Today may be the day I say goodbye to Catal. One more gin martini with flecks of ice floating at the top seems called for.
This bar and I go way back. Back to when Downtown Disney opened.
I recall lost afternoons on Bats Days when I would meet friends here for immature drinking choices like tequila shots.
I will always ruefully remember their fra mani italian sausage with potatoes, peppers, blistered tomatoes and salsa verde. When I lived in Anaheim I would come here twice a week for dinner so I could eat this while reading; I probably read a third of Jonathan Strange by Susanna Clarke while eating this dish. It went off the menu probably a year after it appeared and never returned. As I've said before, my favorite dish is always the first to disappear from any menu. I've made my own attempts and challenged chefs and cooks I know to replicate it based on description - nothing has come close. I still mourn that plate's passing.
I remember the part this bar played in shaping my life... have I never told you how I met my better half?
This isn't a short story but it's a good one.
I once hosted a college radio show called The Necrobotic Dance Party. We played industrial and experimental music Saturday nights on 88.9fm. My co-host was my friend Kim, her DJ handle being Pandora Killjoy.
One night she couldn't make it and I was hosting alone. Being non-commcercial radio, I was a bonafide Disc Jockey who played whatever I liked and said anything I liked. I could ever say that I was alone in the studio and solicitous of company. Someone called and took me up on the offer: a guy named Dan.
He called the request line and said "hey, could me and a couple people come hang out?" "Sure," I said. Two guys and one girl showed up. After a couple minutes sitting in Studio A I realized that Dan, the guy who called me, was someone I used to spend Friday nights at Disneyland with back when we were both gothic teenagers. (Annual Passes were dirt cheap back then.) I hadn't recognized Dan at first sight because in our misspent youth he had long hair. He looked like a polite version of Marilyn Manson.
Fast forward to 2005. Bats Day. Dan's friend and roommate, Silvia, had decided that she was "too good to be single." Dan therefore elected to be her walking personal ad. There was a sign pinned to his back which read:
S.W.F.
Looking For:
Single
Intelligent
Spooky Guys
If interested speak/inquire
(Must have knowledge or appreciation of molecular biology)
She elected Bats Day as the day Dan would wear this sign as she preferred to date someone who was both spooky and amiable towards Disneyland (if not an outright Disneyphile).
I was walking through Downtown Disney with the intention of reaching The Lost Bar - it no longer exists, but it was a bar at the hotel where Cast Members went for a drink after their shift. Eyes naturally scanning for spooky people, Dan and I happened to notice each other as I was passing Catal.
Recognizing me, he waved me over: "Oh, Zoe! You'll do."
Once I acquiesced to being beckoned he confided to the chicanery. I was resistant to the idea of meeting whoever he wanted to set me up with. Why would I want to try to parlay with someone audacious enough to have a friend of theirs walk around as a living advertisement for them? Surely I would fall short of their lofty expectations.
Dan shrugged this off. "Don't worry about it."
Dan happened to introduce me to his friend at the traditional 8pm Haunted Mansion meetup. I was drunk.
I got a second chance with her weeks later at El Chambre, or "El Taco Industriale," as we called the local Mexican goth club in Anaheim which was a restaurant by day. The second floor was regional music - bandas y accordiones - that kind of stuff. I was drunk again this time. It was a club, after all.
The third time I met Silvia was at her house in Anaheim. At that point, on this occasion, I ended up staying for a few days. The rest is history.
A decade later, here we are.
