I flew into Dulles on Friday morning and consider myself lucky to have caught the flight. Twoin’s flight was canceled due to the gigantic snowstorm out in the midwest. I’m guessing the plane that was supposed to have arrived in NY from Chicago to fly down to D.C. probably never made it out of Chicago. Merk was supposed to pick me up from the airport but she got stuck on a conference call for work that she had to take from a landline because it was overseas. I hadn’t seen Merk in several years so I would have been pretty bummed if she couldn’t break away to meet me. Fortunately she finally finished up her call and came over to my hotel so we could grab some lunch.

We hit the Cafe in the Willard Hotel where I was staying and the food was pretty darn good. I ordered the chicken consomme, fried calamari, crab cakes and giant prawns with scallops. The consomme was what I was really interested in since it hasn’t been a common menu item since probably the 80’s. They brought a noveau twist to the deal by finishing it with a generous drizzle of truffle oil. A little brunois of vegetable added to the interest of the soup, but really it was the beautiful clarity of the consomme coupled with the richness of the truffle oil that made the dish so satisfying. The calamari was also a winner. Cornmeal crusted and garnished with arugula it was a very respectable rendition. The crab cakes were decent but unspectacular. They really needed the whole grain mustard they were served with in order to come to life. Then came the prawns and scallops. I didn’t care for the scallops in the dish as they tasted slightly off. Perhaps they were the kind that were artificially saturated with fluids to increase their plumpness, but whatever the cause, I can say they were not particularly appetizing. The prawns however were expertly grilled and they were served with the head still on, as they should be. For dessert we had the key lime pie (awesome), and the cheescake (good but not outstanding). The coffee was particularly good, as was the company of course, and Merk grabbed the check and wouldn’t let me pay. What a sweetie.

Later that night I was off to the rehearsal dinner at Tony Lin’s in MD. Surprisingly authentic and good Chinese food considering it was located in a remote corner of a strip mall. There was a good mixture of traditional chinese banquet food, Szechuan and Taiwanese food. Of the many courses we had, a few dishes stood out to me. The initial cold app tray was different than what I was used to seeing in banquet menus. It had about 8 different items including some of the stranger chinky items like pork tendon, jellyfish and conch. Good stuff. The soup course was an excellent mushroom and seafood type of thing which while being overly thickened in the usual Chinese manner, still retained an awesome mushroomy, seafoody, salty goodness. The other big surprising winner of the night was the sticky rice dessert which included dates and red bean paste. Our table totally finished that plate but we didn’t finish the second one that was brought over from one of the other tables.

After dinner we headed over to the hotel bar in the JW Marriot. While I was staying at the slightly more expensive Willard hotel, I thought the JW Marriot property was nicer. The rooms were richly appointed in the more modern stile that I prefer, but they were half the size of our rooms at the Willard. We ended up closing the bar and then rested up for wedding day.

A bunch of us hit the Willard Cafe for breakfast the next day. The buffet pretty much sucked, so we all ordered from the menu. I got the corned beef hash and the bakery basket which included a perfect croissant as well as some really awesome apricot cheese pastries. We ordered a bunch of bloody maries too, but those were horribly dissapointing due to their lack of interesting flavor. Note to everyone- bloody maries should be more than just tomato juice, vodka and hot sauce. Oh well, we drank these lame versions down anyway.

My only responsibility for this wedding was to organize the bus transportation. Since the bus was running late, it worked out well since I didn’t really expect everyone to be on time anyway. With just one minor hiccup (one person made alternate travel arrangements without telling me), we made it to the church on time and their short and sweet ceremony followed. The highlight of the short ceremony was that was brought to tears at the first glimpse of his bride entering the chapel. Can hardly blame him as Chye really looked angelic as she entered the church. Kat caught a picture of Hing’s expression at the moment that he was about to cry and it really is priceless. Anybody that sees that picture can’t help but get choked up too I think.

Afterwards, the reception was in the Ronald Reagan building which was a little bit of a pain since we had to go thru security and the metal detector since it is a government building. The food was quite good, including the filet mignon which was perfectly medium rare and accompanied by some beautifully rich mashed potatoes. The soup course was also delicious with three tiny smoked scallops swimming in a cream based soup. But the meal itself seemed to be just an afterthought as Dawg made sure we were not shirking our duties as alcoholics. I was already pretty buzzed by the time the newlyweds made there table visitation rounds, but it was at that point that Dawg went into serious drink mode since his other work was basically done.

For the next three hours, I was subjected to relentess calls to do shots with Hing. I don’t recall the last time I succumbed to peer pressure this readily, but by the end of the reception we must have done over 10 shots each and forced the bartender to get more creative about what cocktails she could serve up as shots as we were drinking her out of several different mixers. We went thru lemon drops for the first hour and a half, then cosmopolitans, then something green and then finally whatever crazy concoction she could come up with whenever we approached the bar. The worst was the last several shots which she was topping off with straight vodka to even up the pours. I was totally hammered by the time the night was over.

However, we decided to meet up for further drinks at the JW Marriot bar and then back over to one of our hotel rooms at the Willard and got some room service. When we got up to the room, Dawg only remained conscious long enough to order more beer and some food before he passed out on the bed. We all gathered together in that one room, but by the time the beers came, nobody felt like they could drink anymore. We said our goodbyes and returned to our rooms, and here I am now, writing this instead of going to bed because I’m still too drunk and would probably get the bed spins if I laid down right now. I am completely thrilled that I haven’t gotten sick from all the insane amount of drinking we did tonight. It’s been a really fun weekend and I’d hate to finish it on a messy note!