vive le irish pub!

*** First of all, I'd like to officially note our regrets that none of us had a camera last night. There were some Kodak moments. ***

Last night, Diana, Irma, Julie, Karen, Martha and I went to Café Claude to celebrate Bastille Day. After hearing about how insane it was last year, I made reservations 3 weeks in advance. Which was a good thing, as you could only get in (even to the bar!) if you had reservations - something that both Carol and Agnes took advantage of when they joined us for drinks.

Irma was running a bit late, so Carol sat with us when we were first seated. As we were all starving, we ordered the Charcuterie plate, which not only had saucisson and prosciutto, but also two different kinds of pâté. I think I had my first food orgasm of the night there - the Galantine pâté was just amazing. So amazing that we ordered another one!

By our second course, Irma had arrived and Carol said her goodbyes. The waitstaff was all very confused by this, but that's ok - we were confused too. For our small plates, we went with some of the house specialties - a Kobe steak tartare, the Escargot, and the Coquille St. Jacques. I wasn't impressed with the escargot, especially since our Maître d' had to extract it for me in the back, but the Kobe steak and scallops were both amazing. It was a complete dining adventure for Irma, who dubiously tried the snails, the raw meat, and the whipped liver.

Our main courses seemed more tame, but turned out to be much more flavorful. Because we were sharing everything, we decided on the Coq au Vin, the Porc au Miel, and the Moules. Both the mussels and the pork were delicious - the pork was surprisingly tender - but the Coq au Vin blew everyone away. At this point, I started to lose track of the number of food orgasms I had last night, but at least one resulted from the chicken.

And then, the best part: Dessert! Of course, we needed chocolate, so we ordered the Moelleux au Chocolat - a soft, warm chocolate cake with creamy goodness all over it. To balance it out, we also indulged in the Crème Brûleé and the Tarte Tartin... both creamy and buttery, and just delicious. But honestly - it was all about the cake. Have you ever seen 6 women moan with pleasure at the same time? You would have, if you'd been sitting there. In fact, the waiter enjoyed watching us so much that he brought us another one!

After our indulgent dinner, we headed to Belden Place to continue the Bastille Day celebration. It was, as promised, a zoo... there was a huge line to get into Voda. Deciding that we didn't need to be groped by French wannabes that badly, we decided to backtrack and head to the Irish Bank instead. Which also had a line out the door, but for whatever reason seemed to be a better option. At this point, we lost Carol, Eric, Karen, and Agnes, but picked up Randy, Matt, Alex, and Jarret - all of whom we ran into randomly at the Irish Bank!

So we ended up celebrating Bastille Day in an Irish pub, drinking bad Stella out of a plastic cup and listening to reggae. The absurdity of it was just too much. We felt like we were in a frat party - especially after the decadent elegance of dinner. But it was fun nonetheless, and a night to remember.