Text 5224, 77 rader
Skriven 2006-09-06 07:11:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: travels 205
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The reception was at Trader Vic's, as I said, 200 feet
from our hotel room, and we got back in time to freshen
up and were still among the first to show up (even
before the bar opened). Gradually people filtered in,
and the pupus started coming. There were enough of those,
but they were kind of bland:

The beef satay was tender but totally tasteless; chicken
satay was tough with a bit of grill flavor. The peanut
sauce was like Skippy and Karo. Veggie spring rolls were
soggy and with a filling that Carol described as "pure
cabbage and pepper." Coconut shrimp were actually decent
but not distinguished in any way. Vegetable tempura were
soggy with oil; the eggplant, which loves oil, had almost
more than it could take, disintegrating into a fatty mess
with a tough belt upon biting. Crab rangoons were okay
but similarly oily - they looked and felt as though a
truck had rolled over them, and the only way one could
tell that that had not happened was that the grease hadn't
been squeezed enough; there were good-size shreds of real
crab in them, though.

Drinks were $7; wine and beer were hosted. There was a
proud array of cheap liquors and cocktail mixes behind the
bartender; no wonder that almost nobody bought anything. I
was all set for a Trader Vic's Mai Tai, as Vic Bergeron is
said to have invented the drink ... but with Trader Vic's
Mai Tai Mix and bottom-shelf booze, I figured no.

Lotus Sauvignon Blanc was rich and fat and sweet and heavily
oaked: at first I thought the bartender had screwed up and
poured a cheap Chard; but others reported the same.

Stone Cellars Chardonnay is Beringer's budget version; it
was also a bit sweet and a bit floral; not as objectionable
as the above, but not so good, either.

Hess Select 03 Cabernet was too sweet, too raisiny, but
okay. It carried over to dinner, where it acquitted itself
reasonably.

For dinner the Markus Chardonnay replaced the Stone Cellars.
It was only marginally better.

We started with a good, lightly dressed mesclun salad - I'd
have expected something more lunatic, perhaps involving
pineapple bits or macadamia dust, but this was fine.

Mains were a mixed bag.

Carol was very disappointed in her tofu stir-fry - the tofu,
the spongy fried stuff, was good enough, but the vegetables
were from frozen, a commercial mix; and the sauce tasted
like heavily sweetened Sriracha sauce, cut with cornstarch
water. It came with respectable Chinese-style rice.

I had a 6-oz filet mignon medium rare - it had been mesquite
grilled, giving an additional dimension without the need to
wrap it in bacon; pretty respectable for mass produced. A
side of green beans was nearly raw, not that that's bad; the
potatoes were, however, nasty. I stole some of Carol's rice,
sneaking the potatoes onto her plate, but she saw through
that and sneaked them back.

Wedding festivities were what you'd expect, with a dance
described as "mandatory" by the rather silly DJ. Carol and
I decided that our bedroom was calling in an even more
mandatory way.

We did, before leaving, take a taste of the wedding cake,
which was nice and moist (probably oil-based), a chocolate-
raspberry thing. Fortune cookies were excellent. The
fortunes all invited us to soon visit the happy couple in
Minnesota.
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