What a fun night out Thursday evening! I walked into El Barrio a little after 7:00. The French Man's bicycle is parked out front between his two restaurants. There's a fair amount of people there, and impressively, 99.5% of them were women! There's an empty seat in between a pair of young ladies, and a woman who appeared to be by herself. She's eating some tapas that looks delicious.
The bartender, who looked familiar, gives me the menu. The titles of the dishes are indeciferable, Spanish I assume, but I recognized very few words besides "pollo" and "ensalada", and nothing on the wine list looks familiar (i.e. not called a cabernet or chardonay). I tell the bartender that I'd like a glass of something red, but I didn't know what these wines were. He describes them to me and gives them labels I understand. I order the red that is similar to a pinot noir (a "pegoes"?). I point to the item on the menu that I'd like to get (the description of it was a salad with duck meat, but the name of it was 7 Spanish words long). He laughed and said, "Oh yes, the duck salad! The owner named this salad and I had to have the name shortened so I could fit the description on the menu!" The owner being The Blue Eyed Frenchman from next door :)
The solo woman next to me has curly dark hair with a nice big white streak through it, and she is friendly and quite talkative! Her name is "Donna" (Names are changed to protect their privacy). I say that it was my first time here, finally! I had been looking forward to the place opening but hadn't made it in yet. So she introduces me to the Bartender, "Liam". Turns out Liam used to be the Bar Manager next door at Bistro Basque. Hence why I recognized him (he must have been there for YEARS, I think he was mentioned in a long ago blog post!). And Liam went with her to shop for a new car a couple weeks ago because she needed a wing man. Donna is new in town, and doesn't know too many local people.
She tells me the story of her car shopping with Liam, our excellent bartender, and he chimes in. I ask him if he'll help me in a year or so? He laughs and with a big smile says he is a great shopping partner for a single woman because he's good with all the car shopping apps, and he's gay, so he can pretend to be your husband. LOL. So Liam is my new favorite bartender. Not that I had any previous favorites, having not been out in a long while.
Donna also informs me that I just missed Happy Hour with reduced specials on wine and apps, and I could tell she had definitely partaken in the happy hour specials. She tells me there's live music at SBC at 7:30, the performer being a middle school teacher who is starting his show after completing parent teacher conferences. (She stopped in and met him a few hours as he was setting up, and she was walking over to El Barrio). By the way, by 9:30 she was still with me, drinking water and talking my ear off. I thoroughly enjoyed Donna, I felt we had a lot in common.
Here is why:
She asked me what brought me to El Barrio. I answer that I needed to get out of the house and do something on my own at least once a week. She said the same thing. It went on and on from there. She affirmed what I was doing, being ok with being alone, and doing things alone. She was polite about it, she said, "I don't know what your circumstances are...but you have to be ok with being alone and doing things by yourself, and also meeting new people", and we talked about how it takes time and courage. I didn't ask her circumstances, but there was an air of both sadness and strength about her. We talked about how hard it was for me to get myself out, because I was tired. "Do you have young children?" She asked. No...I take care of young children, infants, a lot of them, and it can be exhausting. She has two boys, now in their mid 20's. I'm guessing she is 50 something. She tells me I should probably get out more, and that it doesn't always have to cost money. Yes, I know, I told her I had been trying!
She proceeds to tell me about the great experiences she's had through meetup.com, a site I had heard of years ago, but had never done anything with it. She belongs to a hiking group on there and shows me dozens of pictures of places she's hiked. She says it's not a way to meet the man of your dreams (most of the members are women, she also points out the male to female ratio where we are), but that she has a lot of fun, meets great new people and gets to get out and do things with other people that have similar interests. I am enthralled. Meetup.com here I come. I want to join that hiking group. She also recommended that I go to events at the Milford Fine Arts Center. She says she goes frequently, buys pairs of tickets in advance, and often has an extra ticket and goes alone and has great experiences with random new people. She tells me, "You are so young, you shouldn't be alone". I laughed and said I wasn't so young, and that I was beginning to be okay with being by myself. I kind of wanted to hug Donna. She was so great.
I'm on my second glass of wine and have only managed a couple bites of my large duck and arugula salad, because we are talking so much. She keeps apologizing for interrupting my dinner. And I keep saying, no it's okay, I'm enjoying talking to you!
At some point, an older gentleman wearing what looks like an old tweed suit, sits on the other side of Donna. Bartender Liam introduces us to him, his name is "Bob", another regular. Bob is an attorney, the fact of which comes out in a joke about what he is wearing via our bartender. He joins our conversations. We talk about where we live in town. Turns out he nearly sued my neighborhood for their restrictions on summer rentals. I had to laugh. He was very pleasant, had a kind face. Throughout the evening he was texting with his (grown) daughter, helping her write a cover letter for something, because he was good with words and she needed help. At one point she called him instead of texting, because he was too busy talking to us instead of texting her back. At some point I learned that he is 72.
The two young ladies to my left had left, and a couple took their place, ordering wine and some tapas. They were very friendly too and introduced themselves. They joined in our conversations and asked me if the three of us (Donna, Bob, and I) were out together. No, LOL, we all just met tonight.
Attorney Bob who nearly sued my neighborhood association noticed my wine glass was empty, and had Liam fill me up (on his tab apparently, as it wasn't on my bill). Donna felt ready enough to walk back to her new Lexus and drive it home to her new apartment in Walnut Beach. Bob started showing me photos of his adorable baby granddaughter.
I was now drinking water, and the friendly couple and the attorney had started talking politics across me. So I said my goodnights and nice to meet yous, and headed home. I had been out for almost three hours, and it was way passed my bedtime.
Conclusion:
DEFINITELY going back to El Barrio. It was comfortable and safe feeling. There were locals, friendly people, attentive staff. Not a "pick-up" bar. A high end tapas bar with regulars. Not cheap, and totally worth it. I only got sad briefly, when Donna asked me if I'd hiked Sleeping Giant Mountain, and I answered that I had planned to, but......And I'm definitely going to explore meetup.com and find Donna on there through the hiking group.
So the question is, where do I go next week?
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