We had a mixed impression of the Savant Project even before we walked through the door. Checking out the menu online, it seemed overpriced. So we made plans to eat at Penguin Pizza which is right across the street. Although Amy, Phu and Pete said they wouldn't be able to make it to trivia, the lure of Penguin Pizza was enough to have them make an appearance. I have to say that the Penguin's slices are gigantic (roughly 1/4 a pie), delicious and cheap at $3 a slice. I thoroughly enjoyed my slice of the Seasonal which included Butternut squash puree, leeks and feta, yum!
Anyway, we headed to the Savant Project right at 7:30 on the dot. Walking in, we realized what a tiny place it was. As a group of six, it looked like we wouldn't be able to score a big enough table but would be able to settle for a four-person table and add chairs. Wrong. Apparently, the open tables were reserved ahead of time but we could stand at the bar. Which was fine, since there was plenty of space. What didn't work out too well was the ten minutes it took for us to get a drink order in, which was ridiculous considering that there were six of us standing at the bar, this was bad. Jen and I decided to split a bottle of their Riesling and were told they sold their last bottle the night before. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as we decided to go with their sparkling wine, and were charged the lower price of the Riesling. What was disconcerting was the bartender had to swap out our glasses, literally, five times because each glass was obviously very smudged and dirty. He explained it as the "glasses were technically clean from the dishwasher but had residue left from fruit pulp from things like mimosas." To me, it looked like the residue was from chapstick/lipstick on the rim which is not clean, no matter how many times it has been "washed" by the dishwasher.
Finally, Jen and I were able to enjoy our wine:
Amy, Phu and Pete decided to check out the bar but as you can see from their clothing and their glasses of water, they were ready to head out as soon as possible.
Pete joined us for a beer but like Amy and Phu, hit the door once we had the next weird thing happen to us at the bar.
As we were all standing at at the bar, a stranger named David approached us, asked if we were all playing as a team, and then asked if he could join our team. Extremely awkward. It's one of those situations where you really want to say no but feel guilty for thinking that. But then you're thinking that it's weird for a guy to be by himself at the bar, not with friends, on a trivia night. We tell him ok and then an awkward ten minutes commences where David hovers awkwardly on the edges of our conversation, Amy, Phu and Pete quickly excuse themselves, and we wait for the trivia game to start (advertised as 7:30 pm, it doesn't start until around 8:10 pm).
But the rest of the night was actually pretty fun. We had a lively guest trivia host, Oh! Megan who used a puppet to collect answers:
We ended up inviting the other lone guy who was sitting next to us to join our team as well since David had already broken up the comfort dynamic. He declined but was pretty friendly in conversation throughout the night. This same guy also won a free shot for having the best team name and split the "shot" (which really amounted to four servings) with us. I was the only one brave enough to try it and it was gross. As the Savant Project doesn't have a liquor license, it can only serve beers and cordials. Which I don't get, since to me, alcohol is alcohol. Anyway, the shot apparently had coffee liquor, raspberry vodka and some sort of mint schnapps. Gross. If I were a bartender that only had access to "cordials," I would make sure that I had some sort of tasty cordial shot up my sleeve.
This is what the shot looked like:
The trivia session took around two hours and in the end, our team did respectably, scoring 12 out of 20 points in four rounds (the leader had 14 points). We bet it all on the last question and unfortunately, didn't win. As the first prize ended up being free door passes to Centerfolds (a strip club), I don't think of it as a real loss because yikes, what a lame prize.
Here's a team shot - that would be David on the right. He ended up being fine as a random team member but I wasn't sad to see him go at the end.
All in all, it was an interesting and fairly fun experience but I don't think I'll be going back anytime soon. Especially if David decides to come back!
1 comment:
Ha ha - it definitely was interesting! That first picture of the two of us makes me look like I misplaced my neck somewhere - I wonder why I was scrunched down like that. But anyway, it was a fun thing to try randomly, even at a sketchy non-liquor bar!
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