violist
Nov 30, 06, 11:51 pm
UA 166 LAX BOS 2230 0649 752 2D Empower Y Ch 9 Y
The usual cheese plate, which I passed up. Great service by
a middle-aged guy with glasses and a bit of gray stubble,
who was running himself ragged whenever I looked. The purser
was an attractive woman of nearly 40 who contented herself
with strutting up and down the aisle like a marching
policeman, when she wasn't sitting doing nothing in the
front galley. The red wine was fruity and obvious (turned
out to be an Andrew Peace blend); I had a couple glasses
but switched to Courvoisier for the cookie.
Got back to the apartment at around 7:30 and got a good
morning's sleep before dealing with life and the bills.
Then off to the club for a gander at some rare mss. and a
glass or two of eau-de-vie.
=
Met TransWorldOne at No. 9 Park, one of the hotter Boston
spots and supposed to be one of the top couple for food. We
had reserved for opening time, as he had a 6:20 flight and
I a 6:50. The dining room wasn't ready until 5:40 or so;
until then we sat at the bar, TW1 nursing a water and I
abstaining. At about quarter of we were seated in a corner
banquette in the back area.
We didn't seem important enough to get amuses, but the
bread was good, although cool, the butter decent but salted.
I recommended the sweetbreads appetizer and the prune
gnocchi with foie gras - TW1 took the former, no bargain
at $25 but the best dish of the meal. It came with a
dab of truffled mashed potatoes and a bit of foie gras.
Against my better judgment (I hadn't eaten all day, and
my lunch had been a glass of the Massenez eau-de-vie de
framboise) I went for something lighter, my Carol watching
invisibly over my shoulder: the Maine crab salad, about
2 1/2 oz of nicely picked and good-tasting peekytoe over
tiny cubes of celery root and apple and possibly green
mango and topped with celery leaves (I shouldn't have
eaten these - they were too strong). A blob of orange
nothing on the side (pumpkin or other squash en sorbet)
was nugatory. The Hidalgo Manzanilla went well with both
of these; actually, a heavier Sherry would have gone better
with the sweetbreads.
For mains, TW1 had the venison en croute, which was
perfectly done, rare, but the supposed croute was a
kataifi pastry, the texture kind of distracting. He also
found the accompaniments silly and not integrated into
the dish. He mused on how the presentation took away from
the extraordinary quality of the meat.
My duo of pork was likewise satisfactory but not stunning.
When negotiating the huge and grossly overpriced wine list,
I noted to the waiter that I was being drawn to a pheasant
or some such game bird dish because it was listed as being
accompanied by hen of the woods mushrooms, a variety of
which I am fond, but I was otherwise leaning towards the
pork; he suggested the "duo of pork."
It was a pleasant surprise when the loin part of the duo
came garnished with sauteed hen of the woods lightly bound
in an espagnole. The pork was medium-rare, four little
medallions of a baby loin, brined, roasted quite plain.
That half was good but not astounding. The disappointment
lay in the second part, what looked like a nice piece of
belly but that turned out to be the white flap meat on top
of the rib; this was a bit stringy and boring, as it is
always, and did not have enough fat or flavor to help the
accompanying mix of flageolets and cranberry beans. The
brussels sprouts with bacon that had been meant to go with
the loin came in a neat little pile on the side - they were
the best part of this dish.
We had the Clos Montirius 2003 Vacqueyras, a biggish red
that TW1 thought had gone dumb (he caught a lot of tannin
but didn't find enough fruit or spice) but I thought pretty
satisfactory: some dark dried fruit, tobacco, but maybe not
enough oomph on the finish.
Time for dessert. We still had a glass each of the Rhone,
and none of the desserts looked all that interesting (they
were all a bit too all but) ... so I ordered a main course
of sauteed Pekin duck breast with sugar pumpkin and orange
to be split between us. Well, someone - I thought maybe the
kitchen, TW1 insisted the waiter, forgot, and many minutes
later when I gave the waiter the hairy eyeball, he said,
oh, the duck will be right out, which it wasn't. Obviously
the order had to be put in (again), so we waited perhaps a
half hour for the dish; it came out divided neatly onto a
pair of full-size dinner plates, sort of silly-looking, as
as you can perhaps infer the portions this day were not at
all large. The duck was good-tasting but neither rare nor
crisp-skinned; the accompaniment ring yet more changes
on the squash theme - a butternut-like puree topped with
some insufficiently-toasted seeds. TW1 said, rather sourly,
that if he wanted the harvest motif, he'd have gone to his
church for turkey dinner for 9.95 all you can eat. On the
side were two cute walnut-size blobs of shredded confit
wrapped in skin - a neat idea, only somehow they managed
to taste like hash out of a can.
Okay, we got out of there bleeding profusely from the
pocketbook but still somehow unsatisfied. So I suggested
we go to Cambridge for ice cream, just a 5-minute ride by
subway. We alit at Central, but something funny happened
on the way to Gus's, and as we passed Mary Chung I said
that I was still kind of hungry and there was this good
dish there. Of course it was the famed suan la chow show,
and we inquired if there were still two orders left -
there were, so we ordered them. They were a bit saltier
than last I'd had them and the wrappers a bit doughier,
but the dish - big pork wontons on a bed of bean sprouts,
the sauce of broth, soy, and hot pepper - was the best
balanced of the day. You can get the bean sprouts by
themselves, if you are vegetably inclined.
I asked for crispy duck. What came was duck braised in
salt water. Pretty good but very salty and not what I'd
asked for. So we ordered some Sam Adamses, and what came
out was Amstel ... when I saw the waitress coming I
audibly cursed; she looked shocked, took a glance at
what she was carrying, and turned back into the kitchen.
In a moment or two the real beer came out.
All in all, a decent experience for 1/7 what our
pre-dinner adventure at No. 9 had cost.
Of course we still had to go to Toscanini's, where I had a
scoop of lemon rosewater sorbet (much more subtle than it
sounds and not at all gag-making), and TW1 had a micro
hot-fudge sundae with grapenut, followed by a scoop of the
same sorbet.
It was getting on toward bedtime, so TW1 headed toward
the Customs House Marriott and I to the apartment near
the airport.
UA 163 BOS LAX 0650 1007 752 2D Empower covered Ch 9 Y
Met up briefly again with him at the airport, and then we
went to our respective flights - his D security looked
easy, and mine at C was pretty painless, even though there
was a ten-minute queue.
When I got to the plane I discovered that I had drawn the
same seatmate as on my last flight. We had a little chuckle
about that - turns out he likes 2C, I 2D, so it may yet
happen again. He's a good seatmate, as am I - we both tend
to sleep on airplanes.
This day the non-fruit-plate choice was a frittata with
sun-dried tomatoes and pesto (not bad, actually) with
asparagus Hollandaise (the sauce probably from a mix,
the veg pretty decent), awful hash-brown potato blobs.
A pale sausage didn't taste as good as a banger and in fact
has the honor of being perhaps the first sausage I've ever
been served that I didn't finish. But there was a slice of
slightly tough but good-tasting Canadian bacon.
It might have been too early for the Andrew Peace
"Masterpeace" Cab-Merlot 04, but that didn't stop me - the
wine helped breakfast down.
The movies were both about love flourishing under weird
circumstances - The Lake House followed by this Adam Sandler
movie where he woos a brain-damaged girl - it has some
poignant moments, but how can anyone take seriously a movie
in which someone falls in love with Adam Sandler?
The usual cheese plate, which I passed up. Great service by
a middle-aged guy with glasses and a bit of gray stubble,
who was running himself ragged whenever I looked. The purser
was an attractive woman of nearly 40 who contented herself
with strutting up and down the aisle like a marching
policeman, when she wasn't sitting doing nothing in the
front galley. The red wine was fruity and obvious (turned
out to be an Andrew Peace blend); I had a couple glasses
but switched to Courvoisier for the cookie.
Got back to the apartment at around 7:30 and got a good
morning's sleep before dealing with life and the bills.
Then off to the club for a gander at some rare mss. and a
glass or two of eau-de-vie.
=
Met TransWorldOne at No. 9 Park, one of the hotter Boston
spots and supposed to be one of the top couple for food. We
had reserved for opening time, as he had a 6:20 flight and
I a 6:50. The dining room wasn't ready until 5:40 or so;
until then we sat at the bar, TW1 nursing a water and I
abstaining. At about quarter of we were seated in a corner
banquette in the back area.
We didn't seem important enough to get amuses, but the
bread was good, although cool, the butter decent but salted.
I recommended the sweetbreads appetizer and the prune
gnocchi with foie gras - TW1 took the former, no bargain
at $25 but the best dish of the meal. It came with a
dab of truffled mashed potatoes and a bit of foie gras.
Against my better judgment (I hadn't eaten all day, and
my lunch had been a glass of the Massenez eau-de-vie de
framboise) I went for something lighter, my Carol watching
invisibly over my shoulder: the Maine crab salad, about
2 1/2 oz of nicely picked and good-tasting peekytoe over
tiny cubes of celery root and apple and possibly green
mango and topped with celery leaves (I shouldn't have
eaten these - they were too strong). A blob of orange
nothing on the side (pumpkin or other squash en sorbet)
was nugatory. The Hidalgo Manzanilla went well with both
of these; actually, a heavier Sherry would have gone better
with the sweetbreads.
For mains, TW1 had the venison en croute, which was
perfectly done, rare, but the supposed croute was a
kataifi pastry, the texture kind of distracting. He also
found the accompaniments silly and not integrated into
the dish. He mused on how the presentation took away from
the extraordinary quality of the meat.
My duo of pork was likewise satisfactory but not stunning.
When negotiating the huge and grossly overpriced wine list,
I noted to the waiter that I was being drawn to a pheasant
or some such game bird dish because it was listed as being
accompanied by hen of the woods mushrooms, a variety of
which I am fond, but I was otherwise leaning towards the
pork; he suggested the "duo of pork."
It was a pleasant surprise when the loin part of the duo
came garnished with sauteed hen of the woods lightly bound
in an espagnole. The pork was medium-rare, four little
medallions of a baby loin, brined, roasted quite plain.
That half was good but not astounding. The disappointment
lay in the second part, what looked like a nice piece of
belly but that turned out to be the white flap meat on top
of the rib; this was a bit stringy and boring, as it is
always, and did not have enough fat or flavor to help the
accompanying mix of flageolets and cranberry beans. The
brussels sprouts with bacon that had been meant to go with
the loin came in a neat little pile on the side - they were
the best part of this dish.
We had the Clos Montirius 2003 Vacqueyras, a biggish red
that TW1 thought had gone dumb (he caught a lot of tannin
but didn't find enough fruit or spice) but I thought pretty
satisfactory: some dark dried fruit, tobacco, but maybe not
enough oomph on the finish.
Time for dessert. We still had a glass each of the Rhone,
and none of the desserts looked all that interesting (they
were all a bit too all but) ... so I ordered a main course
of sauteed Pekin duck breast with sugar pumpkin and orange
to be split between us. Well, someone - I thought maybe the
kitchen, TW1 insisted the waiter, forgot, and many minutes
later when I gave the waiter the hairy eyeball, he said,
oh, the duck will be right out, which it wasn't. Obviously
the order had to be put in (again), so we waited perhaps a
half hour for the dish; it came out divided neatly onto a
pair of full-size dinner plates, sort of silly-looking, as
as you can perhaps infer the portions this day were not at
all large. The duck was good-tasting but neither rare nor
crisp-skinned; the accompaniment ring yet more changes
on the squash theme - a butternut-like puree topped with
some insufficiently-toasted seeds. TW1 said, rather sourly,
that if he wanted the harvest motif, he'd have gone to his
church for turkey dinner for 9.95 all you can eat. On the
side were two cute walnut-size blobs of shredded confit
wrapped in skin - a neat idea, only somehow they managed
to taste like hash out of a can.
Okay, we got out of there bleeding profusely from the
pocketbook but still somehow unsatisfied. So I suggested
we go to Cambridge for ice cream, just a 5-minute ride by
subway. We alit at Central, but something funny happened
on the way to Gus's, and as we passed Mary Chung I said
that I was still kind of hungry and there was this good
dish there. Of course it was the famed suan la chow show,
and we inquired if there were still two orders left -
there were, so we ordered them. They were a bit saltier
than last I'd had them and the wrappers a bit doughier,
but the dish - big pork wontons on a bed of bean sprouts,
the sauce of broth, soy, and hot pepper - was the best
balanced of the day. You can get the bean sprouts by
themselves, if you are vegetably inclined.
I asked for crispy duck. What came was duck braised in
salt water. Pretty good but very salty and not what I'd
asked for. So we ordered some Sam Adamses, and what came
out was Amstel ... when I saw the waitress coming I
audibly cursed; she looked shocked, took a glance at
what she was carrying, and turned back into the kitchen.
In a moment or two the real beer came out.
All in all, a decent experience for 1/7 what our
pre-dinner adventure at No. 9 had cost.
Of course we still had to go to Toscanini's, where I had a
scoop of lemon rosewater sorbet (much more subtle than it
sounds and not at all gag-making), and TW1 had a micro
hot-fudge sundae with grapenut, followed by a scoop of the
same sorbet.
It was getting on toward bedtime, so TW1 headed toward
the Customs House Marriott and I to the apartment near
the airport.
UA 163 BOS LAX 0650 1007 752 2D Empower covered Ch 9 Y
Met up briefly again with him at the airport, and then we
went to our respective flights - his D security looked
easy, and mine at C was pretty painless, even though there
was a ten-minute queue.
When I got to the plane I discovered that I had drawn the
same seatmate as on my last flight. We had a little chuckle
about that - turns out he likes 2C, I 2D, so it may yet
happen again. He's a good seatmate, as am I - we both tend
to sleep on airplanes.
This day the non-fruit-plate choice was a frittata with
sun-dried tomatoes and pesto (not bad, actually) with
asparagus Hollandaise (the sauce probably from a mix,
the veg pretty decent), awful hash-brown potato blobs.
A pale sausage didn't taste as good as a banger and in fact
has the honor of being perhaps the first sausage I've ever
been served that I didn't finish. But there was a slice of
slightly tough but good-tasting Canadian bacon.
It might have been too early for the Andrew Peace
"Masterpeace" Cab-Merlot 04, but that didn't stop me - the
wine helped breakfast down.
The movies were both about love flourishing under weird
circumstances - The Lake House followed by this Adam Sandler
movie where he woos a brain-damaged girl - it has some
poignant moments, but how can anyone take seriously a movie
in which someone falls in love with Adam Sandler?