Ant Ordered What? (Guest post!)

What’s happenin’ everyone? No, I’m not Ker Kilbourne. I’m Ant Pruitt. I hope you’re doing well. I’m unbelievable as always. This is "She Ordered What?". A site I enjoy reading because the li’l lady pops into restaurants around the world, and tasks her server with ordering her meals on her behalf. It’s totally off the cuff, and leads to her being served interesting and tasty dishes. I give her credit on this because she has been able to discover some dishes that may be off the beaten path. Not just a standard “grilled salmon over rice.” I’m going to take this opportunity and guest post, if she’ll have me. (grins)(Kerri here: I LOVE that Ant surprised me with a guest post, and he knows full well that I will absolutely post anything he writes!  Ant is one of my dear and beloved friends - with great talent online, be it photography, podcasts, or writing.  I’m thrilled to post his article about his experience!)Recently, I’ve been fortunate enough to have some amazing blessings in my professional life and in my hobby world. By day, I’m an IT analyst that stares at SQL and application code all day. By night and all times in between, my hobbies include online technology commentary as well as smartphone photography commentary and podcasting. On the week of October 21st, I was able to make a trip out to Seattle and Bellevue, Washington. I was blessed with a contract to create content on a new website (sponsored by HTC), which includes my smartphone photography commentary. I looked forward to this (my first) trip to Seattle to see the area, HTC campus, and to eat some damn good food.  Not to mention, tasting the local brews.Upon getting to my hotel, I had to get in a quick workout, then load up on some protein and local brew. The very attractive Nine O Bar and Grill is inside the Silver Cloud hotel. I sat at the bar and asked my waiter for a glass of milk, (Kerri here again - Only Ant would order milk at a bar and probably garner a flirty grin from the bartender!)  and when I was done, I’d like to try a local brew she suggests.  She suggested African Amber by Mac and Jack’s Brewing in Redmond, WA. Good call, Karina. Good call. As I enjoyed the brew, I took a snapshot to work on my photography skills. No. It’s not food porn, sorry. So launch day arrives. After a night of tossing and turning in my bed, I was driven over to the HTC campus in Bellevue. I met some great people, put in some work before we hit the “launch” button, and discussed more plans with my colleagues of “aNewDomain”. Launch day of the site BreakingModern was a great success! Everyone was thrilled. And the end of the day meant some celebrating with colleagues, food, and brew.Our driver, Zola, was an Ethiopian college student. When the topic of dinner came up, he was all over us with the an Ethiopian venue he loves. Sure! Why not? Our ride to downtown Seattle landed us at Wonder Sports Bar.Ok, I had my trepidation as it was called a “sports bar.” But I found that it was a move of marketing genius on the owner’s part. Interest in Wonder was slow originally. Really slow. So it rebranded itself into Wonder Sports Bar. Nothing really changed, other than putting burgers on the menu. Since then, the restaurant has been doing much better with increased traffic and local enjoying authentic Ethiopian cuisine. (Ker here:  LOVE this!  Way to generate foot traffic and keep the place going.)I looked at the menu and immediately knew I wanted lamb, but our server (the owner) said she’d like to treat us family-style. So as we waited on our food, we all check our phone messages for the day since we were so focused with the launch. (Ker: Nerd alert! ;-) ) (Ker: That's Ant in the upper right corner.  He refers to himself as the "large, angry black man". So completely not true!)We were handed a piping hot platter of food which included Kay Watt (spicy lamb), Yemisir Watt (green lentils), Kitfo (Ethiopian Steak), Yesiga Alicha (mild lamb) and Injera (Ethiopian bread).  I washed the AMAZING food down with another local brew called Men’s Room by Elysian Brewing. Another fine brew from the state of Washington. There’s something about sitting on a comfy couch with a brew, a big platter of grub and eating it WITH YOUR HANDS. Nope. No forks or knives.  Great experience.  (Ker here: This immediately reminded me of my fantastic experience at a Southeast Indian restaurant in Singapore - eating off of banana leaves - such a cool experience!). I hope I didn’t embarrass Ker with my post quality. I’m not as eloquent as she is, and it shows in my writing sometimes. At any rate, I enjoyed my visit to Seattle and enjoyed sharing my grubbing/brew experience with her readers.Thanks for reading and here comes the shameless self-promotion. Be sure to follow me on Twitter and check out aNewDomain for tech news and commentary, then check out BreakingModern for your random commentary about day-to-day life topics. Thanks again. - Ant(Kerri: Thank you so much, Ant.  I really enjoyed reading about your experiences in Washington!  I can’t believe you are the man who just a year ago had NEVER BEEN ON A PLANE!! You are making the most of your experiences, and I’m truly happy for you!  Cheers - to more glorious travel and exciting experiences! - Ker)