Happy Birthday, Tim
Every now and then, the boys get together to celebrate. This time it was Tim's birthday. We took a magical trip to the far exurbs to examine our inner vegetarian selves.
Perry, Ron, and I drove up together. Clarksville is about 15 miles from Wheaton as the crow flies, but considerably longer by road if you follow Google Maps or the GPS in the car. Google Maps has this neat feature where you can alter the displayed route. I did that with a vengeance, and mapped out a journey that took us through some splendid springtime scenes of twilight, full of magical flowering bushes and green meadows. Layhill Road, Edson Lane, Tucker Lane, Ashton Road were purposely beautiful, just for us.
I'm certain Tim uses skincare products to maintain his youthful suppleness, which was all in evidence last night at Great Sage, a great restaurant with at least one table of rowdy patrons. What a night! Good food, good company, and the world's hippest waiter two decades too late.
Tim selected a wonderful wine that worked well with all of our appetizers and main courses. And we also had mandatory drinks: Perry had a swirly, Ron drank cranberry juice (without ice). I forget what Brian had, iced tea? Tim had the ginger mojito and I had an all-berry punch. It tasted okay, but not quite enough vodka.
We all like appetizers. The artichoke-spinach crostini was the ultimate gooey dip of which dreams and fortunes are made. It had the whiff of great sex, randy, forbidden naughty.
The guacamole tostadas were short on the guacamole, but after the initial disappoinment had a strong follow through with crispy tortillas and very tasty beans, trusty vegan food with the tradition intact but without the Birkenstocks.
This is the second time that Tim, Ron, and I have been to Great Sage. The restaurant is up in Clarksville in a strip mall. The restaurant is vegan/vegetarian and serves hearty, tasty food. I think we all enjoyed our entrees. I'm not much of a tofu guy, but my "Peruvian" style grilled tofu with vegetarian "ceviche" (the evening's special) was excellent. The tofu was well-seasoned and served with a cilantro sauce. The ceviche would never pass as the seafood variety, but taken by itself had a refreshing zingy taste and the crunchiness of onions with the chewiness of kernel corn. I liked the inventiveness, textures, and assertive tastiness of the food.
Brian had a vegetable Napolean (featuring roasted portabello mushrooms and veggies on polenta). Tim and Ron each ate the Indian Vegetable Cakes, and Perry lit into the Artichoke and Roasted Garlic Cream Pasta. Perry (touchingly) reserved the spinach in his dish for Ron.
When we had finished eating, the gentleman at the table behind us came over and chatted a bit about the wine, then he noted, "Four men...." I guess our secret was out. Urbane, witty gay men are perhaps rare birds in Clarksville, although we did note several diners who probably would have felt quite at home at our table.
We all finished big with dessert - the Hot Fudge Lava Cake with ice cream, Italian Sorbet, and Tim had the dessert special, Key Lime Cake with a cream filling. No hunger pangs were detected on the ride home.
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