violist

The Lexington Hotel is a former Radisson, they tell me, now
renovated and rebranded as an Autograph Collection property.

It's a classic in that old musty way and reminds me of the
places we stayed in (not very frequently) when I was a kid,
this being neither a good nor a bad thing.

Being a Gold, I got a decent-size corner room on 16 whose
downside was that the bathroom was tiny and unventilated and
thus a bit mildewy; also it was of a peculiar setup so if
you sat on the throne you'd hit your elbow on the wall. Plus
if you didn't shut the lid when you flushed there was
backsplash onto the towel rack, which was kind of gross. Oh,
the autoflush mechanism was disabled so you had to push the
side button every time - I guess they repented the idiotic
idea but were too cheap to replace the toilets or even just
the flushers. More than you wanted to know, but just to
emphasize that the plumbing designer did a very poor job.

At checkin I had asked the clerk whether the Chinese place
in the hotel was any good. She I believe was obligated to
give the affirmative, but it was lunchtime, and hunger took
precedence over any rational decisionmaking. I poked my
nose in and found a room full of Asians, which seemed to be
a good sign. The place is called, depending on whom you
read, Dynasty or S. Dynasty.

The usual taciturn mainland Chinese staff who, though slow
and surly-looking, did their job quite okay.

They gave me a complimentary little dish of wilted (I think
intentionally) bean sprouts in a light soy-sesame dressing,
pretty good.

Szechuan dumplings were not what I expected at all. These
were really quite ordinary wontons in the historical scheme
of things, but what used to be okay in the past is a shining
paragon these days. The filling was your unnotable scallion
pork thing such as I make, but the wrappers were thin, silky,
and perfectly cooked. Instead of a thin soy and hot oil
dressing, these were served in a slightly spicy peanut butter
based soup that actually tasted very good but was a bit thick
and rich for the weather, which was pretty hot. I thought of
asking for some hot oil to jazz things up, but in view of the
fact that I was going to go eat a large meal later, I wanted
my digestion to be relatively unencumbered.

A main course of twice-cooked pork didn't deserve the name:
it was hardly once-cooked, pink in the middle; also, this
dish, whose meat should be blanched, drained, and stir-fried,
ought to be pork belly; in this case it was pork shoulder,
but almost appropriately fatty. Completing the mix were
bamboo shoots (from frozen, not canned, very nice), black
mushrooms, green peppers, and head cabbage all in irregular
chunks, and a couple of tongues of pressed bean curd. The
sauce was your usual brownish southern Chinese sauce; its
heat was provided by a teaspoonful maybe of la dou ban,
which meant that it was 1. too salty and 2. not hot enough.

The lunch portion came with decent rice sprinkled with black
sesame seeds and a cup of vegetable broth with carrots in
irregular dice and nappa cabbage.

The service was brusque but not mean; I note that the staff
became positively nice when regulars came in. I'd give the
meal a B- or so; if I'd het it up with goodness it might have
made it to a full B.

violist

Soup Do

For some reason, I imagined La Bonne Soupe was on 53rd
between 5 and 6, not that I hadn't been there before, and
not that I didn't know that was where MOMA is (I really
really preferred the pre-renovation museum, but then I am
a senior citizen). Eventually I got there, finding most of
the guests already in place at their long tables. So I was
deprived of the monitor wine expertise (but didn't have to
experience the monitor wine spend); instead I sat at a
little adjacent table with CDKing and his lovely Pat, who
atypically for this group is vegan.

We figured a bottle for three, so I asked for one of the
house Cotes du Rhone; what came was the slightly better one
from the wine list (not better enough to remember its name)
for $2 more. I remember this same charade from last time.
It was $2 okayly spent.

Pat ordered the creme andalouse, and I wondered how they
made a vegan cream soup, but whatever; CDKing got a burger
with peppercorn cream, medium, which came medium.

My burger maison ordered rare came medium as well, which
was okay, because it was of good meat; the sort of
bordelaise sauce generously ladled over was very salty.

With these came an abundance of fries - it turns out that
Pat had ordered one for herself, so we got three big cones
and managed to finish about one and a half.

This is a particularly congenial gathering, and Catman is
a fine host, and we talked and talked and ate and ate, and
time veritably flew.

It was 2230ish when the gathering broke up. Insofar as I was
a bit between time zones and there was an early day coming
up, I passed on a couple afterparty/boozing offers, being
confident that if I drank more I'd oversleep all alarms.

Bed enveloped me in its arms, and I got a welcome seven
hours before the morning light (curtains left open for this
purpose) woke me, minutes before the first of my set alarms.

violist

BRT

This year the bus was a manageable 20-something passenger
one - an ideal number, as we all got to intermingle and
get to know one another (not that we needed to - the vast
majority of us are recidivists). There was some planned
divergence from previous itineraries as well as a couple
improvisations, owing to obstacles not of our own making.
We started off with a whimper - our planned exit from
Manhattan was blocked by a street fair or ten, and it
wasn't for a while that we managed to get out of town.
The lunch stop was early and lengthened: the Smorgasburg
collection of food stalls in Williamsburg, of which I
made full use. It's not that huge of an area, but there's
plenty of variety, and the quality is good.

I made a quick tour of the area, making note of promising
spots for later, but even at 11-something on the first
round, Mighty Quinn's aroma was mighty enticing, and I got
there just as the guy in back was slicing up the first of
the briskets, so I asked for a fatty brisket sandwich hold
the bread, with a garnish of pickled jalapenos. It was good,
especially if as I do you appreciate that slick glistening
translucent pinguitudinity ... encountering a few of our
number, I offered tastes (it was a generous enough portion),
and some chose to head down there for more.

My next stop was Bite Size Kitchen, whose offerings included
buns filled with duck, chicken, or pork belly. Again I asked
for a pork belly one without the bun, and it was good - not
the tenderest, but the Chinese-style braising sauce was good
- soy salty and just a bit sweet, with aromatics peeking out
here and there. I liked it so much that I asked if I could
get two more at a buck off (one was $5, but if you get two
or more, the subsequent ones are a buck off). I got another
pork belly and a duck, again without the bun. The duck was
good but not as good and came with cucumber and assorted
distractions. Again I gave away a couple tastes, and my
friends immediately got in line to buy their own.

Hurray, the beer area was open! I'm glad I had my GE card,
because they were checking ID, no exceptions. I tried two
offerings, both from Brooklyn makers - the Other Half IPA was
a citrusy but somewhat less hoppy than usual version; Kelso
Brewing's Smorgasbeer was a hoppier than usual lager. Both
were good but not worth the $7 per glass.

At some point jswong went over to Brooklyn Oyster Party and
bought a dozen on the half shell, which he shared with all
comers (I was the only acceptor). Fresh, briny, good.

A stop new to me - a close view of the Verrazano Narrows and
its bridge (which when I was a kid was one of the new wonders
of the world and the longest single span in the US).

Green-Wood Cemetery is the highest point in Brooklyn and
offers panoramic views; in addition it is the resting place
of numerous heroes and antiheroes of New York lore, from
Boss Tweed to Leonard Bernstein (pronounced "steen"). Sadly,
we were turned back by a security guard who deemed us to be
too rowdy or something, so we didn't get to see anything but
the elaborate front gate. Later, I read the cemetery's
official brochure, and there's nothing about tours not being
allowed.

We went to the familiar haunts, the oldest house in town,
the historic old Dutch church, the dhammer53 ancestral home,
and so on; then to Coney Island, where we had a rest and
refreshment stop - I went to Nathan's and instead of a dog I
got some fairly costly cherrystones on the half shell, which
price was partially made up for by the fact that a quart of
Sam went for only $8 something.

I was a little anxious because all that beer might tend to
cause problems later on, as our bus didn't have a restroom,
but the sweat-inducing weather made that a nonissue, and
further, during the Starbuck's break in the later afternoon,
a bar-restaurant called Tutta Pasta lured several of us in.
We had more beers, which CMK10 paid for when we weren't
looking.

L&B Spumoni Gardens is an annual stop, and though I far
prefer the thin-crust style (earning raised eyebrows from
the Brooklynites), I bought a slice from the enterprising
CMK10, who had bought a flat. A Budweiser helped me choke
that down; after which I picked up a large spumoni for
people to taste; some did. It wasn't the most popular thing
on the tour.

Dessert at Cuccio's Bakery (Teena's having gone out of
business) - I got a few mini-cannoli and offered them to my
friends. Again, my taste in sweets seems to go against the
public.

And on to a spectacular sunset on the promenade, after
which our esteemed colleague jackal, who had not been on
the bus, caught up with us bearing gifts of Di Fara's pies.
I had a slice of sausage and pepper. It was good, more to
my taste than the thick Sicilian of L&B. Then back into
Manhattan and home.