Finances & Money

Girl’s Night Out…Oh, and Me Too!

Last night, a few D.C. bloggers got together to welcome Plonkee to the states, and specifically to Washington D.C.. It just happened that I was the only guy in attendance 😉

Mapgirl, Mrs. Micah, Plonkee and I ate dinner at Chinatown Express in, of course, Chinatown. Mapgirl already posted her summary of the evening, but I’d like to add a few things too. While I didn’t see any roaches (this time), I will say that the restaurant appears a bit run down and untidy. However, the noodles are made fresh on-site and are amazingly good. I go to this place with coworkers about once per week or two, and we just deal with the environment to get the noodles. Last night, the beef in the noodles was especially tender and I ended up eating much more (all of it) than I probably should have, given I also had Chinese food for lunch. Of course I decided to walk the mile home from the metro.

I should say that the noodles are $5.50 all day, with beef, chicken, seafood or veggies all priced the same. And you get a giant portion, whether fried or in soup. If you happen to read or speak Chinese, then you’ll see you can order a special beef with tendons and fat and all other good, tasty and unhealthy stuff.

As we were walking into RFD for some after-dinner drinks, the ladies were saying something about “real men drink beer” and “you can tell a lot about a guy by what he drinks“. I had to admit that I really don’t like beer and I’m more of a fruity drink and Kahlua-lover. They had a nice little laugh about that! I don’t care because if I’m spending $5 or more on a drink, then I’m getting something I like darnit! I’m not wasting money just to show I’m a “real man”. I have the chest hair to prove that!

Anywho, since I was in a bar with so many beers on-hand, I didn’t feel right about asking for a White Russian, so I checked out the menu of dozens of beers. I’m not a stout lover, but I settled on one anyway because it looked interesting and inviting: Bell’s Cherry Stout. The beer was very smooth with a distinct cherry flavor and scent, and I wouldn’t mind having it another time. I’m still not a beer guy, but I was pleased with my choice last night.

We had a good time chatting about sports (the Dallas/Green Bay game was on), sightseeing, blogging and a few other topics (one of which will be a pretty important post for me in the near future). We all hiked over to the Chinatown metro and took our separate ways home (or to the hotel in Plonkee’s case). I ended up getting home around 10:15pm and played Super Mario Galaxy on the Wii for a half hour before crashing.

So what was the total for the evening?

Dinner: $7 (noodles are $5.50, plus 10% DC tax plus tip. I didn’t have coins, so I rounded)
Beer: $7 (incl. tip). Yeah, the bottle was expensive and I normally would only get water, but it was a special occasion and a chance for me to try something new.
Metro: Negative $1.45 (savings). Normally, I spend $3.75 to go home from work, but since I walked to Chinatown and took the metro home during non-rush hour time, I only spent $2.35 so it saved me money!

Total: $12.55. Not bad for a night out on the town with three ladies (none of which were my wife) 😉