After a day of beer, food and driving, it felt good to relax with the O’Brien family in the Federal Hill area of Baltimore.  Their friend Terry joined us for a sampling of Clown Shoes beer I had shuttled down from Massachusetts.

First up was Brown Angel Double Brown Ale — a little lighter than I expected, but an easy drinking beer that all three tasters enjoyed!

We chased away the Brown Sugar with a taste of Eagle Claw Fist, an Imperial Amber Ale.  Given my affinity for Amber Ales, I was excited to finally try this.  It was very good, with all three tasters approving of it.  I can’t claim that I wanted a second, but if someone served this to me, I’d instantly think that person was a “good shit”…. 

Lastly, for this brief pregame tasting was the beer everyone WANTS to love, mostly because of the cool name — Tramp Stamp, which is a Belgian India Pale Ale.  While Terry and I enjoyed it, Brendan pooh-pooh’d this choice and could not even finish his beer.

Off to the “Yard” to see the Red Sox take on “Buck” Showalter’s Orioles.

Nice Sox win, which they all are, but avoiding a sweep to the O’s was an essential thing for this early season.

In fact, it called for some celebrating with the local birds…

And who knew there were so many Oriole Birds over the years??  On a mural on our way out, I had to snap a photo of all the local birds.  Somewhere in that list, are the Orioles of old, the ones who don’t finish near the bottom of the AL East.

Well, a good night comes to an end — the last night of age 42 — I know, I know…I don’t look a day over…..(insert a low prime number here)…

In Baltimore for another birthday — this has to make 4 or 5 of these (coincidentally I turned 29 each time) …. should I just move here?

Ok, ok, enough of the daydreaming….so how best to spend a day doing many of the things you enjoy?  How about starting off with a crazy good breakfast place, with great food and excellent service?

Of course, this leads me to my favorite breakfast place of all time – Miss Shirley’s.  I always enjoy the food at Miss Shirley’s, and while it will never be considered  “cheap eats”, I always feel like I got my money’s worth.

One thing I try to do here is to get something different each time.  This is very tough to do once I recall the items I have had in the past (Breakfast Trio of Sliders, Pumpkin Cheesecake Stuffed French Toast are two that come to mind).  Today, the choice between savory breakfast and sweet breakfast was easy when I spotted something called Cinnamon Danish Pancakes on their unbelievable menu.  I hope the photos below relay the delicious discs as I experienced them.

My first thoughts were — “Wow, are you kidding me?”…”These look to good to eat” – But, yes, I somehow found a way to dive in.

As I knifed my way through, I somehow felt like I was desecrating a work of art…but, yes, I got over that guilt as well, to start doing the whole fork-to-mouth routine!  In the words of some…”Yes, They’re Real and They’re Spectacular“!

My only hesitancy during this orgy of flavor was whether I do my regular bath of butter over the top and around the edges of my pancakes.  I seriously worried if the butter would somehow hide one of the ingredients in this symphony!  Well, butter was added and I think it made for a good marriage.

Yeh, I got coffee and a side of bacon (yawn, so what) but these only served as a nice compliment when I took my snout out of this melange of cinnamon, butter, sugar and, of course, LOVE!  Yeh, I said it — I could taste the love.

Happy Birthday to me, Miss Shirley, you always make me feel like I am treating myself right!