Adventure in Annapolis

Maryland is one third of the "DMV" (DC/VA/MD) area so I really should know more about it, but last week was my first time in "downtown" Annapolis and it is apparently:

1) where the naval academy is
2) super fratty (I don't know how else to say it. The entire old town is like an advertisement for Sperry's and Vineyard Vines and it's a treasure trove of prep style.)
3) still adorable and full of small town charm
4) really close to DC
5) impossible to find parking in Thurs-Sun
6) has amazing restaurants and shopping

Mike and I had tickets to a show at Annapolis's outdoor summer garden theatre through fillaseatdc.com (subscription to Fill-A-Seat purchased through a Groupon/read more about the concept on their website). It was our first time utilizing Fill-A-Seat, but we were out of luck as the show was cancelled due to a cast injury about half an hour before show time....the exact time we arrived in Annapolis. When I was on the phone with someone from the theater trying to find parking, she encouraged us to come by and get refunds and I insisted to Mike that we walk around to find the theatre before getting dinner because I didn't want her to be waiting for us. When we got to the theater, we got a mini tour/history by one of the theater's board members, vouchers for free tickets to any show this season in case we couldn't come back in time for the current show, and recommendations for about 7 of THE places to eat in Annapolis.

Mike was patient as we walked around to each recommendation which I vetoed because all I really wanted was the recommendation which was the furthest away from where we are called Red Wine Bar. The theatre lady had named Red Red Wine Bar as one of her top two restaurants for us and when recommending it to us, the conversation went something like this:

Woman: "Well you know about Red Red Wine Bar don't you?"
Mike: "No, but we passed it."
Woman: "Do you watch Fox channel ___ news?"
Mike: "We don't have cable..."
Woman: (confused look) "Well ______ works for Fox channel ____ news and his wife owns it."

Apparently it was the place to be....

Red Red Wine Bar

Okay, well, once I verified there was food and not just wine there, we were sold. I had passed the restaurant earlier and it look adorable, plus I was starving.

Here is Red Red Wine Bar's website. We wanted to save room for ice cream after because we saw this cute little ice cream shop across the street when we came in. I ordered a glass of vinho verde and the quinoa spinach cakes with goat cheese and fig jam. Mike got the "City Dock" white pizza with crab, shrimp and garlic. You have to get crab when you're in Maryland, right? The crust of the personal pizza was wheat and oh so good. Mike and I, of course, split and loved everything.

The food was delicious. We had a waiter who was still in his training/shadowing stage and he was so adorable-y attentive. The service was excellent. We left full, but not too full and that ended up being really good.

Annapolis Ice Cream Company

We made it out just in time to get ice cream dinner. We'd been trying to decide between two ice cream places next door to each other: the newer, shiny one OR the tiny, old-fashioned one. Newer, shiny place was closing up and the girl inside looked like she might cry if we came in and ordered anything after she had counted the register. Having been in her position many times, I wasn't going to do that to her. So we went into Annapolis Ice Cream Company which I later learned is famous in this area for their ice cream and penguins are their thing.

Mike stopped to take a picture of the street and I didn't notice because I was on a food mission.  I like that you can practically see the humidity.

Mike got salted caramel and I got peanut butter swirled vanilla, both in cones. The 1 scoop seemed to me a lot more like 3 and due to the heat and humidity outside, it became a race to see who could save their cone the fastest. Ice cream all over hands, all over rainboots, but so so good and, right when we reached the cone part, we started to feel raindrops. We ended up finishing the cones without a major disaster and, although I was mostly worried about the ice cream melting, it was really really awesome ice cream. Mike and I have been making a lot of frozen banana ice cream lately (frozen bananas, milk, blender) and I'll likely be swirling in peanut butter next time.

Founding Farmer's

On Sunday, about 10 of us got together to celebrate Davia's birthday with brunch at Founding Farmers. I had been to Founding Farmer's once before (with this same group) and was excited to try the brunch. I got a soy cappuccino, veggie egg scramble, fruit and toast. I can honestly tell you that the best part of the meal was the toast and that's not to say the rest of the meal wasn't good! The toast was just really awesome toast. I don't know whether it was the bread they used, the fresh butter they brought out for it, or the (likely homemade?) strawberry jelly on the side. I don't normally have this many feelings toward toast...

I do have a lot of feelings about this guy and the faces he makes when he I tell him I need to take a picture of him for my blog (it's only fair, right?!)......

Action shot!

Super cute.

This one is my favorite so it was instagrammed promptly.

The whole group after singing a beautifully on-key version of Happy Birthday and devouring cake.

After the brunch, Mike and I walked through some museums and decided that we want to make furniture one day. (Furniture-making is going on the list of potential Etsy shops I will open one day along with twenty other things I can't actually do yet....details...) I don't know if I disclosed on the blog that I've taken a hiatus from running since the end of July due to a foot injury that I don't want to make worse. Thus, I've been trying to find time to walk more. The fact that DC has had 90% humidity with a chance of storms and showers every day for the past week and a half has made walking harder, but I'm hoping this weather pattern will break at least for the fireworks tonight.

Welcome to DC in the summer! :)