Text 30179, 75 rader
Skriven 2012-10-07 00:23:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
Ärende: end pac nw 377
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Every day breakfast: I'm not used to this, but at least
at every place we went there was something nonsweet,
nonbready, and noneggy that I could partake of. This last
day it was back to Shakabrah, where our waitress this time
was the very personable Brittany, I think her name was.
I got the potatoes O'Brien ($2 surcharge for red and green
bell peppers and red and white onions) with crumbled bacon.
The surcharge wasn't worth it, as you didn't get 3x the
vegetables (onions by themselves are I think 50c, and double
onions would have done the trick, and then I would have saved
me enough to get double bacon as well).

More my style: for my final meal of this visit Hap took me to
the Tacoma Szechwan Chinese Restaurant, a grim-looking store
front by Pal Do World (i.e. in a quite Korean neighborhood).

We were greeted warmly enough by the Chinese hostess who is
probably the proprietor and a part-black teenage waiter who
speaks pretty good Mandarin; we were seated at a front window
and immediately served a little dish of cabbage and carrot
relish, which was tasty and pretty standard except for being
orangey-red, where the normal comes in a clear vinegar and
sugar brine.

For starters we got Szechwan noodles, which were pretty
good, with prominent flavors of Szechwan pepper and sesame
and faint undertones of garlic, hot pepper, and something
smoked. Not perfect, though - it was oily to the point of
distracting even me and rather sweet, with undissolved
sugar in the sauce. Also the noodles were a little gummy.
But promising.

Boiled kidney was mostly good - bits of pig's offal and
Chinese cabbage in a fierce-looking red sauce; unfortunately
the sauce wasn't as red as it looked, though it was I admit
pretty well balanced among salt, hot, and numbing flavors.
The main gripe I had was that there was a whole lot of
vegetable and not so much kidney, as if they had feared that
we really didn't know what we were ordering, either that or
they only had one kidney in the fridge.

Our third dish was cumin beef, extra spicy, which was very
good though very salty (undissolved salt crystals in spots
on the meat) and not that hot, despite a handful of dried
peppers having been tossed in. Also not so much meat, but
lots of green and red bell pepper squares. This dish made
me glad we had ordered a bowl of rice between us - it
really needed it.

The beer on offer was Tsingtao, which I don't care for for
various reasons. The owner/hostess joked that here it is
known as "Chinese energy drink." It tastes okay in a rice-
ridden Communist way.

The bill was not overhigh; as we left we were sent off with
wishes to see us again.

In case you want to look up the place on the Internet, I am
told that it also goes by the name Three Sisters.

Back Chez Hap, where I puttered about until Annie came back,
so I got to say goodbye to her.

We left for the airport, a normally 40-min trip, but
who knows what evil lurks in the heart of the traffic
deities, three hours before my flight, which, as there
was little traffic, got me there almost 2 1/2 hr early.
No problem, that's what club memberships are for. I
spent a couple hours tweaking my computer setup and
then claimed my cushy seat, where I dreamed happily
across the country.

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