Memoirs of a Fat Girl

Later that day, our wedding errands took us to Izakaya restaurant.

What on earth could a restaurant have to do with wedding errands, you ask? Are they catering the affair? No. Were we tired & hungry, needing some lunch and a sit down before going on our wedding bells way? No. We needed a drink.

We needed lots of drinks. Apparently, part of having a funky wedding these days is having a signature cocktail. They are tasty, they are fun, and your guests will go home talking about the amazing signature cocktail.

Oli wants a signature cocktail. She doesn’t want to throw her bouquet, but she wants a signature cocktail.

The visit to Izakaya (and accompanying restaurants & bars) is necessary because professional bartenders are just so much better at designing these contemporary, newfangled drinks. Why have a plain old olive martini, when you can have a dragon fruit banana cilantro mint julep echinacea whatever-tini?

In other words, we were on the prowl for ideas. And while Oli did bartend in university, serving beer to hordes of perverted teenagers hardly qualifies her to dabble with exotic ingredients.

Izakaya, hello baby. Fabulous restaurant around the corner from work, in fact, which was how I’d discovered it to begin with. Gorgeous bar right in front and if I may say so, a bar staff that’s really easy on the eyes. The drinks menu is superb, exotic New York Asian chic. If there is such a thing.

It is two in the afternoon, and I am getting loaded with my sister, in the name of her wedding. Carlos the feisty bartender is our host this evening. Carlos is bald, tall, and getting a kick out of the fact that we are each triple fisting.

Drink #1: plum wine, vodka, ice.

Drink #2: Fuji apple, pineapple liqueur, ginger, vodka, ice.

Drink #3: Aloe juice, vodka, ice.

The first drink was quickly voted off the island. Too plain.

The second one, now there was something else. Fuji apple, I tells ya, with a snappy ginger aftertaste. Went down cool, finished off spicy. Just my kind of martini. I was tickled pink when Carlos added, “This is the most adventurous of our drinks.”

That made me sassy and cocky all at once. Imagine! Moi, adventurous! Adventurous in life, and adventurous in alcohol! Get me another!

While Carlos was making me another, we tried the aloe drink. Oli tasted first. I watched her eyes light up after the swallow, and then she dished her famous, jubilant line: “I LOOOOVE it! Try this, you-are-going-to DIE.”

I tried it. I liked it. It tasted somewhat like paper flavoured jello, but it did the trick. Oli’s enthusiasm over it far outweighed mine, though, and hence began the Aloe vs. (Fuji) Apple debate. In the meantime:

Carlos: “Indecisive?

Us, in unison: “Yes.”

Carlos: “How about a second round, just to make sure?”

Us, in unison: “Okay!”

Carlos: “And to make it all go down smoother, would you like to some premium sake?”

Us, in unison: “Okay!”

I knocked over a bar stool on the way out.

Oli wanted the aloe drink. Well, it *is* her wedding. Alas, it was not to be, as she searched for aloe liquids to no avail. She still fared well though, and after several more “business trips,” has finally made up her mind on a signature cocktail.

Plural. Signature cocktails are so intensely fabulous, she will not have just one, but four.

1) Blood Orange Mandarin
2) Kahlua Espresso White Cream
3) Pear Frangelico Cream
4) Apple Brandy Vanilla Cinnamon.

While my sister knows very well that four cocktails doesn’t make it so signature anymore, rest assured that she traveled the high road and acquired a signature shot: Irish cream, vodka & crème de cacao.

Methinks this wedding will be a tasty one.