Barley, Hops and the Hill

I know the majority of you got home from work on Tuesday, looked at your watch and thought, “I am too tired to go to BHH.  It always goes late and I don’t have the energy to be smart at trivia.”  Well, I think you should know that it was an early night.  I got home around 2:30 AM, early Wednesday morning.  It wasn’t that trivia at Clever Dunnes was so riveting (more on that later) but more the phone call we got at 10 PM telling us about the private concert Wynton Marsalis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wynton_Marsalis) was putting on at Canlis at midnight.  So, first, thanks to all Hopper who came out on a weeknight.  We had Jerod, Justin, Duff, Bob and Ginger.  And, now, for the report…

Ah, Clever Dunne’s.  We showed up around 8:20 to find a small crowd had already begun to fill in the bar for its trivia night  The bar itself is an oddly shaped space.  As you walk in there is a narrow strip to the left that has booths lined on the right and darts in the corner.  Going to the right from the door opens into a bigger space with the bar up a few steps, a pool table and some seating.  For a place with trivia, seating is awkward and the tables seat 3 dwarves comfortably.  To get enough seating we had to negotiate with a twosome hogging 8 chairs.  Justin beat them up am we ran off giggling with the new chair.  Sitting next to huge open windows on a warm summer evening sounded like a fantastic idea until the smoke from the cancer-stick sucking patrons outside floated in to settle as a cloud among us.  Delicious.

The bartender was a scraggly 20-something who was enjoying his last night of bartending before moving on to bigger and better.  The Hoppers stuck to beer, mainly Boddingtons since this did not look like a cocktail venue.  Hopper Jerod’s heart could be heard breaking when he realized it was a fake Irish pub and came back complaining about the poor selection of drinks.  Trivia was hosted by two fellows who were great when they were not trying to be funny.  ’Kerri Strugg’s Broken Ankle’ was a clear contender for the number one spot even though we fumbled Ross Perot’s   birthplace (does anyone really care?).  The whole crowd had a really fun energy to it and it was obvious that we were surrounded by regulars.  The banter and shouts were all positive and it was even nice when the host threatened to beat someone’s face in when they yelled the answer out.  The photo round was butter (easy) and we were feeling a little full of ourselves when a phone call came in…

Now, yes, I know that we are supposed to stick to Capitol Hill and judge only Capitol Hill but when Hopper Sarah calls to announce a last minute late night concert by Wynton Marsalis at Canlis, folks drop what they do and get dudded.  We rolled up to Canlis and set the place on fire with our hotness.  Marsalis was supposed to play at Benaroya last night but, Hopper Bob reports, cancelled the show last minute, called Canlis and asked to play there instead. Marsalis had a whole group of friends with him and a band which included drums, upright bass, piano and sax.  As they played different friends of Marsalis slid in played on their own trumpets or took Marsalis’ and blew our minds.  I tried using a thesaurus to come up with a word for the music and talent we witnessed and will say that if you put together ‘amazing, astonishing, astounding, fantastic, marvelous, incredible, phenomenal, prodigious, stupendous, unbelievable, wonderful and wondrous’ you start to get close (thank you Roget’s).  Many thanks to Chris Matthews for making this possible by getting the word to us.  

Now to judge what some consider the best restaurant in the city.  We sat in the lounge with an incredible view of Wallingford, Lake Union and Gas Works behind us.  We, also, were in the same section as Marsalis and his friends so our server was not as attentive as we would have preferred.  It also could have been that we had crammed 6 people in a 4 person table and the woman did not smell the cash on us. Regardless, it took a while to convince her to pay attention to us and take our order.  She seated us and mentioned they had champagne by the glass and then gave us an awkward stare down.  Hopper Duff was in the mood for a scotch and the sommelier, Michael, came right over and was incredibly helpful in finding something to fit Duff’s taste.  When the drink came he was pleased.  Hoppers Justin and Jerod when with gin and tonics and immediately Justin was raving about how well it was mixed and proportioned.  Hopper Ginger went with an Irish Coffee and jumped to order a second one as soon as it was finished.  I caved under the stare down and ordered a champagne (Billecart-Salmon Brute Rosé).  I have never paid so much for a glass of anything but it had power and depth, with strawberry, cassis, citrus, bread dough and mineral tones.  Intense on the palate with red berries, dried flowers and a delicate yeasty note.  Nope, those are totally my words.  And let’s talk about the truffle fries.  AMAZING!  THE BEST!  ’Nuff said.

So, stick with us, kid, and magical things will happen.  Turns out Canlis really is all that. The food, the drink, the view…  Clever Dunne’s was buckets of fun and we will return to finish the trivia night and we will really dominate.  Thanks to the Hill Hoppers who came out and dressed to impress.  Once again we did not fill out the cards so I would love to hear your thoughts as would the rest of the world.  No Hop this weekend so have buckets of fun with the fireworks.  Please don’t blow yourself up.