Nancy and Tony decided to stick around for a few days after the wedding before heading back to Cali. This of course meant some eating and drinking needed to be done. Even though it was Monday.

Tony decided to hang with my uncle’s family that night, so he missed out on the Monday night festivities. Nancy was staying with a friend near Union Sq, and Twoin had told me recently that Olives had their killer Carpet Bagger Oysters back on the menu. So when opportunity knocks, I open the door and eat it. I met up with Nancy, Chye and Twoin for an 8p dinner and we scarfed down a bunch of appetizers and some pasta. Ordered a bottle of Hendry Block 28 because they didn’t have Block 7 on the wine list anymore. Block 28 is a little lighter with more acidity and just lacks the depth of the Block 7, but still, a very respectable zin. Food-wise, everything was decidedly mediocre (by Olives’ standards) on this night, but the Carpet Baggers (or Carpet Munchers as we sometimes like to call them if we’re messing with the waitress) were as delicious as ever. For the uninitiated, picture an oyster shell. Place a tablespoon of buttery truffled mashed potato in said shell. Nestle a plump, crispy battered and fried oyster into the bed of potato. Top with a piece of beef carpaccio. Enough said.

Afterwards we met up with Kat, Esth and Gar who were already at Decibel. It was Kat’s suggestion to go there and it was a great one, since Decibel has a cool, decidedly tiny NY-underground feel to it which would be appreaciated by our California visitor. There wasn’t room at their table, so we sat at the bar first and ordered a gigantic sized bottle of sake and got to drinking. A little while later a booth freed up in the corner so we all squeezed into it. I had sent an email out earlier in the afternoon to see if anybody wanted to come out, but since it was a Monday I wasn’t sure how many takers we’d get. After we sat down, Ken and Tzo-Ai showed up and then Ricky too, even though I think he’s been busting his ass at work lately. Nice crowd for a Monday. I was impressed. Cousin Nancy got pretty buzzed I think, toasting Kathy’s “birthday month” every 30 seconds or so, and then getting scolded for asking the waiter to change the music (“if you don’t like it, you can leave!”). And Kat got even more drunk than Nancy, but hey, it is her birthday month, right? We have evidence of how drunk Kat was because apparently she scrawled a pretty nice happy birthday picture on Eunice’s Facebook FunWall when she got home…at 2:45am. Nice.

I was a little hung over the next day but made it to work on time and had a reasonably productive day before heading out to meet up with the cousins, including Tony this time, down at Gama. Even my brother came out which happens oh, like, NEVER! He was able to get Rosa to watch the kids so he was free for the night and we made the most of it. I had sent email out to everyone again, but apparently Monday night had been a bit much and hardly anyone had fully recovered by then. The one trooper who did was Kathy (did I mention it was her birthday month?), showing up sporting a sleek new haircut too, looking way better than she should for somebody who woke up drunk that morning. We ate dinner in the back and Gama’s food was as good and homey as ever; exactly the kind of food I’d expect my Korean grandmother to make, that is, if I were Korean and had a grandmother that could cook 50 covers a night. I especially wanted my bro to taste the kalbi jim because he loved the version I made at Thanksgiving but Gama’s is a whole other level beyond my skills. Everything was great and we drank several pitchers of watermelon soju as we had a long meandering conversation culminating in a lengthy discussion of our Toi-San ancestry. Kathy even called her granny for more info but granny was more interested in when Kat was going to visit her than talking about the motherland. Too funny.

After dinner, Kat headed home and the rest of us stayed to play some beer pong. Surprisingly I discovered my cousins don’t really like beer and they were not game for playing with soju; I wonder why. No matter. I made them drink beer anyway, hahaha. Tony and I lost to Nancy and her friend and then I tuned out as I enjoyed my buzz and just chatted with the bartender. Meanwhile James, a regular at the bar, arrived drunk from his company Christmas party and seemed to be into Nancy, so we urged him on to go and play beer pong with her. Eventually my bro had to leave to catch his bus back to NJ, which he missed, and then Tony and I left to catch the next train back to Westchester,which we missed. Fortunately there was another train for us in half an hour, but my bro ended up having to take another bus to the next town over from his place and Rosa had to go fetch him. I hope he’s not too badly in the doghouse over that! In any event he emailed me the next day to say it was all worth it. I have to agree.