On Thursday I got to enjoy a random night out on the town with Shrek courtesy of Yelp and Fahrenheit Restaurant & Lounge.

After being gouged for parking downtown ($10 flat and no validation. A big reason I don’t go downtown too often? I’d rather buy a fancy drink for that price at Santana Row where parking’s free!) and standing in line to check in for the event (it went smoothly and fairly quickly), we grabbed a few drinks at the bar.

{Bartender Lee Johnson is ranked 15th in the world for Flair Bartending. He was spinning and flipping those bottles so fast my DLSR couldn’t even capture it! (I think it was due the low light, too.)}

A single brew on tap along with a single wine vintage — a riesling — were complimentary all night. Unfortunately, according to Shrek the beer “tasted like earwax.” This is coming from a guy who will drink Bud Light! (On occasion — and no offense to Bud Light.) After one sip he requested a different ale so no free drinks for him As it turns out, I am personally not a fan of riesling. It’s way too sweet so I opted to pay $10 for a muddled raspberry vodka drink. It was yum! But with parking, tips, and drinks we were already out $30 for an evening that was supposed to be free… Woh woh.

Good thing once I had that drink in me I could handle the riesling. May also have something to do with the fact that Shrek and I shared 2 drinks at home, first!

All in all it was an enjoyable night! It was entertaining and we met some cool fellow Yelpers. I also didn’t leave starving like I did the last Yelp event. Bonus? We didn’t have to elbow or take anyone down for food since it was nicely served to us. Shrek and I each got our own plates and even seconds of each dish! (I did at one point witness a platter of something come out and the frenzy it created could be compared to a chicken bone dangled in a pirana tank.)

{BBQ Spare Rib}

{Sea Bass}

 A solid 4 out of 5 star event! The event itself was well-organized and the restaurant offered friendly attentive service — neither Shrek nor I ever had a problem getting a drink at the bar or food in our bellies despite the crowd. The plates themselves were well prepared, creative, and delicious. I’d totally go back to check out their other dishes sometime! It was a fun atmosphere, too.

Minus one star for:

• the “ear-wax” beer
• lack of booze in the complimentary lychee cocktail — it tasted like too-sweet juice. Despite, some of my dining companions didn’t even get one because they didn’t make enough to go around. Lame! But I assured them they weren’t missing much on that front.
• The music was way too loud for this particular event! I went to meet new people but conversation was really difficult due to to the clubby music
• Finally, they were giving away dining certificates to people who answered trivia questions correctly. The only thing was that how well you did depended on how well you knew the guy emceeing. Seriously, one of the questions was “Where am I from?” And I think you had to name the city or country and another was “What’s my last name?” …………..