{"id":40877,"date":"2013-11-20T08:20:20","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T16:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=40877"},"modified":"2013-11-19T09:20:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T17:20:53","slug":"a-montage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=40877","title":{"rendered":"A Montage"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week seems to be a time for reflection and reminiscing. First with a feel-good recipe<\/a> on Monday and now I’m remembering the first days I moved to Portland.<\/p>\n

For our anniversary a few months ago, Michael got us stellar tickets to the Nine Inch Nails concert, which was Monday night. We went home after work to play with Bella for a little bit and then headed back out into the dark, rainy night for a date night before the show.<\/p>\n

We wanted to get dinner somewhat near the Rose Garden to make it easy. I suggested Montage<\/a>. Montage is a Portland staple, a must-see for atmosphere and fun. Montage is a restaurant \u00a0famous for its mac n’ cheese, its quirkiness and is located underneath the Morrison Bridge. It’s a few blocks from the waterfront, near the train tracks; it’s kind of a dank, dark, creepy location, complete with homeless people lingering around. But if you can get passed that, give the place a try.<\/p>\n

Stepping into Montage I was taken back to another time. It was really like stepping into a time machine. I went there when I first moved back to Portland by myself, so about 12 years ago. Why I never went back is beyond me. But as Michael and I got a seat, I started thinking about those days. They were both hard and exhilarating–I was coming off a really, really bad break up and my heart was ripped open–but at the same time I had a feeling of confidence and happiness because I was ON MY OWN. I’d done it. I was living on my own, in my own apartment, no roommates. I’d made the move from Seattle to Portland without a man in my life and it boosted my self-esteem. Being independent is so important to me.<\/p>\n

Anyways, Montage was the first restaurant in Portland that had communal eating style tables. They were long banquet tables set up so that you were sitting next to a complete stranger while you ate dinner. In 2001 this was very odd to me, now it’s a Portland norm.<\/p>\n

The menu includes alligator, frog legs, half a dozen different types of mac n’ cheese and a two page drink list bigger than the table we were sitting at. I love their goofy names for drinks. I ordered a “Laura Palmer” and high five if you get the reference. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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The drink was tart and citrusy. They had one drink called “The Ex-Wife” for $250,000. “Nighttrain and Thunderbird on the rocks made payable in monthly installments for the rest of your life.” Hahaha!<\/p>\n

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For dinner I ordered the “Spold Mac” (terrible name by the way) which was a blend of the regular mac n’ cheese and their spicy version. It was creamy and had a kick a to it! Michael got a steak with bleu cheese on it, which came with mashed potatoes, corn bread muffins and a side salad. I ate most of my mac n’ cheese and then took the rest home. They wrap the leftovers into foil art!<\/p>\n

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My leftovers were wrapped into a rose. It was cute. Someone at another table had their leftovers wrapped into a humongous battle axe. It was epic! I wanted to get a picture of it but that seemed weird. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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After dinner we scampered up to the Rose Quarter just in time for the opening band’s last song (no idea who they were). NIN came on stage and gave a kick-ass performance. I’ve seen them once before, with Michael, and he’s seen them like 5 times. NIN was a band I loved the moment I discovered Pretty Hate Machine when I was around 11 or 12 years old… Hearing him play a lot of the songs from that first album was like wrapping myself in an old familiar blanket.<\/p>\n

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\nOur seats were amazing. Michael splurged and got us seats just a few rows back from the mosh-pit. We were so close I could see the sweat dripping off Trent Reznor! They played a lot of the old favorites and a bunch of the new songs. They sounded fantastic. Flawless performance. The finale was “Hurt” and you can watch my video of it here<\/a>. It was probably the best rendition of “Hurt” I’ve heard them do. It sent chills up my spine.<\/p>\n

The show was done around 11pm and we hurried home. I let Bella out to run around a little bit and go outside to potty then it was bedtime. Needless to say, the next day was rough! I’m officially old. Staying out that late on a work night is brutal! But the show was so worth it.\u00a0Have you ever seen Nine Inch Nails live?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week seems to be a time for reflection and reminiscing. First with a feel-good recipe on Monday and now I’m remembering the first days I moved to Portland. For our anniversary a few months ago, Michael got us stellar tickets to the Nine Inch Nails concert, which was Monday night. We went home after […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[2770,315,104,2565,107,2559,169,195,6297,196,2806,5170],"tags":[1650,1397,8770,7639,1565,7638,7634,7633,7636,7635,8691,7637],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40877"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40894,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40877\/revisions\/40894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}