My buddy Susie was free for dinner, so we arranged to go to
Two Quail, right near the train station. This is a rather
self-consciously funky restaurant, with idiosyncratic
knickknacks in little rooms with overstuffed chairs: sort of
like eating in one's grandmother's parlor, if your granny
was wealthy and somewhat deranged. We looked at the regular
menus and discovered to the waitress's chagrin and my
gratification that what we wanted was all on the early bird
special for about half the price. I comforted her with the
information that I'd spend on booze what we saved on food.
The "chef's whim" was the not-very-whimly cream of mushroom
soup, which was plain as plain and less tasty than what
Campbell makes: a bit of salt and pepper helped.
I ordered the pork loin in black pepper and whiskey, which
was three thinnish boneless chops in a sweetish gravy shot
full of onions, sided with a not-very-garlicky garlic mash;
pretty decent.
Susie ordered the eponym two quail, spatchcocked and wrapped
around a stuffing of bread, apricots, and somewhat moldy
cream cheese, either that or cream cheese with gorgonzola
mixed in; also pretty decent. This came with rice.
veg was batons of carrot and zucchini, okay.
The Rosemount Show Cabernet 02 was nice and ripe, just a
hair sweet (good because of the onions and apricots), with
a pleasant tannic bite and some green pepper to make us
know it was a Cab. Come to think of it, I imagine that it
was made from a mixture of slightly overripe and slightly
underripe grapes. The price was high but not bizarre.
For afters: apple cobbler, a huge portion, so we packed
one for Susie's breakfast and split the other. It was
standard, i.e., pleasing but not exciting.
I asked what they had for Cognac. The pleasant but newbie
waitress confessed that she didn't know. Turns out that
all they have is Hardy's XO for $13, not too bad a price.
The Cognac was quite nice, butterscotch and raisin nose,
very smooth, nutty finish, and the bartender, clearly an
amateur, poured me between 5 and 6 oz of it, bringing the
price down below retail.
Kissed Susie goodbye and went on to the gate, where boarding
was just starting, with no biz class preboard and, just as
importantly, no gimp preboard.
2V 198 WAS ISE 2045 2337 13A biz car
There was no preboard for biz or those who need extra time
getting down the jetway, so I am afraid I held up the crowd
a little. This a minor annoyance but no big deal for me;
can't speak for those behind me. The last car said "business
class" on it, but the conductor said that the real biz car
was the farthest one (sigh ... the leg was hurting).
Biz was about 20% full, mostly with people who looked as
though they wouldn't belong there, even giving that the
premium on this train is only something like $35.
We got to Metropark Iselin ten early, which is good as the
elevator was out and I had to hobble down a bunch of steps
to the ticket machine and then back up to the platform.
NJT7876 ISE EWR 2343 0009
Damn train was way late. I hustled off the Amtrak,
limped down the stairs to the ticket machine, and ran
(as best I could) back up to the platform. And waited
half an hour. Interim note: I'm sitting in the Newark
airport, that is Newark NJ not Newark NY, so a fairly
major airport. It is 0226. I arrived here, not fully
willingly, at 0100, when I discovered the cleaning
lady stacking up the chairs on the tables in the food
court. So I dozed until 0200, having had a NEW! Angus
deluxe 1/3 lb burger for dinner (Mickey Dee's being the
only all-night eatery at the airport) along with 100 mL
of Johnnie Walker Black that had with me. So at 0200,
what wakes me up but the clatter of the chairs being
taken off the tables and arranged for the start of the
day, by some guy who must be the shift change. The
stupidity lies not in either of the drones but in the
supervisor who cleverly scheduled these activities.
The burger, btw, was not altogether bad. The bun was
the usual sweetened McDonalds thing, with extra sesame
seeds. The burger build was, bottom bun, burger, slice
of very palatable tomato, leaf of quite good greenleaf
lettuce, not iceberg, large blob of very salty mayo,
tablespoon of fresh not frozen not freeze-dried onion.
The burger had a nice beef flavor and squirted real
beef fat all over my jacket when I bit into it. Just
like the United Airlines deluxe cheeseburger, come to
think of it.
Mr. Chicken appears confused. Some times he says that
checkin is available from 3:30 am to 8 pm; at others he
says one can check in from 5 am to 11 pm; other suggestions
are 4:15 am to 7:30 pm and 4:30 am to 7:30 pm. He allowed
me to get my nice card-stock boarding passes at 3:30.
UA 635 EWR ORD 0600 0719 752 2A Ch9^ Empower
One will not be surprised to know that I dozed through this
flight. I did notice that the fruit plate and breakfast
breads were offered, with hot towels later on. We came in
on time, perhaps a hair early.
UA 243 ORD DEN 0757 0930 777 9A Ch9
Empower^
A schedule change gave me a less-than-comfortable 38 min
connection, but the gates were C9 and C10, so there was
no problem there, and I got to the gate about five min
before they started to board. I wormed my way through the
gate lice, who were waiting at the wrong door anyhow (dual
jetbridge boarding), and when boarding was called, about
half a dozen people got on out of the whole bunch. Actually,
the cabin filled up pretty well eventually: three different
FAs made announcements about the crowdedness of the plane,
referring to the situation as "full," "very full," and
"extremely full." The info board said it was checked in at
239 out of 250-odd.
No Channel 9, and I didn't bother to ask, as there were
random bouts of huge interference on the headset - one of
the weaknesses of the NC headsets is that they tend to make
up for the relative silence with outbursts of ear-splitting
noise, almost as thought they were saving it all up.
BOB. The FA was a bit sheepish when she offered breakfast,
as the product downgrade is noticeable. I did need some
sustenance, so I lost my snack box virginity with the
Right Bite:
Bumble Bee Sensations lemon pepper tuna, 3 oz -
surprisingly, not unpalatable; would perhaps have been
better with a glass of wine, but I was saving myself for
my next flight
Wild Garden hummus, baby-food jar size - very cuminy,
very low fat, fairly tasty;
Stacy's simply naked pita chips - thick and clunky and
mostly shards, but not bad tasting.
Also: Carr's Table Water crackers; Lorna Doones; a square of
Hershey's extra dark.
Somewhere between 400-500 Calories; not totally horrid, but
not exactly a proper meal.
The other snack boxes were available as well, in addition to
a continental breakfast of cheese, fruit, crackers, a
plastic pastry, and some moldy grapes - my poor seatmate
didn't pay attention to what he was eating, and after
popping one of the latter in his mouth, looked frantically
for someplace to deposit the detritus ... it was all I could
do not to laugh and say, serves you right for getting the
"fresh" selection.
The good news was that I had 9A in an XP, one of my favorite
seats on any aircraft.
We landed about 15 late, and I thought I might miss
ripper3785, whom I'd promised to guest in with his lovely
wife Amy. Eventually we found each other, and a satisfactory
outcome was had. ripper gave me a bag of macadamias to snack
on. I went off to try to do some work and read the boards.
By the time I finished reading FT it was time to run, er,
hobble to the gate, where the red carpet had been closed
and they were well into zone 3. I moseyed up and opened the
rope, whereupon the agent said, I would have done that for
you, and I replied, in this world one has to help oneself.
This got a chuckle rather than a scowl, a good omen for the
day.
UA 43 DEN HNL 1203 1525 763 2A Ch9^ Empower
Wow, these seats are cramped by comparison not only to the
international 777 but also the domestic 777. I asked my
seatmate if we were in Economy Plus.
Hot towels, warm nuts, cool Courvoisier.
The FAs were mature (older than I, mostly) but nice.
Ch9 was put on on request.
The meal choices: chicken in thyme gravy or three-cheese
pasta Florentine. I said that it was chicken or nothing,
but if nothing, not to worry, did I look underfed? It was
the chicken, which was sort of okay though salty, with
root vegetables and edamame and something that I thought
was mash but turned out to be polenta. The lagniappe on
the salad was a dried apple slice, a generous handful of
pistachios, and some red pepper. Asian sesame dressing.
Chocolate cake for afters. As I have expressed some
disdain for the Bushman's Gully Shiraz, I chose "whatever
white wine you have," which turned out to be a not too
special Mockingbird Hill Chard from California, with
cantaloupe and citrus notes and a bit of oak.
ripper and Amy were in 21AB, which ripper claimed was the
primo seat on this aircraft. After lunch I wended my way
back to say hi: they were both inert. It does look, btw,
that they had more room than I did in 2A.
ripper and Amy won the Halfway to Hawaii contest, being
off by only 30 seconds. He gave me a can of macadamias
from his winnings.
The second service was pathetic, with the FAs doing
their best with the tablecloths and the pomp and
circumstance. Not much to be done about 2 oz of soapy cheese,
half a dozen sad-looking grapes, and a couple crackers.
Saw Molokai with Haleakala in the distance and the big
island volcanoes beyond that (I take this last on faith,
but that's what they said).
We landed 30 early but waited a few for the tow in - why
there was a tow in I don't know.