to GM Place. BTW - they are offering 1,000 points on OpenTable at certain times. When we walked in, we noticed two things…not very busy and it smelled like a florist. Although they only had a few bouquets strewn about the restaurant, the scent was delightful! The waiter specifically told us the drink menus were in the food menus, but they weren’t…maybe he's new? Anyhow, drinks were ordered; I got the Cocktail 1265 (their address) and my friend got the Champer’s Thyme, despite initial hesitation about foliage in his bevvy. Guess who got the girly drink in the girly glass? Both were delicious…mine actually tasted like a sidecar for some reason. For food, we didn’t want something too heavy since we were planning on dancing the night away at GM Place. We settled on the Short Rib pizza (how could you go wrong) and the Mushroom Pappardelle. The pizza was perfect! Thin crust, with caramelized onions, mozza and a subtle kick of horseradish cream. According to my friend, the cream was so good he forgot to pick out the green onions (more foliage that he doesn’t enjoy). We devoured two slices each before I even remembered to take the photo. Unfortunately, the success was the pizza was faded by the failure of the pasta. Pappardelle is supposed to be a large and broad version of fettuccine. After the first few bites, we noticed that our noodles were not broad at all. They were all curled up, almost like rotini! I think the fresh pasta wasn’t hung to dry properly, and ended up curling on itself. So needless to say, the flat broad noodles were cooked properly, but the clumpy ones seemed semi-raw and too doughy. The sauce was amazing though, a good assortment of mushrooms and truffle that hits you the way only truffle oil can – bang on the nose. Halfway through the meal, I could feel myself sobering up, so I ordered another cocktail, the Pineapple Express. I love Van Gogh vodka and can have it anytime…with anything. This was delicious…the combination of the grilled pineapple, chilis and sugar sure sounded weird, but it came together!