Lazy Dog Calamari

8/28/2010
Saturday
Yesterday, I hit up Lazy Dog café for after work celebrations, for about the third time this week. You may think excessive, but after a frustrating day nothing defuses me better than some good deals on some good micro-brewed beer.
Unfortunately the Friday happy hour crowd was mostly older, grandparent looking people. The 50 year old that I sat next to grabbed both my shoulders and yelled at the bartender, “This is my girlfriend!” Five minutes later, someone scored a touchdown on tv and someone yelled, yeah! From the other side of the bar. A lady with silvery blonde hair and a grapefruit business suit looked miffed and leaned towards me, “Men, always yelling at their football.”
I ended up getting the beer sampler with a Hefenweizen, blonde, pale ale, red and a stout. Unfortunately shortly after, Hannah and Aaron arrived and we were faced with the problem of finding space at the bar.
What was supposed to be a quick beer or two turned into an hour long fiasco because the bar was too packed for our party of three to find a spot. We wandered aimlessly between bar and patio for 20 minutes before putting our names down for a table.
My mothers warned me; if you want to avoid being disappointed when going out to eat, order entrees that a restaurant is known for, not ethnic offshoots of the menu added to make it more diverse. Breweries typically make great soups and sandwiches, sometimes decent grilled items, but I wanted something different that day.
I’m Chinese. I eat rice at least once a day, and I definitely appreciate my share of bizarre Asian foods aka unheard of meat cuts, seafood, etc. But every once in awhile however, I crave some good Americanized Chinese Food, the default being orange chicken.
The closest thing to that on the menu was the wok fried calamari appetizer. I had been eyeing earlier that week but didn’t have a good enough excuse to spend 10 dollars on a appetizer for myself.
The calamari is a safe bet for anyone. There are no tentacles or suspicious squid parts and ever piece is lightly breaded, fried and then covered in a tangy plum sauce. It’s tossed around with red and green bell peppers, (traditional Chinese ingredients) as well as sprinkled with peanuts, scallions, and sesame seeds, (not so traditional, but cute and visually pleasing) and served on a bed of rice. There’s a hint of some white pepper that gives the dish extra spice but won’t keep your tongue burning beyond each bite. It paired well with the lighter beers on my spindle. The hefe and the blonde would probably be ideal, but I wouldn’t go any darker than the pale ale.
The downside is the 9.95 price tag. However, if you order it at happy hour it’s knocked down to 7.95. Coupled with fresh ingredients, a decent taste, a great size, the clean atmosphere of the restaurant I’d give it a 4/5 stars.  The only question I have to ask myself is whether my taste buds were slightly impaired (or enhanced) after the subtle buzz? Hmmm.