Meat and Weapons...The Californians enlighten the New Englanders!

So, I made friends with this chick that I had "met" via Mr. Jones' blog. Her comments were funny and I think she thought mine were too, so we became friends on the myspaces. She lives all the way on the other side of the USA

in a little state called Rhode Island.

(I had to show you the close up of the state, that is how small it is!)

We sent messages and comments back and forth, subscribed to each others' blogs and harassed Mr. Jones together. That is how I became friends with Leah.

I have self-diagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, OCD. Unfortunately, my OCD doesn't make my house clean and organized. It does make me compulsive about my calendars. So, when I planned our recent trip to Boston, I compulsively noted it in all of my calendars, including the one on my myspace page. So Leah was checking out my page and saw that I was heading east...her neck of the woods. So she sends me a message and says something like "I am only a few hours from there!" So we message back and forth, I check with the bride, the groom and Mr. Misha to find out what night would be best to arrange for us to meet. We decide on a date and wait for it to be Saturday, October 6th.
The night before the big meeting....Mr. Misha and I were at a wedding. There was an open bar, it was really hot and humid...I got a little intoxicated. We spent all day Saturday in the hotel room ordering room service, pizza and watching a Law and Order marathon. Around 5pm, we started to feel like it was possible to venture out. Via email and cell phone calls we firmed up our plans with Leah and her friend, Matt. We decided to meet at a place called Midwest Grill, in Cambridge.

Frommer's Review:
As soon as you open the door of the Midwest Grill, the aroma of garlic and meat starts your mouth watering. Distractions abound: personable waiters, lively music, the salad bar-like selection of side dishes (superb potatoes, black-bean stew, salads, olives, and rice). But you can't ignore the scent of meat juices dripping onto an open fire. Finally, here come the waiters, bearing the long, swordlike skewers of meat that make up rodizio, or Brazilian barbecue. They slice off portions of perfectly grilled pork, lamb, or beef, as you help with salad tongs. They return with sausage, chicken, and even chicken hearts. Take a break and check out the gregarious families, voracious students, and other carnivores (there's also a vegetarian plate), then flag down a circulating waiter and dig in again.

Some other pretentious Dude's review:
The focus of the Midwest Grill is churrasco rodizio -- roughly, "rotating barbecue." In this year of interminable, globe-straddling menus, there's something refreshing about a restaurant built around not just a single cuisine, but a single dish. Though "single" may be the wrong word: the churrasco is really a cornucopia all its own, an array, a profusion, an endless parade of . . .Meat. Oh, man. Vegetarians be warned. Seven kinds of meats, minimum, turn on huge motorized spits in the restaurant's open kitchen; order the rodizio, which the menu cheerily refers to as the "Brazilian BBQ Banquet", and each of the rotating swords will, in turn, be lifted from the rotisserie, carried deftly to your table, and carved onto your plate. And then the cycle begins again. You can request skewers, too: ask for pork and you'll get pork. All night long.

For the grillmaster, a churrascaria is a balancing act. Keeping the right amount of meat on the cusp of readiness requires close attention to diners' tastes, and a constant eye on the coals. The proprietors -- Brazilian transplant Gilmar Pinto, former owner of Allston's Café Brazil; his brothers Marcelo and Gilnei; and their Portuguese partner João Pinto (no relation) -- pull the trick off with dexterity. The meat arrives with a uniformly crisp surface and a moist interior. Most of it is marinated in wine, vinegar, salt, and pepper; sirloin is rubbed with sea salt, and lamb is studded with garlic. The only exception we found were chicken hearts, which came on a sinister-looking double spit.

I got into the shower to scrub the booze smell out of my skin. When I went to use the hotel's hair dryer...it didn't work. Argh! I slicked back my mop of Chaka Khan hair with a bunch of straightening products and threw it in a ponytail. I woke Mr. Misha, he showered and we went down to the lobby to get a cab. It took forever. I was so worried we were going to be late.


Eventually, the cab arrived and we headed off to Cambridge. The cab driver dropped us off in front we were late. Mr. Misha and I looked around, we didn't see our friends. We decided to have a smoke. We looked in the front window and saw it, just like our friends and my travel book had described:

MEAT, ROASTING ON SWORDS!

After our cigarette, I called Leah on her cell. She and Matt were running late too (and she couldn't find a bathroom), so Mr. Misha and I had a few cocktails. By the time our friends arrived, we were feeling pretty good. The girls hugged and the men shook hands. Then we sat down at our table, ready to eat. The waitress came by and explained how their establishment worked. In a thick Portuguese accent she told us; "You go to the bar, there is hot bar and cold bar. You get side dishes you want to eat. Then you sit, men come by with meat. You take what you want. When you need break, you take this sign and turn it over. When you want more meat, turn it back to other side. That is how it work. You need more drink, you tell me. Okay?"She then handed us a laminated card. One side was green and in English and Portuguese it said something like; 'Yes, please bring us all of your sword-roasted meats so we can gorge ourselves silly!' The other side was red and all I remember is that is said; "BASTA!" (I really wish I had taken a picture of this card, dag-nabbitt!)

We head over to the side dish bar and choose some food. There were salads, beans, rice, fruit, veggies, etc. We then headed back to our table and waited for the men with swords to come.

( You can see the hot and cold bars in the background of this picture!)

They came in a wave; men with beef, then pork, then chicken wrapped in bacon (Shout out to Eleanor!), sausages (both Kielbasa and Linguisa), chicken hearts (only Leah was brave enough to eat those) and then they had these yummy rolls warmed over the fire and basted with garlic butter. It was fabulous! At one point, Matt looked over at Leah and said something like: "I can't believe that we had to meet people from California to find a place that showcased MEAT AND WEAPONS!"

(This is not me, Leah, Matt or Mr. Misha. I don't know who this woman is!)

So we ate, and ate, and then we talked and then ate some more. Finally, we could eat no more. We turned our card over and said "BASTA". The Midwest Grill had won.

While we digested, we chatted and Matt started talking about some drink called a "cement mixer". It sounded gross to me, but Mr. Misha wanted to try one. We said good-bye to our Portuguese bartender, paid our tab and started to walk around in Cambridge.

We figured that since it was a college town, we would be able to find a bar easily. Yeah, not so much. Apparently, we were in the non-party and unintelligent part of Cambridge. We walked and walked. We came upon a bar, only to find out it only served beer and wine. When we came upon another bar, we asked the guy at the door if they served "Full Bar". He said; "No, it's not too crowded." Leah and I snorted with laughter, Mr. Misha said: "No. Dude, what we mean is that do you serve drinks other than beer and wine?" The Fulbright Scholar stated that they did and asked to see our IDs. Mr. Misha and I handed him our California IDs and he said that he needed a second form of ID because we were from out of state. Well, Leah didn't have anything but her Rhode Island ID, so we left the Fulbright Scholar and set out to find another place to drink.

And that is when we found this place:

We bellied up to the bar, cement mixers for the boys and oddly decorated beers for the girls.

Matt brought the drinks to us with a devilish grin.

A cement mixer is: a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream and a shot of limejuice. One puts the Bailey's in one's mouth and holds it. Then one adds the lime juice. The concoction reacts, the Irish Cream curdles and then you swallow it. (Sounds great, doesn't it?)

Well, Mr. Misha was not prepared for the volume expansion that takes place when the two ingredients are mixed and I thought he was going to spew.

He didn't and decided he wanted another one.

This time, Leah joined in on the fun!

and Matt was nice enough to show us the beautiful results of the Bailey's/Lime reaction...

After the "Cement Mixer Experience" it was time to go outside.

It was also time to take more pictures, so Erikatt would not get mad at me!

We then walked around looking for a different bar. The Druid was not our style, there was nowhere to sit, it was really small and it was a bit snobby. After eating all of that meat, we needed a kick back, plus-sized bar to relax in. We couldn't find one.

So, tired, full and a little tipsy...we decided to call it a night. Mr. Misha hailed a cab for our new "real life" friends.

We hugged and promised to stay in touch. And off went LeeLee Lewinski and Matook...

 A great time was had by all!