Text 15346, 132 rader
Skriven 2011-09-04 14:26:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: trip report 824a
========================
Next day: I'd had various things left over, so I made
scrapple chips (leftover scrapple) and empanada filling
omelet for Billy and me - Annie is leery of leftovers,
no matter how good they are.

US4544 IPT PHL 1650 1744 DH8 4A

As usual, this flight was a bit late. No connections were
put in jeopardy, though, which made it an exception to the
rule.

US1888 PHL BOS 1915 2052 319 3A

I really do prefer a real airplane to the usual regional,
even the E90 with its relatively comfortable upholstery and
plenty of first-class seats. On an Airbus, for a flight of
this length I can get by with one Glenlivet; on the 90 I
need two.

UA 836 BOS ORD 0655 0828 763 8A Ch9^^

It's a twisty walk through the garage from the hotel to
Terminal C, and I allowed extra time: feeling relatively
vigorous as I did, though, the trip took half as long as
I had budgeted.

They switched in a widebody, I don't know why - a boon for
everyone but the very fat. I'd noticed our crew walking to
the gate as I headed to the club - the four-striper was a
slender blonde with a tail that wouldn't quit, the three
a somewhat older male.

A short respite for e-mail and some juice later, I moseyed
to the gate, where the equipment swap was making greater
than usual chaos. I used the premier lane with alacrity and
found my way to my place and settled down for a snooze in
the fairly excellent bed. The captain announced channel 9
in a rather sultry voice.

Breakfast consisted of well-nigh uncuttable dry mystery-meat
(chicken?) sausages seasoned with cinnamon and pepper, a
chive omelet that was announced as a cheese omelet, and I
was thankful that it wasn't, and potatoes that were half
rubbery cubes and half brown detritus - the brown stuff
actually tasted pretty good, though.

On the side - a fine example of a Wonder-bread croissant
(pretty nasty), a fruit appetizer of decent grapes, melon,
and pineapple, and a stray tin of blueberry yogurt, which
I managed to avoid.

We landed a bit early and did the usual aimless taxi
looking for a place to park. Fine, as I had planned to go
downtown and don't enjoy the El at rush hour.

At the station I discovered that my CTA card had expired
just a week or two before, and there's no recourse. Poop on
you, Chicago.

Nonetheless, CTA it was, and I headed off to the Belly Shack
(I think that's the name) right by the Western stop; this is
a hippy-dippy countercultural place that has earned the Bib
Gourmand award. I thought I knew what to expect - I was
wrong. It's actually a ton more corporate than expected,
kind of ok given that corporatism and professionalism and
competency often go hand in hand in hand. The setting: very
bare, thumbing its nose at restaurant convention, rather
unattractive and reminding one of an ice-cream parlor. I
ordered the special, Lola's Lechon, extra fatty, and was
informed that the stuff came in prepackaged by Lola, and
one got what came. Which was pretty ordinary pork loin
that had been marinated in a salty-sweet substance, roasted
to medium-well, though juicy for that, served in thin
portion-controlled slices with a sauce of cilantro, red
bell pepper, ginger, fried onion, garlic, fish sauce, lime,
etc etc etc. Hippy-dippy food, flavor piled on flavor to no
clear purpose. It came with its soupy flavorful sauce over
yellow coconut rice, which was done a little dry, so that
averaged out. The food was decent, though by no means good,
and reasonable, though by no means inexpensive. Service was
willing and friendly.

I don't know why I picked the Hilton Rosemont, formerly the
Sofitel, right opposite the convention center. But there I
was. Got a decent room, nothing special. I don't recall an
executive lounge, but maybe I just stalled out and crashed.

===

UA 641 ORD SFO 0703 0938 752 4F Ch9^^ Empower^

Breakfast was the standard issue of skinless spongy brown
and serve sausages, a cheese omelet, and the usual fruit,
which I must admit they're continuing to do a decent job with.

Staying with my friend Anne in San Fran. Thank goodness for
friends. I can't keep up this hotel thing forever. As reward
I took them to that old FT hangout in Millbrae, the Hong
Kong Flower Lounge. This used to be a distant second choice
to the funnily named, cheaper, and better Fook Yuen, which
is now unfortunately gone. Things ingested that I recall:

roast pork bao - good
taro stuffed with pork - very good
glutinous rice balls stuffed with pork - peculiar but good
meatballs - very mediocre
brisket soup - okay.

There were a couple other dishes I think, vegetables
perhaps, unmemorable.

As I had a day pass, we decided to ride Caltrain to the
stadium, where we discovered that tickets for the day's
game were quite expensive indeed, so we strolled to Red's
Java Hut to drown our sorrows in cheap beer and decide
whether we wanted to pay scalper prices to watch a couple
teams that neither of us really cared about. Verdict:
numerous beers si, costly game no. 

She wanted to hit Burlingame for the Straits happy hour,
so we did that, more cheap beer, but nothing I particularly
wanted to eat. We found a tamale vendor in a local farmers'
market who was just closing up, so hot pork tamales for very
cheap were the order of the day.

A bottle of Genesis (Columbia Valley) Merlot was pleasant
though disappointingly mass-marketly sweet. I get tired of
brightly made open fruity wines after maybe half a glass.

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