Text 34023, 95 rader
Skriven 2013-02-24 03:25:00 av MICHAEL LOO (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av NANCY BACKUS
Ärende: trip has started 156
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 ML> Yeah, I know. These things happen, and in the heat of
 ML> the moment, what you could easily do with planning
 ML> ahead becomes totally impossible
 NB> Exactly... and if you HAD planned ahead you might not be in the
 NB> situation in the first place

If it can go wrong, it will. - Murphy (not Dale's,
somebody else's).

 NB> the next time is often not the same as the learning experience time

True, but experience can pay even when the situation is
not the same - the mechanisms for fixing things often
translate.

 ML> Emergency Mail Service just came through.
 NB> I trust everything was in good order...?  (And that the connections
 NB> all were made well...)

I got what I was expecting, the post office gave me only a
short anxiety: they told me to go to the side door, where a
lady took the slip and went to look ... and look ... and
look, and I waited ... and waited ... and waited. It did
show up, though, in the fullness of time, and I walked
to the bus depot (there is a stop near the post office
going to the depot, but going from, you have to walk all
the way). Thence there are several buses to several subway
stations, and I caught one, and an hour later (an hour plus
early) I ws at the airport. When public transport works it
is a wondrous thing.

 ML> This trip isn't too exciting: concerts out west of Boston,
 ML> staying with musician friends (fun and cheap but not worth
 ML> bragging about).
 NB> Fun and cheap's not bad at all...  :)

It's been so cheap that I took my friends Dave and Ruth out for
an elaborate (but not too expensive) lunch ... they got to pick
the place, but there wasn't parking in front of the restaurant
they chose, so we ended up going to an Indian joint, so I got
off relatively easy.

The place is called Punjabi Tadka, and it has the nuts to have
opened last year right across the street from the acknowledged
best Indian in town, Punjab. My friends had gone here Valentine's
evening as they had been freed up by a cancelled medical
treatment at the relatively last minute, and no other sit-down
restaurant in town had a table available; they had been very
pleased by the food, so this was a solid second choice.

The space is smallish and squarish with a prominent bar area;
we sat by a front window which was pleasant if a little chilly.
On the table: the usual trio of onion relish, coriander chutney,
and tamarind stuff. Very peppery pappadums, pretty good.

Disconcerting start: I'd ordered lamb saag, and what came had no
spinach and was kind of orange red. Turns out that this was an
ordinary lamb curry, but as they'd made it already, and it
smelled pretty good, we didn't send it back. It was good, but
altogether too similar to one of the other dishes we'd ordered,

chicken curry, sadly all white meat, in a tomatoey sauce that
was quite nice but on the sweet side.

Our third dish, baingan bharta, was very rich and buttery but a
little sweet with onion. I enjoyed it very much.

Ruth can't take spicy, so I hadn't specified spice level, so I
needed hot pepper to jazz things up. Every restaurant seems to
approach the request differently - there are the vinegar sauces,
the hot chutneys, toasted ground red pepper, pepper flakes,
oil-fried ground pepper with salt (probably my favorite, as it
combines my two favorite things with a thing I kind of like but
has the additional enticement of being rationed), and so on.
The waiter came back fairly soon with a little cup containing ...
a fresh-ground Jalapeno, maybe two small ones. I used it all.

The rice was nicely done and a paratha was good and buttery.

We rounded out the meal with Taj Mahal beer, a little floral
and odd but better than the other offering, Kingfisher, which
is now made in California and doesn't taste the same despite
what the ad people claim.

Afters, I got a bottle of Appleton V/X, in the past one of my
favorite best-buy rums. This time I noticed that it was paler
than before, and upon opening it tasted paler, with a more
pronounced butterscotchy sugariness than before, when there
was more wood (it used to be aged in old Jack Daniels barrels).
The finish is hotter as well. As recently it was $15 and now is
$20, I may have to go find a new best-buy rum, but it's still
pleasant enough to drink.
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