The Porter & Mayer Hawthorne

Last Friday we had tickets to see Mayer Hawthorne at the Variety. Beforehand we met friends at The Porter for dinner. We started with the Belgian fries and they were ridiculous. Slathered in garlic oil. So good.

The vegan option at The Porter is the black bean burger. Oh, look, more fries. Now, given the reputation The Porter has for their food, I was expecting a little more from this black bean burger. It was .. okay. Not bad at all, just nothing memorable about it. Although that red pepper mustard was delicious.

Beer was consumed as well. I started with a Hopscotch, then dialed back the % to a Terrapin Easy Rider. It was like going from Winter to Summer. Easy Rider could become a regular summer beer.

We didn’t arrive at the venue until towards the end of the opener’s set. And our favorite seats were already taken. So we headed to the balcony. We found a pair with a perfect view except for the people shuffling to and from the stairs.

We first saw Mayer Hawthorne as an opener for Chromeo. Even if you aren’t 100% into the Motown, blue-eyed soul kind of music he puts out, the show is fantastic. It really is a good time.

And here’s a better view from the floor. These days there’s no need to be that person holding up their phone or camera the whole show because someone else definitely will.

Lunch at Cafe Life

If we’re hungry and we’re up by Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe, we sometimes grab a bite at Cafe Life. It can be hit or miss and not entirely consistent, but I don’t think we’ve ever had bad food there. They’ve just updated their menu and are offering a weekend brunch. But we just got some sammiches. I got the “crab” cake. It was good but could’ve used something to up the crabbiness. Maybe Old Bay.

Kevin got the burger. That’s one item that’s been fairly consistent. They use beets in it so keep that in mind if you hate them. We both got sweet potato salad as a side.

Oh, how did this peanut butter chocolate cake get here? Their baked goods tend to use whole grains and I think this cake was even gluten free. You could hardly tell though. It was moist and not gritty at all.