Next up: Lunch at the Manila Center Diner, which is none of
the above but serves good homestyle Philippine food. We
started with fried lumpia, which were filled with something
that smelled and tasted like corned beef hash mixed with a
little vinegar. Better than it sounds. This came with a
sweet dipping sauce. For mains, Hap had the bistik, which is
thin beef strips marinated in soy and lemon and cooked almost
black. Pretty good. I had deep-fried lechon, pig side meat
with skin and fat, a generous serving. A shake or two of
chile vinegar made the dish sing.

The plan had been to go to the park and see the Mariners
boot another, but it was deemed preferable to spend the
evening with Hap's wife Anne, as I'd not spent any time with
her this visit. So we hung around until she came back from
teaching and then debated where to go for dinner. Ended up
going to Porter's, the home restaurant of the guy who does
the BBQ concession down at Safeco Field. Apparently Porter
had a rib joint that made him such a name that he started
catering, and he was so successful at catering that he
closed the restaurant up. But after a while he missed
restauranting and opened up a new place by La Quinta in
Tacoma.

It doesn't look or smell like a Q place. But good Q does
come out. Annie had a brisket sandwich that looked like
enough for 3 meals. Hap had a rib plate that looked like
enough for 2 meals. I had the Dixie again, a hot link
smothered in brisket smothered in sauce, on a sub roll.
I'd had it at the ballpark once, and it was okay. This one
cost less and was at least 3 times as big, Anticipating the
puny thing I'd had at the park, I asked for sides of fried
okra and stewed collards. Hap chimed in with an order of
hushpuppies. Let's see. The fried okra and hushpuppies came
out first - though we'd ordered $2 sides, $5 appetizer
baskets came out - about a quart of each, just enormous.
Both were quite good, the pups small and round and oniony,
the okra slices from many different size pods and varying
from crunchy throughout to crunchy and snotty to crunchy and
a little fibrous. Hap's ribs were pretty good, though in the
soft presauced style that I disprefer. My brisket was a tad
better than the norm, though a little dry. The hot link was
this flabby thing not much better than what I'd had at the
ballpark some years ago. A Black Butte porter went quite
nicely with the food.

We took home as much food in to-go boxes as we did in our
stomachs.

==

I'd had a heck of a time with the wireless at Commencement
Bay, so I wanted to check if my machine were okay (it's been
acting up in other ways), so I got to the airport really
early to take a gander at what was what. The RCC wi-fi
worked perfectly, so Commencement Bay, check your router!
Unfortunately, the computer's power jack seems to be wearing
out, so for want of a $5 part and the knowhow to install it,
I'll be getting a new laptop.

UA5797 SEA PDX 0850 0938 EM2 9B

The flight took off and landed five late. It was fine,
though the EM2 made really weird noises throughout the
flight, at least the part where I was awake (takeoff
and landing). A pleasant Chinese flight attendant. I'd
noticed a guy edging toward the red carpet quite early
and thought, hey, meet 9C. I was right.

We landed a tad late, so I hot-footed it to gate 2, where
my next flight was loading up.

UA 75 PDX SFO 1024 1208 752 3D Ch9 Empower ^

The purser was having a difficult time reading the welcome
announcements from the crib book, so he got someone else to
give the long ones and did the shorter, easier ones himself.

No "Flight attendants prepare for takeoff" announcement!
Which might have had weird results if one of the FAs hadn't
noticed that we were entering the runway, so they all
scattered fast. Ours was a very pretty young black woman
who I wouldn't have minded landing in my lap, but still,
an event of this nature wouldn't have been very good for
United's reputation.

Decent service. Courvoisier.

I asked for Ch9, got a refusal, but the pretty FA did
apologize. A mostly smooth and uneventful flight. I took a
snooze and was wakened by the crunch of landing.

Off to the RCC to do e-mail. Logged onto FT; saw a message
from Benny8444 to the effect that he was in the Renewal
Lounge. Scoped it out, but by the time I got there, he must
have gone to lunch.