Oh My God! Oh My Friggin' God!!!

THAT, my friends, is a... Bacon! Wrapped! Hot Dog! Yeah, you heard me right. It's pretty much just what it sounds like. Disgusting? Yes. But delicious? Oh, yes...

I headed out to my first Midnight Mystery Ride last night. I met up with my buddy Fuller and his friends Paul, Dylan and Gabe at Plan B, whose menu does indeed include the artery destroying bacon wrapped hot dog. Paul and I each ordered one. I wouldn't eat this on a regular basis. In fact, I'll probably never eat one again, but when you're confronted with something like this for the first time, there's no way you can refuse...

From Plan B, we headed to the Lucky Lab, a few blocks away, for another round. From there, our five-man fixie gang made its way to Roots Brewery, the starting point of the Mystery Ride, where we met up with Paul's friend Spencer. There was a pretty good crowd amassed at Roots for the ride, I'd say close to a hundred people. At the stroke of Midnight, we set out through the streets of SE Portland. The bulk of the ride took us around the circle and through the alleyways of Ladd's Addition. Eventually we made our way down 20th, ultimately winding up at a party in a parking lot somewhere near 21st and Powell, where cold Pabsts and Hamms were enjoyed by all. Here we see Spencer and Paul posing with April Danger's tall bike (the two of them took turns riding the thing, which made for some good comedy):


Here's a shot of your humble author:


Our contribution to the party was Jiffy Pop, in camouflage packaging (this was apparently military issue Jiffy Pop), cooked over a camp stove:


Once we'd had enough of the party, the four of us (we'd lost Gabe and Spencer at this point) headed north to that classic SE late-night mainstay, Bistro Montage. I ordered the Crawfish "Beignets":


That's a pretty blurry photo, I realize, but no matter, because these really weren't beignets at all, they were more like corn fritters. Don't get me wrong, they were tasty and all, but hey, Bistro Montage, come on... I've never even BEEN to Louisiana and I know these ain't anything like the real thing (which, as I understand it anyway, consist of deep-fried pate-a-choux liberally sprinkled with icing sugar)! If you want beignets, it would seem there's still no way around a trip to Cafe Du Monde...