Text 14405, 74 rader
Skriven 2011-08-06 23:39:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: Happy Burt day 722
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Our ETD was 0900.

After a good night's sleep I heard a rapping at my chamber
door: huh? Dale: It's nine o'clock. I said, gimme five, and
in that time I was packed, dressed, teeth brushed, and out.
But there was the issue of the leftovers in the fridge, which
I'd promised to help empty. I had a nice breakfast of leftover
sausage (rather dismal by this point) and leftover Bac-O fried
rice (better than I expected). Then we piled into the car -
the trunk crammed to the top with foodstuffs and drinks as
well as the usual run of things you travel with. We left
around 0930.

Up 83 to 81: a perfectly harmless 6-hour drive punctuated by
two pit stops and quite a bit of rain, I mean quite a bit.

We arrived at the Hampton Inn Carrier Circle at around 1545,
where the charming but not wholly with it Amanda gave me a
dreadful room right by the ice machine. I complained and got
one as far as possible from the ice machine and the elevator.

I had brought a bottle of Baron de Brane 2000 - a very
respectable Margaux. Story: Burt Ford used to drink Mouton
Cadet, at one time a quite respectable wine; sometime many
years ago he was talking to his doctor about wine and mentioned
that he drank the stuff, whereupon the good doc said, ah, yes,
we like to cook with it, which took the wind out of somebody's
sails. I endeavored to give Burt the best Bordeaux that I could
find that would live through the trip. Thing is that the Brane
estate, though several miles from Mouton, is somehow related
in that the Baron used to own Mouton but sold it in order to
buy Brane. Anyhow, Brane is one of the top-rated wines on this
planet (a deuxieme cru classee), and Baron de Brane is the
surplus from this vineyard, available for a 25% discount from
the real thing. It's a big black inky wine, phenolic shoe
leather nose, strawberries, Camembert, blackberries on the
palate, beef stew and herbs on the finish; quite an interesting
wine, delicious in its way. Not what I'd hoped for from the
price I'd paid, but very respectable. Burt contributed a slab
of Welsh Cheddar from Wegmans - pretty nice.

On to dinner. Where to go. We decided on Dinosaur BBQ downtown.
We got there right at 6 and were quoted a half-hour wait. The
real wait was an hour. So we consumed a pitcher (maybe 72 oz)
each of Syracuse pale ale (mildly hoppy, pleasant, better than
American mass brews but not really of micro quality) and
Labatt's blue (very nondescript but quenching and rather nice)
before being called to the table.

We ordered various porky things, except that I made my usual
order of a pound of brisket extra fatty, I don't care if the
plate is all fat. What came: various porky things and some
moderately lean brisket. I called the waitress over and
reminded her of my order, and she said, well, I told the
kitchen. ... Eventually, when everyone was about done, she
brought a plate with about 6 oz of pure fat. I told her that
if she'd done this to begin with, life would have been good.
Anyhow, the brisket is pleasantly smoky, reasonably tender,
not in my top hundred, but quite good. If it had come extra
fatty as I'd requested, the kitchen would have earned accolades,
and I wouldn't have been made cross by the failure. And the
brisket might have made my top hundred. Other things I tried
included a cumin-filled black beans and rice (pretty good);
pulled pork (pretty good plus); and spareribs (pretty good).
The waitress was unsuccessful in upselling us to another
round of drinks or any dessert.

Back to the hotel for a nightcap of Santa Julia Cabernet 08
(Mendoza) - coffee toffee chocolate apricots - a bit too
sweet but pretty nice, especially for 10% of what my bottle
had cost.
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