Artists Colony Inn- Nashville, Indiana

Never have I seen a restaurant so mismanaged as the Artists Colony Inn.  I don’t mind waiting for a table, that isn’t a big deal to me, but when the reason I am waiting for a table is because of the way management has staffed, set up the dining room, and executed I tend to be a bit irritated.  Honestly I should have known we were in for a bad experience when an older couple was telling the manager how disappointing their experience was and he seemed not to care at all.  After we were sat it took the waiter a minute to come over, when he finally brought beverages he managed to spill water all over the place.  At first I thought it was our waiter who wasn’t that great, then we began to slowly realize that wasn’t it at all.  His section was huge, literally reaching from one wall to another and outside.  He probably had at least 9 tables, and was not only taking orders, delivering orders but also busing as well.  Looking around we noticed that it wasn’t just him; all of the staff was stretching super thin.  How could the manager not have looked at the weather report, known that we were going to get a break in the crazy heat, and seen the possibility that they were going to get slammed?  The disappointing part of the whole thing was that the food actually wasn’t too bad with the exception of my salad which I sent back because it tasted dirty.  During the entire time we were there the manager never once did a table visit.  He was too busy running in and out of the kitchen, busing tables, and generally looking displeased at his staff.  Excuse me sir, but your lack of planning is no fault of the people who are busting their hump to try and work.  Also, I might recommend that you get a couple 2-tops since most of your dinning room was being wasted by two people sitting at tables designed for four, sometimes six, people.  The kitchen was slow, neither the soup and grilled cheese, or the pot pie that we ordered should have taken long at all.  It is a shame when a waiter has to deal with a rough kitchen and a worthless manager.  And it wasn’t just our table that struggled.  We watched an elderly couple be almost completely ignored, wait about 45 minutes for some soup and have it immediately followed up by their entrée only to then again be left to the point that the man eventually got up, tracked down his waitress and handed her his card.  I honestly would not return to this restaurant if it was the only one open in town.

Sun Spot Cafe

I am making this city mine.  Seriously I have walked all over the place.  That translates to me getting hungry.  So the other day in between hitting up the Botanical Gardens, Smithsonian American Indian Museum and Smithsonian Natural History Museum (all located on my Smithsonian App) I became a bit famished.  I picked a direction, walked a few blocks and then flipped on my Urbanspoon App to see what was nearest to me.  I ended up at the Sun Spot Cafe; a small, convenient storesque, deli like restaurant.  Grabbing a Dr. Pepper I ordered a gyro and a Greek salad and sat down for a minute.  My food was ready pretty quick.  The salad was just ehh, I’ve had better.  The gyro was more a wrap then a traditional gyro, the pita being some sort of pita-tortilla hybrid.  The meat was fairly good but the lettuce tended to mask the taste of the sauce.  On a scale from 1 to the best gyro I’ve ever tasted I give this a C (yes I just made a scale based on numbers, experiences and letters, deal with it!).

Ebenezers

I have been sitting in Ebenezers Coffeehouse for a good 3 hours now.  Usually, as you can tell, I am not at a loss for words, but for some reason writing a “Statement of Purpose” for acceptance into grad school is blocking my brain waves.  The words even seem daunting, Statement of Purpose, what is that?  Of course I have a purpose, but now you want me to put it into words?  Crap.  Anyways I digress.  Ebenezers is located on the corner of F and 2 St NE with both downstairs and street level seating.  It is a cute brick building with inviting decorations, coffee, non-coffee drinks, and food to snack on.  My iced vanilla chai was good, just the way a chai should be, nothing life altering, but just simply good.  Eventually I got hungry so I ordered an Italian Cold Cut Wrap.  The tortilla used for the wrap was brilliant.  The wrap in general was one of the better ones I have had.  Overall I really enjoy Ebenezers, I’m sure if I lived here this would become a normal hang out for me.  Now enough of the distractions, back to writing my STATEMENT OF PURPOSE.

Brunch at Montmartre

There is no better way to start a lazy weekend day then waiting until about 11 to be productive.  Brunch baby!  I love breakfast, I just really hate getting up for it, and therefore you can understand why I love brunch.  It’s like I am cheating on breakfast with lunch, but it’s masquerading as breakfast.  We headed to Washington DC’s Eastern Market for just such a thing on Saturday.  Under the constructional eves of scaffolding sits Montmartre.  As you step in it’s as if you are silently transported into the kitchen of a chic house in the French countryside.  Large wooden tables are scattered through out the dinning room with an open kitchen peering at you from the corner.  We quickly got a table for three and sat down to a round of bloody marys (a staple for my brunch as I am allergic to oranges).  Brunch is served on the weekends here from 10:30-3, a perfect time frame if you ask me.  The three of us ordered Eggs Benedict, two with smoked salmon, mine with prosciutto.  It was creamy, rich, and perfectly textured.  I would personally thank both the inventors of Eggs Benedict and Hollandaise sauce, but oddly enough there are debates on both fronts, so I will just take this moment to thank the chicken, for without her there would be no egg to make either.  Montmartre was a great way to start my week in DC.

And So it Begins: Rusty Scupper

I flew into Baltimore early on a Friday morning and had the day to waste before catching the Amtrak to Washington DC to start my week there.  I stopped at the cab line with the intention of grabbing a cab and taking it into the city.  When the cabbie asked where I was headed I replied “Not sure, you tell me.  I want to see 3 things: 1) the harbor 2) the best crab cakes in the city and 3) one other cool thing you think I should see.”  With that he informed me that it was much cheaper for me to take the metro into the city, for $3.50 I could get a whole day’s pass and get pretty much anywhere I wanted to go.  He also told me that the best crab cakes weren’t actually in the city but located about 4 miles from the airport (sadly at 9am they weren’t quite ready for me).  Lastly his “cool place” suggestion was a mile and a half long mall (not this girl’s idea of a cool place to go so I skipped that).  I will probably never in my life say this again, but I was glad United decided to lose my luggage, it meant that I didn’t have to cart it around the city while I toured and it showed up to my door in DC when I finally got there.  No United, this is not an open invitation to do this every time I fly with you.  So with that I was headed off to the Inner Harbor to see what I could take in.  Give me a historical artifact and I will be a happy girl no matter what (102 degree temperature and all).  The USS Constellation gave me something to do for a while, including getting to see a cannon being fired, score.  Then I headed to the National Aquarium, I love aquariums, something about them I just can’t get enough of, my favorite being the Chattanooga Aquarium.  I highly recommend spending the $5 extra dollars to watch the 4d movie.  Because I am a nerd I watched the Planet Earth movie, but I could have enjoyed Happy Feet as well I am sure.  By this point in the afternoon I was starting to get hungry.  Across the harbor was a building with large letters announcing the Rusty Scupper restaurant.  I figured they should have some crab cakes, so off I went.  The inside was nicely decorated, and the prices seemed to reflect that.  But they had no issue with me being in my shorts and flip flops, at least I had a nice shirt on.  I sat at the bar, my favorite place to sit when you happen to be dinning alone for whatever reason.  The bartender was attentive and friendly.  She brought out some fresh bread with a homemade roasted red pepper, garlic, and almond dipping sauce.  The sauce was both sweet and savory, good, but I liked the bread better without it.  I of course 

ordered the Broiled Crab Cake with three mustard butter sauce.  It was simple and delicious.  Often times I find that crab cakes have too much breading and other ingredients, hiding the taste of the crab.  This however had none of that.  It was almost totally crab and the butter sauce was a perfect flavor additive.  I enjoyed the rice that accompanied my crab cakes, I could have done without the vegetable of the day, a green bean and carrot mixture, just wasn’t that great.  The price was a bit steep, but I was eating crab cakes on the harbor in Baltimore, pretty sure the crab had been swimming around not more then a few hours earlier, so the price was comparable to the experience.  It was a fairly befitting way to start my Julapolooza, I’m glad I had fresh catch crab cakes in Baltimore, can’t wait to see what I get into next.  Oh, one last note, I have found that the best thing in travel life is to upgrade to business class on the Amtrak, bigger seats that recline, plugs for my dying phone and IPod, and more leg room, I will not travel any other way again.

JULYAPOLOOZA

I’m on vacation!!!  FOR AN ENTIRE MONTH! BAM!!!  Yes, I realize an entire month of vacation sounds a bit ridiculous, but it’s the trade off for not having hardly any other time off for most of the year, and oddly I am finding it a pretty fair trade.  Dubbed “Julyapolooza” I have vowed to make this month one of the best months of my life thus far.  Here is my itinerary for the month with a tentative list of where I will be, and where I will be reviewing:

-          Baltimore

-          Washington DC

-          Lancaster PA

-          Home to Indiana for a few days (Mom’s food and Tippecanoe County Fair food)

-          A few days of breather open for suggestions of places to go

-          Girls weekend in Brown County Indiana

After my whirlwind tour I will be transferred to Purdue University to work the football season.  With all of that said it may be a while before I get back to the Ville to enjoy the food, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be blogging as I travel!  Happy Julyapolooza people!!!