Text 32123, 126 rader
Skriven 2009-12-12 10:03:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: with Alex & Patricia 508
================================
My friends Patricia and Alex were in town, so some alteration
of the schedule and an expansion of the budget were in order.

Alex was coming in from Atlanta on perhaps the rawest ickiest
day of the season, and I e-mailed him cautionarily that the
weather was really bad, and we should have a plan B ready;
turns out his flight had actually come in a bit early, so we
met for lunch at Royal East. I had to stand in the freezing
rain for my bus and then negotiate various other forms of
transportation to get there; the culmination was almost a half
mile trudge from the subway with sleet pounding my back. Lunch
was worth it. Alex is a horribly strict critic (he works in
the hotel industry), but the meal came up to standards. We
started with steamed oysters with black beans and scallions
- giant oysters, just cooked, very delicious. In a fit of
enthusiasm, though, I ordered a half dozen (the usual dose
is one each), and by the time we were ready for the third,
residual heat had cooked it a bit much. We went on with
crispy duck, a moist, well above average but not that crispy
half bird, served with hoisin and the house hot oil (this
because I am usually there with Nicholas, who puts it on
everything). Then pork and watercress soup to steel us for
our foray into the elements. Turns out watercress was off,
so we got some kind of mustard green instead, perfectly okay.

The next stop was of course Toscanini's.

I got the weird idea of getting a dish with blueberry and
banana sorbets - a mistake for a number of reasons. First,
when you mix them, you don't get a new tropicaloid flavor,
you get a sort of muddy banana flavor. Next, the banana is
obviously not selling as well as the blueberry, so I got a
dish of banana with a slop of blue stuff on the side. Finally,
the banana is boring, tasting like, well, frozen banana. It's
starchy and just a tad bitter. Gus soothed me by giving tastes
of two new flavors he was experimenting with: orange cardamom,
which tasted to me like Trix and kulfi, and Ovaltine, made
with a precious stash of Indian Ovaltine that some world
traveler had gotten for him - this I thought a bit mild and
not malty enough. Afterwards I'd have liked to join Alex at
Craigie on Main for the pork tasting menu, but I had a rehearsal.

=

Patricia invited me to breakfast at the Hilton Honors lounge,
which isn't nearly so fancy as it sounds: fruit, juice, cereal,
and breads. I had a Danishy croissanty thing with a black filling
that she thought was chocolate (turned out to be overcooked
raspberry jam) and some semi-ripe watermelon (watermelon in
December is in itself a peculiar and wonderful thing). We decided
to buy tickets to a movie (!) through the lounge computer, which
sort of worked, but the printer did not. And then it was hobbling
off like an elderly couple (she's from the '40s, I have heart
things going on) to sightsee Cambridge. She's the one who last
month invited me to go to Cambridge, England with her, but I
had concerts and stuff, plus my travel budget for the year is
pretty much exhausted. So after stopping by United so I could
try to get her upgraded on her next flight (Xmas present - this
took nearly half an hour of furious typing by the agent, as the
famed United computers were not cooperating), we got on the
handy dandy Silver Line to the Red Line and then to Harvard
Square, in the heart of the low-budget Cambridge. I gave her
the 10-cent tour, doing perhaps as well as a Crimson Key person
might, interspersed with my personal anecdotes, and then it was
time for an early lunch at Mr. Bartley's, formerly Mrs. Bartley's,
formerly Mr. and Mrs. Bartley's, where I had a burger with bacon,
and she one with melted Cheddar. Both good but a bit done past
what we ordered (rare to medium rare and medium rare to medium).
Onion rings, which came before the burgers, were excellent if a
tad greasy; fries, which came after them, were fine if grease-free.
No booze, so I had root beer.

More walking around, slowly, down to the river, off to see
where Roger Rosenblatt and Doris Kearns and I lived in 1970,
then inevitably to a bar: Up Stairs on the Square, whose ancestor
I've written about several times. When I inquired about Cognac,
the barman proudly said that Pierre Ferrand was the only brand
served, ranging from $10 to 50 a glass. I had a snifter of the
Reserve, which was not the cheapest nor the costliest; it was
about between Courvoisier VSOP and Remy VSOP in quality.

Isole e Olena 06 at $10 a glass was a relative bargain, with
its rich texture and cooked fruit but not too much of that
Chianti shoe leather.

The replacement bartender, a cute blonde, inquired as to our
alcoholic needs, but we responded that we were in the mood for
ice cream. She recommended the Herrell's down the way, but we
said we were going to Toscanini's; her eyes got big, and she
crooned, I LOVE Toscanini's.

Again we were greeted by Gus. I got a dish of just blueberry
sorbet, having learned my lesson; at my urging, Patricia
got the burnt caramel, one of the most wondrous flavors ever
invented. As we sat savoring, Gus came over and, as intrigued
by Pat as the Wall Street Journal guy had been, gabbed at her
for half an hour before we regretfully said, we have to go
find our movie, which was Up in the Air with George Clooney.
I hadn't paid to see a flick since Shine and had never seen
George Clooney (Pat seems to think that he's the greatest
thing since Clark Gable or sliced bread, whichever came first).
Okay, there's this big thing in the ads, limited run, reserve
your tickets ahead and get there early so you can get a seat,
blah blah. We got there early - no crowd at the door, and when
we returned (after wandering around the 19-screen facility for
a while) pretty much got our pick of seats. Ended up there were
probably 30 people in a room that seats about 200. One reason
for getting people in early is that (I'd not encountered this
of course) there's a quarter hour bank of advertising using
big-screen cinematic techniques even before the previews.
Eventually you get to the movie itself, which I guess might
have been worth the $5 or 6 that movies cost when I last shelled
out dough for the purpose but I doubt was worth the $23 (11 for
me, 10 for her, a senior citizen, and 1 each for administrative
fees). Boy gets girl in the purely carnal sense, boy finds he
wants girl in a more complete sense, boy loses girl, boy loves
job, boy loses job, boy gets job back, boy hates job. All with
the background of airplanes, airports, and frequent-flyer miles.
Patricia, who had strong-armed me into going, did cede me the
veto right - if I couldn't stand the thing, I could require us
to adjourn to a bar instead; but I stuck it out.


___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
 * Origin: Doc's Place BBS Fido Since 1991 docsplace.tzo.com (1:123/140)