We were in Cleveland yesterday with Blake and Haley for a succulent show at the botanical gardens, which I will tell you ALL ABOUT in a separate post. I know you can’t wait. I was excited for that, but even more excited to meet up with our pal Jason afterward at Melt. It’s been a minute since we’ve seen him, and even longer since the last time we went to Melt – I think almost two years! For someone who’s favorite food is and always will be the mighty grilled cheese, this place is Mecca. Even better — they cater to us anti-meat’ers by having veg substitutions for nearly every item on the menu.
Except for the Korean BBQ grilled cheese – nooooooooooooooo!
This was Chooch, Blake, and Haley’s first time at Melt and I always love being there for the popping of a Melt cherry. I knew Chooch would be underwhelmed because he hates everything, so he opted for the Melt veggie burger, while the rest of us were in decision-making agony.
All Chooch cared about was getting the eating portion of dinner over with so he could go play one of the arcade games. And then Blake saw a sign for some barcade down the street called 16 Bit and then that was all HE could think about, but Chooch and Haley would have gotten carded so then Blake was all JUST FORGET IT and that sounded really familiar but I couldn’t…
…quite….
…put my finger on it.
Blake and Haley decided that they would each get a different grilled cheese and then trade halves, and I was SO SAD because I wanted to do that as well, but I’m the difficult vegetarian with no one to share with.
But then Henry sighed and said, “Which ones do you want?”
And I said, “What does it matter, you won’t get the vegetarian version,” in that totally un-spoiled tone of mine.
“I’ll eat fake meat, it doesn’t bother me,” Henry said.
Oh, oppa!
So I got the faux chicken and waffles and he got Mom’s Meatloaf or something even though I told him to order the Smoky Russian but he went rogue and made his own decision, what the fuck?
But I was too happy for the rare opportunity to deep throat some melted cheese to make too big of an issue out of it.
Plus I didn’t want to be a bitch in front of Jason, hahahaha.
Ha.
(Speaking of ha, today I learned how to read and write Ha Ha’s name in Hangul!)
(Ha Ha is my favorite person on Running Man.)
COME TO MAMA.
We all pigged out on kung pow Brussels sprouts too.
Holy shit. Game changer.
(Henry just brought served me a cup of coffee and when I exclaimed, “Thanks, oppa!” he frowned and said “We’re not friends.” LOL ok.)
My favorite thing about hanging out with Jason is that I get an opportunity to actually talk about music with someone who knows the bands I’m talking about. I mean, he’s the editor-in-chief of Alternative Press so he kind of has no choice.
“I have to tell you, Jason, I’m kind of out of the loop,” I prefaced my confession with trepidation. “I got sucked into the Kpop black hole.”
Jason started laughing without mirth, and looked at Henry, who was making covert Hostage Eyes at him. YOU KNOW THAT LOOK. Like when someone is with their kidnapper at a toll booth, making silent cries of HELP ME HELP with just their eyes.
So I started blabbing about BIGBANG and when I got to the “I can’t believe I wasted eight years on Jonny Craig when G-Dragon was over there this whole time” part, Jason pulled out his phone and said, “OK, you got me curious now.”
And he started Googling G-Dragon!
After reading a bit and seeing G-Dragon’s net worth, he said, “So maybe I should just start Kpop Press…” He might have been being sarcastic, but I was too busy listening to the new Got7 song in my head to fully notice.
“I’m in deep,” I sighed, and everyone laughed but Henry looked like he was going to cry.
There were many high points to our Saturday in Cleveland, but this was the apex for me. Grilled cheese and grilled great people – that’s a pretty perfect combo. And wow, Henry the Carnivore must really love me to take a hard pass on animal flesh just so that I could share a sandwich with him.
Even though he didn’t order the Smoky Risisian like I suggested.
#neverhappy
(I look at that picture and all I can see is the stains on Chooch’s pants. HE ALWAYS HAS STAINS.)