Oh what a night

I have to tell you about our excellent meal last night: I had heard buzz about Flour + Water from people like Ruth Reichl, so I had to check it out.  The restaurant is small and warm, lots of earth tones and candles, and lots of shared tables.  The wine list is nearly all Italian.  We started with a margarita pizza with arugula.  The crust of this pizza was transcendent.  Thin, crispy, chewy, and dotted with scorched bubbles, steaming from the woodfired oven, gently wilting the fresh arugula on top.  I had been to the bathroom and could smell the pizza as I approached the table from 10 feet away!  Then we split the papparadelle pasta, which came with a wonderful ragu with tiny bits of pork shoulder as tender as jelly.  The housemade pasta was so good, perfect in texture and flavor; it really could stand on its own.  We were seated close to the semi-open kitchen, and I loved watching the chefs calmly churn out dish after dish, sharing tasting spoons of the entrees before they plated them up.  The only hiccup was that the side of oven roasted yams came long after our entree was finished, but that was OK since I was happy to eat them as dessert!  Tiny orange cubes, browned corners, anointed in brown butter, sage, salt, and parmegiano reggiano kept my belly warm for our walk to the concert.

Pomplamoose apparently booked this show months ago, before they achieved cult status on YouTube.  The little cafe was already packed to the gills - standing room only, no one else getting in - nearly 2 hours before they were set to go on.  We managed to belly up to some of the cafe windows, and actually this turned out to be a primo spot - we had a direct view of the stage, and they opened some of the windows so we could hear pretty well.  I don't like the deafening aspect of live music anyway, and there is no way my short self could have seen much being inside.

They had a great drummer with them, and the show was excellent - high energy level, amazing keyboarding, solid vocals.  I did miss all the harmonies that you get on the videosongs.  In person Jack is even more crazy and caught up in the music - his whole body jiggles, and he could not stop rapidly jumping up on his teeny tiny stool to egg on the crowd, then slamming back down to manically play the keys.  And Nataly is even more his foil: calm, introspective, strumming her bass and effortlessly singing.  Jack was so wild and sweaty at one point he even took of his pants and remained that way the rest of the evening. (he did have boxers on)  We met them briefly afterwards, and they were of course gracious and joyful, just like they are on their videos.

While they were clearly overwhelmed by the turnout to their show, we were not surprised.  Their last show only had about 40 audience members.  No doubt their next will be even larger, and not free.

We wished we could have had Anna and Colin there (since they are huge fans), but we doubt they could have lasted for this late show, especially with the time change.  Also it would have been so hard for them to see, although maybe two little people could worm their way to the front.

One last note -- Nataly announced their last song, and then said well, we have actually one more, but it would be too difficult in the crowded cafe to leave and come back for an encore, so they were going to go ahead and play the last two songs, but then that was really it, OK?  Ah, so refreshing!