A Pretty Great Weekend

Though it was packed full of activities, the weekend that we went down to Ohio for the Irish Festival in Dublin was pretty awesome. If you want to find out more about the festival itself and you didn't read my post on Monday, you can find it here. With Friday night revelries in the books, Saturday was a bit more laid back. We had talked about going back to the festival, and some of the family did to check out the spoken word stage.

From what I heard, it was just people talking about what life was like in Ireland way back in the day. Which is probably kind of cool, but I had more important things going on. @mrsbozz's sister had gotten her a gift certificate for a head massage back around Christmas time, so the ladies had plans to do that. Meanwhile, I sweet talked my niece into taking me to one of the local record stores in the area.

Used Kids Records is located in one of the downtown areas of Columbus, Ohio and I am not exaggerating when I say it is one of the best record stores I have ever been to. It actually wasn't much of a chore to talk my niece into taking me here. She loves vinyl as much as I do and although I never said anything directly, I think she knew deep down if we made the trip there was a good chance I would buy her a couple albums.

Actually, she would have been happy to spend time with me no matter what. I shouldn't make it sound like there was some kind of ulterior motive involved.

The whole main section of Used Kids was all Rock/Pop records, but then they also had a huge back room area full of jazz and soul albums. It was almost overwhelming. I could have seriously spent all day there.

With two used Eddie Money records in hand for me, and a few hip hop albums in her own bag, we finally pulled ourselves away from the stacks about an hour later.

In the afternoon, the kids were going to swim at our hotel, but at the last minute they changed their mind and decided instead they wanted to hang out at a place called PINS which is a duck pin bowling alley, bar, and arcade I have written about in the past. The uncles and their father took them there playing some games and having a few drinks while the kids ran around playing games like it was Chuck E Cheez's.

After the ladies finished up with their head massages and the kids were starting to get hungry we headed to the East Market to get some food. I've also written a post about this place in the past, but I decided to try something different this time versus the Cuban sandwich I got last time.

While @mrsbozz got a burrito bowl from the Mexican place in the market, I decided to try out the Vietnamese place. I don't really know how authentic Lan Viet is, @gooddream would know more about that than me, but the food I got was really good. In addition to that, in his spare time my brother in law door dashes and he said the majority of orders he takes from the Eastern Market come from Lan Viet and one other place, so even if it isn't authentic, it is popular.

This was the burrito bowl that my wife got. She said it was just as good as the last time she remembered it.

I decided to go with the garlic noodles with chicken added that I saw on their website. Trust me when I say there are noodles down there under all that chicken. The flavor was pretty amazing and while it wasn't quite as "wet" as I might have liked broth-wise, it was still pretty amazing. I'd definitely get it again.

It actually turns out, this dish is one of their appetizers, but it was more than enough to fill me up. The flavors were so rich and savory, they stuck with me for the rest of the night in an oh so good way.

Of course, we also got a couple cocktails to go with our food. I got the Market Old Fashioned, and my wife got a Captain Morgan and Diet Coke. I bet you guessed that already though if you are familiar with my blog.

@mrsbozz and I never did end up going back to the Irish Festival. It actually rained a good portion of the day on Saturday, so I think it might have been a little miserable anyway. On Sunday we packed up and headed home. For dinner we spent some time on our deck and I grilled up some BBQ Chicken Bratwurst I had just picked up from a local butcher shop. Paired with some homemade mac and cheese and sauteed brussels sprouts with parmesan cheese and balsamic vinegar, it was a pretty amazing dinner. As you can see, we skipped the bun to keep it healthy! :)