Last night my friend Heather and I went out on the town. She works for one of the theaters in Baltimore and so can often come by comp tickets to other artsy events going on around the city. Last night she had two tickets to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra featuring Ashley Brown’s Broadway and invited me along to be her date. I had a $20 voucher for Tapas Teatro from donating to something through GiveCorps and since the Meyerhoff is within walking distance of there I thought it would be an excellent time to use it.

I like Tapas Teatro a lot, but don’t go very often because trying to eat there on a weekend can be impossible since it’s so tiny, especially during the winter when there is no outdoor seating. We got there right before 6 to make sure we had plenty of time to eat before the show. We were still told there would be a 20-25 minute wait, though we only wound up waiting for less than 10 minutes. We definitely beat the crowd though as we were the first ones on the waiting list and lots of people rolled in right behind us. The menu has actually changed quite a bit since the last time I was there. There is now an entire section devoted completely to cheeses and cured meats, which did not exist before. We split 6 dishes. We had a salad made out of endives, pomegranate seeds and Valdeon cheese. We also ordered the Valdeon as a cheese plate on its own in addition to a plate of manchego. There was some kind of chutney that came with both cheeses that neither of us could quite identify and neither of us liked either. The cheese was tasty though. We also had baby potatoes with some kind of garlic cream sauce. I stupidly stuffed a whole potato in my mouth and then immediately regretted it when I bit into it and it was insanely hot. Oops. Finally we finished off with some shellfish with an order of mussels and one of garlic shrimp. We were both lamenting that we were too full to even bother to ask for more bread to sop up the sauces in those bowls. I’ll look forward to when the weather is nicer and I can go back and dine al fresco before a movie at The Charles.

After our delicious dinner we headed over the Meyerhoff for the show. Ashley Brown is a Broadway actress probably most well known for originating the part of Mary Poppins on Broadway. Before that she was apparently the 15th person to play Belle in Beauty and Beast in its Broadway run. She sang a number of Broadway songs including ones from Mary Poppins, Victor/Victoria, Kiss Me, Kate, and Wicked. There were also two medleys one of Disney songs and one of love duets. The Disney one really made me want to go back and watch a bunch of Disney movies. Too bad all the ones I own are on VHS and I don’t even own some of the ones it really made me want to see like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast.

It had been a number of years since I’ve been to any orchestral concert and the first time I have seen the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra play at all (unless you count the nightmare 4th of July we went to their show at Oregon Ridge, heard 2 songs, got caught in a thunderstorm, had the concert canceled, then spent 2 wet hours trying to get a shuttle back to our car). It was an enjoyable show and I’m glad I got to go. Thanks to Heather for inviting me.