As enigmatic as the evening.

The culinary contrarian returns and takes us on a colorful experience through the rarely sampled world of food. There’s always that one weird item on the menu you’ve always been too scared to try, and now you don’t have to.

It was a sort of vaguely damp and just-a-bit too cold night. Tuesdays are rather enigmatic, I find, because somehow, miraculously, they mark halfway through the week and inevitably invite the kind of time-wasting activity that represent the bane of most of our pointless existences… I sometimes imagine that my House of Cards watching will someday land me a job at Bain, in which case Netflix isn’t really that much of a bane. Politics and business are definitely related at that firm because Mitt Romney, right?

But you might just disregard that; I imagine things often, most of which are not true so I guess that’s really rather irrelevant (unless you’re Montaigne, in which case it could lead to one of various genatila-related changes, most notably ED.) By that I mean erectile disfunction, although one could also imagine, or will—to incorrectly use the language of Kant—that early admission to this fine institution could lead to lack of sexual prowess as well. Fine, you might say. To which I’d respond: that’s inappropriate language to describe these Columbia honeys. Contrarian drops mic like a G(S student). Now that we’ve reached the and of this list of inane Columbia puns, I should express to you that it was entirely an attempt to describe to you the way I felt eating liver at this foyne Cuban establishment on Columbus.

In any case, Tuesdays are not typical. For whatever reason, I had plans with a certain friend that evening and was therefore compelled to transcend my wallowing, at least for the night. After taking off our sober hats for the evening, we decided that a venture down Columbus might be the most rewarding way to fill our now grumbly stomachs. Several options presented themselves to us, mostly of the South Asian variety, although there were some quite elegant options as well. Columbus is a strange place in that sense. There are restaurants that are cheap, some of which serve excellent margaritas, and there are restaurants that are not cheap, most of which serve terrible margaritas. Their food also has fish in it, which never goes well with a margarita anyway.

Margaritas aside, we finally entered a Cuban restaurant at the behest of its name, Coma Bueno. Which apparently means eat well although it’s ambiguous whether to eat well refers to the food one eats or to the way in which one eats it. Further investigation might be required to answer these and other interesting questions.

Normally I’d end there, given the solid conclusion-y feeling of that sentence, but I’ve yet to actually describe the liver I ate! The menu was fairly normal and tasty looking, but I found myself immediately drawn to one unique item: Liver Steak. Now, I’ve had liver in the past and it’s certainly been interesting, but the idea of a whole steak was entirely beyond my imagination. The investigative question was most definitely: is it possible to enjoy something as rich as a liver steak?

The liver was well cooked and had some grilled peppers on it, thankfully not the spicy kind because that would be weird. When I bit into it for the first time it occurred to me that something grave, indeed, had occurred: It was going entirely impossible to judge the objective enjoyability of the steak. It was edible, and certainly food appropriate for a typically enigmatic Tuesday, but it begged no opinion of me whatsoever. Sort of like Justice Clarence Thomas, I just kind of ate it.

In an attempt to attain some further understanding of the strange experience that was my eating this steak, I will now list its notable qualities. Notable qualities of the steak included the fact that it had random bits of un-chewable sinewy-ness, the fact that it looked burnt when it was, in fact, cooked appropriately, and the fact that it was extremely, extremely rich. It was also the perfect level of spicy (not like hot spicy but like flavorful, more Humphrey Bogart than Cary Grant). So, dear readers, if any of these qualities strike you as contributing to this contrarian’s weirdly contrary experience, please don’t hesitate to let us know. For now, I’ll say that if you are interested in sampling something that will make you feel the way no extremely fatty, salty, and bell peppery food has made you feel before, go, dear friends, and enjoy this peppery liver steak.