4-0-0 !!!

400!  WOW, that's a lot of places!  When I started travelling around to Triple D places back in May of 2008 I knew I would be going to a lot of very cool places but I never would have imagined that I would get to 400!  I am very blessed and fortunate to have been able to travel all over the country to try great places, meet new friends and reconnect with others.  My very first place was the Village Café near Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, now here I am sitting at 399 and wanting to get to 400.  As I was getting closer to it during my travels in the Fall of 2014 I started thinking about where I should go for the milestone 400 visit and how I should celebrate it.  In the past I have chosen places that were fun and special to Guy Fieri, the host of "Diner's Drive ins, and Dives".  Number 100 was Benny's Seafood in Miami for Lobster Mofungo.  Number 200 was at Grinder's in Kansas City with my buddy Barry.  300 was in Santa Barbara with Barry and my friend Leslie for some great sandwiches at Norton's Pastrami, now what to do for 400?  In the late summer of 2014 Guy opened a restaurant in the new Horseshoe Casino in downtown Baltimore and when he came for the opening they filmed 5 or 6 new places in the city.  Thanks to a heads up from one of Guy's crew on a Triple D site on Facebook I was able to get to most of them in the weeks after he visited.  Those visits were the springboard that put me on the brink of this milestone visit.  For some reason, I missed one of the places and that's when I decided to go to a place in Baltimore and invite friends so we could all be together and celebrate not only a milestone but also being with a great group of friends! 

In the Fall of 2014 I took Triple D trips to Phoenix, Chicago and Denver and also on a road trip to Florida I was able to try a few more places so now I just needed one and I knew where I wanted to go but wanted to make sure that the restaurant would be ok with my plans.  I decided to go to "Slainte Irish Pub" in the Fells Point area of Baltimore.  I contacted the restaurant and we chose and day and time for the event.  I created and event on Facebook and invited friends to help celebrate.  The episode that Slainte was featured on was the soup episode and not only did the food look great but the place looked like a lot of fun. My contact at the restaurant, Leigh Ann told me that the chef would come to visit with us during the visit and sign my book.

I received RSVPs from about a dozen and the plan was to meet about 515p on a Saturday night.  The restaurant was very gracious and allowed us to make a reservation for the group, which they normally do not allow on Saturday, an exception because of the milestone visit! 

The Fells Point area is a very busy weekend area of Baltimore and within just a mile or two of Slainte are dozens of bars and restaurants and at least 4 Triple D places.  The roads are cobblestone and it borders part of the harbor. 

Traffic was not fun that night, despite that everyone arrived within about 30 minutes of our planned time.  The restaurant is very cool, outside they had a street chef selling gilled, smoked oysters to passers-by and inside the place is on three different levels, almost like in a townhouse.  They had us in our own small area on the second level near the bar.  The tables were cozy and the area very comfortable.  I am blessed with great friends and although some of them didn't know each other it didn't take too long for everyone to become friends.  We had about 12 people in all, one friend I hadn't seen in almost 15 years and Dave admitted that he had not seen the show but wanted to come out to celebrate. 

On the show they made the Baltimore Seafood Gumbo and an unusual dish called Bibimbap, a sort of Irish-Korean fusion dish that combines seafood, rice, egg and Siracha hat sauce.  They are an Irish Pub, so Irish fare is their specialty with a full Irish bar and of course the Guinness Ale was flowing!  I chose the Fish and Chips, but in our group think we covered most of the menu.  I am not a fan of egg or hot sauce so that's why I didn't try the Bibimbap but the two that did really enjoyed it.  All of the food looked great!

Bibimbap - Irish/Korean Fusion

My Fish and Chips dinner

Service was phenomenal, our server was always around to refill drinks and make sure everyone was taken care of.  As we were finishing up dinner, I asked our server if we could meet the chef and he went and got him.  I remembered him from the DDD episode, a bug guy with his arms filled with tattoos.  He goes by the name "Neckbone" and he couldn't have been nicer.  he told me that he has been at Slainte for 4 years and the owners give him free range on the menu items and changes.  Neckbone designed the Biblimbap and most of the menu.  He seemed very excited to meet all of us and tanked us for coming in and invited us to come back anytime, which I hope to do!

Neckbone, the chef of Slainte and me

He spent a good 10 minutes with us, which was great as it was a very busy Saturday night and his rime in the kitchen is very precious.  Before he left us he signed my book which made this vist my Official 400th!

Neckbone signing my book

The group of us stayed for a couple more hours, talking and visiting, no one really wanted the night to end.  I did tell the group a lot of stories about my travels and the different places I have been.  Everyone headed home after a great night!

Great friends Great Food and Fun Times



The 400th DDD group

It was a great night and I was so honored that friends came from so far away to meet and have a great time.  Not that I have number 400, I guess it's on to 500, not sure when that will happen but it will be a really fun journey!

Thanks to Stacy, Phil, Linda, Barry, Vivian, Nancy Dave, Scott, Amy, Katherine, Tammy, Angela and Wade for helping me celebrate and of course the staff of Slainte Irish Pub in Baltimore!