Back in the Saddle

After a too long hiatus, last night I made it back to growler fill night at Flat Earth. Armed with a basket of freshly made brownie bites in honor of Mike’s birthday, I received a warm welcome and no jabs about where I’d been (maybe the brownies worked their magic). My favorite sample was of their raspberry infused Belgian Pale Ale. While I was bummed they had run out of growlers of it earlier in the evening I was thrilled to be reminded that this is on the menu for the upcoming Flat Earth Beer Dinner at The Dining Studio that we’re going to. Last time I checked the chef was still working on the food menu but whatever is created I’m sure it’ll be great…the beer menu certainly is.

Once done there, Kat & Scott chauffeured me over to Ngon (better than the alternative of Kat trying to talk me through getting there after an inevitable wrong turn), where a small group of us had decided to go for dinner. There wasn’t a cask option, and apparently wouldn’t be for a couple weeks yet so I defaulted to one of my favorites – Surly Coffee Bender. Regular Bender doesn’t do anything for me, but the Coffee Bender is one of the amazingly plentiful coffee beers around town that is harder to find than I’d like. But Ngon seems to always have it on tap AND they serve it in Surly’s glass coffee mugs. Very cool.

Much to my approval our appetizer order included Ngon’s Cha Gio (egg rolls). We had these the last time I was there and I have been thinking about them ever since. For my dinner I almost ordered Hu Tieu hoac Mi Thap Cam, a soup similar to Pho. But when the waitress was taking our order someone asked about the Com Tams. The description she gave sounded good and I took her up on her recommendation of the Com Tam Bi, Suon, Trung. She said if you’re a pork fan then this is the dish for you. I am and it was!

As the meal wound down, the dessert menu came out and I couldn’t resist ordering the chocolate fire cake. I don’t recall the exact name and since it’s not listed on their on line menu suffice it to say that it is a mini-bundt shape chocolate cake with some type of pepper spice. The combination of flavors reminded me of earlier in the evening eating a brownie while drinking some of Flat Earth’s Hold Your Fire pepper beer. Both were excellent.