How to take yourself out on a date and not look like a loner- By Estibaliz Romeo
My freshman year of college, I wouldn't be caught dead sitting alone at a Starbucks table reading a book or even just on my phone. I judged those people who did and if I was alone, I would grab my coffee and go straight home, to my bed watching TV, where no one would judge me.
My sophomore year, karma kicked me in the butt for judging those people and I gave up that fear and would hang in the school cafe with my "homework" (really I was procrastinating on Facebook) and did not care if people judged me (karma probably kicked them in the butt too). When I was abroad in Sweden, I had mastered the art of taking myself out on a date. When I had an essay to write, I would go to the nearest cafe, and when I needed to blog about my latest travel adventure, I go to the nearest cafe. I felt like a young international hipster when I went to cafes alone, wrote on my blog and had my panini and latte with me.
Ugh, all the hipsters would be proud.
I didn't feel like a loner and I didn't feel like eyes were watching me everywhere. I was at peace with my latte, my iPhone and laptop procrastinating/blogging away.
Now being a pre-adult with no essays, no assignments, travel blogs or boyfriend, solo-dates are what keep me sane in my hometown for now. Just like this Sunday when I ventured out to the downtown area and had a solo-date paired with a book.
I put on my best outfit, grabbed the book I was currently reading Live from New York, It's Saturday Night and large book of mini-memoirs from the writers, producers, and cast members of Saturday Night Live and drove to Walnut Creek to enjoy a cup of iced coffee to The Coffee Shop.
That's the name, The Coffee Shop. Amusing and confusing and entertain when telling someone "I'm at The Coffee Shop".
I bet the owners called it that out of amusement, if not then I'm quite disappointed. But not disappointed in their coffee and atmosphere.
Wooden tables and black chairs- the environment is the definition of modern coffee shops you see in the movies. I ordered a coffee past time favorite, Stumptown Coffee, a ode to my week in Portland, OR freshman year with a dab of soy milk, sat myself on a stool facing the window and read/people watched.
It was heaven in a mason jar.
2 hours past by and 100 pages into the book and I was ready to leave. As much as I loved this coffee shop and the music it had, my butt was starting to hurt from sitting in the stool for so long, so I decided to migrate. A part of me wanted to go to another coffee shop and then the idea of coffee hopping all around downtown Walnut Creek seemed like an enjoyable idea, I was totally into the idea until I realized that coffee with no food is a bad idea and driving back home with several cups of coffee in me would have been a danger to me and all the drivers within the Walnut Creek/Concord area.
It was safe to have just one cup of coffee and have some food in my stomach. Thus leading me to one of my new favorite farm-to-table places as mentioned previously in this blog, Main Street Kitchen.
With no detox in me and having the freedom to eat what I want and not feel guilty, I ordered a hamburger and an iced latte.
Okay, now let's stop for a moment.
Remember in How I Met Your Mother, when Marshall was on the hunt for the perfect burger all around New York reminiscing about the first time in New York, meeting this hamburger and still remembering it eight years later? The whole crew went to several hamburger places only eating one bite of a burger at each place searching with nostalgia for this perfect hamburger. It took the entire episode to find the place and when they did it was pure magic and love at first bite.
Since watching that episode, I have longed to experience a hamburger like Marshall, to feel what it is like to physically fall in love with a hamburger and remember it eight years later. I asked my friends around me to start our own hunt for the perfect hamburger and they've agreed but our college student bank accounts had always stopped us from searching. But the want to find the perfect hamburger still longed in my stomach and in my mind. And on this day, sometime in July, I did it. I met and ate the perfect hamburger and it was in my neighboring hometown the whole time, it was just waiting for me to come and find it.
The hamburger at Main Street Kitchen was the hamburger to the Marshall Erikson, minus the photo of Regis Philbin hanging in the corner.
The place was small but held several people, the tables were plain and white and the cutlery was wrapped in blue cloth napkins being held in a ceramic mug resembling an old-fashioned water jug. I was presented with the menu and my eyes fell straight to the hamburger. A simple hamburger with cheese made with grass fed organic ground beef with caramelized onions and carefully placed on the side, resting peacefully, are tomatoes, lettuce and pickles. When my order came, I put tomatoes, lettuce and pickles (I hate pickles) and savored my first bite and I swore angelic music was playing after that first bite. Either that or the music in the cafe was playing angelic music...I'm not sure but the point of this sentence is that the hamburger was incredible.
The softness of the bun with the tender juicy-ness of the hamburger and how the bun soaked up some of the juices was mouthwatering. The surprise taste of the tomato, ketchup, mustard and the cheese just put me in a euphoric state. I completely forgot where I was for a moment until the waitress came to my table and asked how everything was and I answered back with a mouthful of hamburger
"Os Gewd"
And gewd it was. I ate all the hamburger pickles and all, cleaned out the french fries and polished off the iced latte and laid back and waited for the check. My stomach was satisfied and my heart was thumping with glee (or with grease but mostly glee).
It was the hamburger I had always dreamed of meeting and I met it. I wanted to scream about his hamburger to the citizens of Walnut Creek like Monica screamed her engagement in F-R-I-E-N-D-S. I wanted to create a television show about the hunt to find the hamburger, like The Bachelorette but instead of finding the perfect hot man, I'm finding the hamburger with the hottest buns.
Instead, I posted a picture of it on Instagram and proclaimed my love through hashtags.
The hamburger of all hamburgers. The current love and winner of the Hamburger Bachelorette.
Isn't it beautiful?
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