Phx
 

UA 881 BOS ORD 0915 1058 320 2D

Security at Logan took a full five minutes, so I was in
plenty of time for the 8:14. But they'd just given away
the last seat in front, so I waited the hour for the
next flight, which was fine: the feeder for ORD-NRT. I
(rumpled and sartorially challenged) sat next to
impeccably suited Dr. Ii, a pleasant gent who works for
a biopharmaceutical with offices in Tokyo, Portsmouth,
London, and somewhere in Switzerland, so he gets to fly
a lot among those places. Pretty good flight. Very full.

I wasn't too keen on breakfast, so I told Wendy, the
FA I've seen several times already this year, to hold
off until everyone else had been served. She came back
with the news that they had extras of both, so I had,
in my mistaken impression that the UA food service was
rising, the dreaded breakfast burrito - a soft and
pleasant enough tortilla with an egg filling that was
like sand with a few scallion bits and some glue, er,
cheese, holding it all together. The fruit cup that came
on the side was ok, the usual pineapple, strawberry,
kiwi, grapes thing, with all the fruit ripe this time.

Had a glass of some sauvignon blanc thing with the egg
thing and went to sleep.

UA 427 ORD PHX 1155 1444 757 3A

Bad start as my seatmate (affable enough) bustled
aboard with his wife and 14-y-o daughter and promptly
knocked my (thankfully mostly empty) orange juice cup
onto my white pants. Other than that he seemed fine,
and we had a pleasant chat; he's taking his family on
vac to Sedona, so we said we might meet each other in
a pub while the ladies spent their time and money at
the shopping mall ...

I was about 4th asked - the woman asked immediately
before me was thanked for being a UGS customer; a lot
of those types out of Chicago I guess. Choices were
ravioli with cheese or "an antipasti," said Pedro the
purser. The latter turned out to be a cook's tour of
UA business class appetizers from the last year; not
bad, actually: a shrimp, very lemony, firm, fresh;
good tender (Canadian by my guess) prosciutto;
marinated cucumber salad on a lettuce leaf' two slices
of pretty yummy smoked salmon; and a grilled zucchini
slice. Oh yes, a couple tiny bocconcini of mozzarella.
Bread was pretty good, low salt; butter was pretty
good, no salt. I asked the FA what the red was; she
said a Merlot; I asked if it was that Chilean stuff;
she said no; I asked for a glass. It was that Chilean
stuff. She asked if I wanted a second glass; I said no.
Finished off with an oatmal-raisin cookie and a
Courvoisier; whereupon my seatmate decided to live
dangerously and have one, too, only his was on the
rocks :Q

Got in early and tried to log into FT and found chat
the only thing open; so I stayed there for quite a long
time - it was kind of fun. Then off to do my e-mail and
get picked up by jan_az for dinner. We wandered around
downtown a bit, hindered by the fact that we had
forgotten the exact name and location of the place where
we'd agreed to meet people. We ended up parking under
the Bank of America and wandering south, thanks to a tip
from a girl at a hairdresser's, where we inquired about
likely places, and then back north thanks to a tip from
a guy who led us to a restaurant where HE worked (on
Jefferson between 3rd and 4th, right by the AWA Arena),
where they cheerfully provided maps and advice. We
finally decided that the Copper Square Grill in Arizona
Center sounded like the most likely choice (although
there is a Copper Square Cafe, which is a good half
dozen blocks away). We whiled away a bit of time there,
sort of wondering if we were in the right place;
eventually ordered some of the happy hour snacks -
prime rib sliders (tiny little roast beef sandwiches
with a horseradish cream sauce, at 50c each, but in
fact 8 would make a sizable meal, so not badly priced)
and Buffalo wings (a little dry and scrawny, also not
very hot); as soon as the food arrived, so also did
Viajero Joven, perfect timing, followed
shortly by JenniferInAZ. A pleasure talking to both of
them. Jan and I tasted the pours of the day - a BV Pinot
Noir, which was sort of smoky and thick and wrong for
the 85F weather, and the pleasantly semi-dry, rather
fruity Ch. Ste. Michelle Riesling, which we ended up
with. The youngsters don't drink, and the old fart (moi)
finished most of the alcohol and had more later.

At length we headed to the dining room for our real
dinner.

Jennifer's grilled salmon looked pretty good; not good
enough for me to violate protocol by asking for a bite;
VJ's fried chicken salad likewise. Jan_az had shrimp and
spinach over penne in a white wine garlic sauce, which I
did taste with pleasure. My roast chicken, a generous
serving, had been brined, and so was tender and juicy
but a tad salty. I'd asked for it a little on the rare
side, and the waitress informed me that that's the house
style anyway, and they've had problems with people
sending it back. It came with "almond pilaf" - heavily
cumin-scented and slightly greasy with a couple almond
slivers kind of lost in the mess. Also a mixed veg came
with the main dishes ... mostly green and yellow squash
with a few carrots and red onion slivers, not my fave
but I struggled manfully with them so as to be able to
say that I ate my veggies.

VJ had to take off, because he was cleaning up his
apartment in anticipation of a guest, but the three
of us stayed for dessert: chocolate mousse cake,
which was chocolate mousse inside a cake; cheesecake,
which was cheesecake; and Six Grapes, which was mine
(the waitress said it was Seven Grapes; I checked the
bill, and she only charged for six).

A pleasant evening for a stroll; we saw Jennifer to
her car and then walked down 3rd to the garage.
Jan took me down Van Buren a couple miles from the
restaurant to my hotel, the $40 Best Inn, which I'd
picked because it had a free shuttle to and from the
airport and was really close to a Bill Johnson's, where
I was thinking of picking up another of those "I Ate
the Big One" t-shirts, which of course I didn't do
thanks to the good sportspersonship of the FT/MMers
who had come out to dinner. I should have found a shirt
that read "It Bit the Big One" when I found my hotel
room. Jan was really leery of leaving me off in that
neighborhood; I don't mind such - when I was doing a
lot of touring, with motels paid for by cheesy agents
and penny-pinching impresari, I was used to this kind of
place, and nobody ever, ever gave me a hard time about
my musical instrument.* You pay what you get for. What I
got from the pleasant enough Indian girl at check-in:

pluses:
a biggish room, probably bigger than I'd get at most
real hotels, reasonably well appointed

a large spotless washing-up/dressing area

offputting things:
the room smelled like hospital disinfectant

the box spring had a big old blood stain, not nosebleed
big or gushing period big, I mean attempted murder big

Also the bathroom itself hadn't been quite sufficiently
cleaned ... evidence in the bathroom gave evidence that
a recent guest was a black-haired male, probably east
or southeast Asian, 20-40 and probably 25-35, who blows
his nose in the shower and who has some interest in
herbal medicine. I'm afraid I didn't help the general
ambience by getting a double-barrelled nosebleed in the
shower.

Finally, the pillows smelled of old Caucasian male. I
found one eventually that didn't - it smelled of old
Caucasian female who used Vick's Vap-O-Rub - and slept
okay.

* You heard about the viola player (not myself) who
left his viola in the back seat of his car? When he got
back, his car had been broken into ... and there were
two violas in the back seat of his car.

thanks for the report, and the viola joke at the conclusion -- as an amateur violist, i always enjoy learning new ones. ^

With an FT handle like that, I figured you might be an oboist!
But seriously, I'm glad to see another violist on the board.
Where do you play?

i grew up in the sf bay area and played in several youth orchestras including PACO (palo alto chamber orchestra) -- the viola pretty much ruled my life (hey, i even went to viola camp during the summer) until i went away to college on the east coast and decided to major in something unrelated to music. now i'm in grad school in new york and don't play very often at all, sadly. i miss it!

Well, I'm sure you'll come back to the viola.
Good luck in any case.

CB arrives
 

Got up and headed back to the airport to
meet my sweetie, who was coming in on WN
from BWI. Her flight was an hour early,
but they spent much of that time waiting
for a gate, just like the real airline.
Lunch on WN consists of Lorna Doones and
a couple of other similar snacky things.

Met our friends Carl and Ellen for lunch,
which turned out to be the only flawless
meal of the whole trip. We went to a local
joint in downtown Scottsdale called Frank &
Lupe's, very nice indeed for what it is.
The chips and salsa were excellent, the
former obviously homemade and with just
enough grease to make life wonderful, the
latter just spicy enough, with some smoke
flavor and some tomatillo flavor, quite
yummy indeed. My Carol had the chalupa,
just wonderful, the tortilla crisp and
sturdy, the fillings fresh, a good size
layer of carne adovada in the middle; my
carne adovada plate came with good standard
rice and black beans; the meat itself was
tender, relatively lean but with enough
little nuggets of fat to again make life
wonderful. Carl and Ellen both had the
poblano relleno, which comes with a pair
of enchiladas - a big and yummy meal. The
sangria tasted of raspberry, which wasn't
bad. Negra Modelos are $3.25.

We said goodbye to Ellen, who had to work,
and went off to the Beeline and to Four
Peaks Wilderness, where we spent several
hours lost and in peril for our lives, as
Carl climbed and descended sheer cliffs in
his Jeep, laughing maniacally all the time.
Unfortunately, we found ourselves way far
from nowhere and without a cell signal at
sundown, so missed dinner with jan_az.
Some gorgeous scenery out there, though.

Carol's travel agent Marnie had been taken
by her firm to this place, the Hospitality
Suites right on the Scottsdale-Tempe line.
She recommended it, and so we stayed there.
It's an older place, lacking the coolest
amenities, but it's clean, smells ok, with
decent-sized rooms, free breakfast and
cocktail hour, and three heated pools. Plus
the working-class clientele really love the
joint, making it a happy place; it's nice
to be away from blase worldly spoiled
people now and again. I'd go back. Ok, so
it's two miles from a decent restaurant
(the on-site one advertises stuff like
nachos and double-stuffed deli sandwiches),
and there is not so much eye candy, but for
69 a night for a very comfy king suite,
who's complaining.

We were truly not hungry at dinnertime but
eventually stopped in at the Sugar Bowl,
a Scottsdale institution for 50 years, and
a recommendation from someone at work. At
8 it was hopping with young dating couples,
families with ravenous children, and even
a few old folks. I had the chili burger,
which was beefy and tasty but with extremely
beany and fartiferous chili, sided with a
nice glass of limeade; Carol's patty melt
passed muster, just barely, but the famous
"Camelback soda," really just an ordinary
ice cream soda with I guess a big old extra
scoop of ice cream, was enthusiastically
reviewed.

Rain!
 

Next morning we were supposed to leave for
Sedona, but weather.com showed solid rain
from Phoenix north for two hundred miles,
so we decided to bail and head south. Got
as far as Tucson, where we had a good but
expensive meal at the upscalized Cafe Poca
Cosa in the Clarion hotel. What made the
meal so costly was the tropical-fruit-
flavored sangria, which was the best Carol's
ever had; also the most expensive at $30 a
liter. Chips and salsa again were yummy, the
salsa quite limey and tart. We both had the
plato Poca Cosa, a chef's choice thingy with
three main dishes with rice, brown beans,
and salad for $11.

Carol's three were a nice picadillo, a tangy
chicken with tomato salsa, and a sweet and
strange pastel de elote with broccoli cream.

I had beef with scallions and serranos,
which was totally super, almost Chinese,
chicken with spinach and onions, and a dead
sweet, dessertlike pastel de elote with chile
amarillo. I'd have done well without that.

You're not supposed to be able to request
anything on these plates (chef's choice,
right?), but I'd asked the pleasant waiter if
he'd put in a good word for the carne asada
diabla, beef in cream sauce with chilpotles.
The chef said yes but forgot, so we ended up
with a little bowl of this on the side, and
you know what, I'd come back just for this
dish: like beef stroganoff with peppers. I
will try to duplicate it sometime.

As we'd blown a gazillion calories already,
we splurged and split a slice of flan, which
was kind of heavy but quite tasty.

We spent about $70, half of which was for the
sangria. By the way, should you go here, the
dishes all have really pretentious names, but
don't let that put you off.

I'd wanted to go to the ballgame at Electric
Park, but it was really raining quite hard,
so we abandoned that idea and decided to try
for Old Tucson, which turned out closed, and
the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, a most
felicitous choice as it turned out, even
though it's mostly outdoors, which is no
picnic when it's raining and in the 40s. I
can't recommend this museum too highly, and
we were fascinated for 3 hours. I especially
recommend the hummingbird house. We left
reluctantly at closing time; I had planned
another gala meal in Tucson, but we were
no way hungry, and it was pretty glowery, so
we decided to go back north before it got
really dark. A little sojourn at our room,
and then off to the Roaring Fork, where I'd
made reservations from the road. At 9 the
place was hopping.

By the way, Microsoft Streets '04 has this
restaurant in a completely wrong location.
We went to the supposed place and had to call
from there. Instead of being on Camelback,
it's at the SW corner of Chaparral and
Goldwater/Scottsdale.

We valeted the rental car and strolled in.
Seated immediately at a nice table and were
pleasantly greeted by a very intense and
peculiar waitress (if you have read M.F.K.
Fisher's story about Monsieur Paul's,
you'll know what I'm talking about). The
first things that come out are some rather
interesting breads including a yummy
jalapeno cornbread and a weird dinner roll
with blueberries; the butters are a good
unsalted and a chile-citrus one that I
found peculiar. Peculiar might describe the
entire experience here. Not bad, mostly,
just very odd.

We started off splitting the pot of green
chile appetizer with tortillas, which could
easily be a whole meal for two. This was at
the recommendation of flyer friend transworld
one. It was delicious but calorific. Carol
ate most of the cheese off the top, and I ate
most of the slightly fatty chili meat
underneath. The only cavil is that the dish
could have been quite a lot spicier.

Carol ordered a second appetizer as her main
course, the duck on flatbread, which was
tasty and abundant, with a side of excellent
garlicky spinach ($5 extra). I can't see this
as an appetizer: it's gotta be 1000 Calories
right there.

I ordered the cumin-crusted duck breast with
confit leg, sided with green chile macaroni
and cheese. The waitress asked how I'd like
it, was medium-rare okay, and I said I'd take
medium-rare but would prefer blood-rare. Ok.
and as the spinach sounded so good, an order
of that, too. Well, when the duck came not
only was it not medium-rare, there was not
a touch of pink at all. Tasted pretty good,
and I thought long and hard before sending it
back. I kept the mac and cheese and the
somewhat underconfit duck leg and sent the
breast back. What came back was a revenge
dish, just barely seared on the outside and
completely cold raw in the middle. I rather
enjoyed it, although the cumin had not been
tamed by the heat, so the balance of the
dish was off. In the background I heard the
chef arguing with the manager; the upshot
being that I was a tin-palate and the manager
saying, but it was overcooked in any case, I
saw it, it was gray. Oh, yes, a second mac
and cheese came out too: the stuff is pretty
tasty, made with a semi-soft cheese with an
almost brie-like consistency.

Eventually the manager came out, apologized,
and comped my main course. When the bill came
out, I had been charged twice for the dish,
with both of them taken off. With two giant
orders of spinach and the extra mac-cheese,
we had a good snack for the next day, and no
room for dessert.

Edmeades 2000 Zin (Mendocino) was delicious
and a bargain at $33, smoky and fruity (not
the usual berries, more grapes and tropical
stuff).

One other thing. Carol found a long blond
hair in the green chile and a long brown one
wrapped tightly around some of the greens in
the salad that topped her pizza. There is
something not quite right in the kitchen, I
am afraid, even though the experience on the
whole was not a bad one.

On the way out, I passed the guy who must
have cooked my meal; we scowled at each
other. I had fantasies of accosting him and
doing mayhem upon his person, so TW1, as you
said you might want to eat at this place with
me, be forewarned if we go there! Everyone
else, waitress, hostess, bus staff, was a
sweetheart though. The manager had been a tad
on the obsequious side, but of course he
saved the life of his cook thereby.

Sedona
 

Next day, it looked a bit better (we could
actually see some blue sky), so we hied
ourselves to Sedona via the scenic route.
I'll say that the road trip was extremely
beautiful. Won't say the same for Sedona.
We came into West Sedona, and this beautiful
panorama of little town nestled up to superb
cliffs tugged at our heartstrings ... but by
the time we got to Tlaquepaque, the irony of
spiritual-experience-seekers and dollar-
hungerers side by side sort of grated on us.
We did get some stuff at the ArtMart in West
Sedona, but the rest of the town, well, it
looked like any other mall anywhere. And we
tried to park for lunch at Rene's, and every
spot in the entire Tlaquepaque was taken,
including the overflow parking, so we
backtracked to the Mobil 3-diamond Heartline
Cafe, where we had probably the most
unsatisfactory meal we've ever eaten
together. Started okay, with this burned-out
hippy guy waiter offering pretty nice breads
and a butternut-tomato-basil dip. But the
lunch itself left a lot to be desired. Carol
ordered the Kobe burger (comes with smoked
mozzarella, portobello, and fixin's along
with sweet potato chips) medium rare, and it
of course came pre-processed, circular,
pressed, and otherwise like a hockey puck.
Even though she had encouraged me to return
my incorrectly-cooked duck at Roaring Fork
the other day, she refused to send it back.
The chips were by the best part of her meal,
and even they were a bit resilient and soggy.
My tea-smoked duck salad with pecans and
gorgonzola, hold the gorgonzola was wretched
- the tea-smoked duck tasting as though it
were tire-smoked mystery meat, the not
completely fresh (but interestingly mixed)
greens soaked with a sweetish dressing.
There was nothing for it. We ate our bad
food in good spirits, paid the fairly stiff
bill, and left. A Fat Tire didn't hurt. Ah,
yes, I had the ADW Barossa Nova Shiraz 01,
no bargain at $6 a glass (it costs $10 a
bottle retail); far from its soft and fruity
press, it tasted almost exactly like a badly
stored Chianti, with no fruit to speak of
and an intriguing aroma of old shoes (Carol
thought it was more like horse stable).
Almost fifty bucks for lunch. Don't go there.

We got out to find that the rain had stopped,
so we decided to try Oak Creek Canyon.

Unfortunately, so did everyone else, and we
found ourselves in a gigantic traffic jam
that would do LA proud. We found the first
turnaround and turned around. Tried to go to
Montezuma's Castle, an Indian ruin, but the
parking lot was chockablock. So back to our
hotel to catch the tail end of happy hour,
where the limit is two drinks a person, but
that means two drinks at a time. We had four
each, and that made the day a lot nicer.

The wine is Taylor. The beers are Bud, Bud
Light, and Michelob Amber Bock. The special
drinks of the day were the Alamo Something
(pink punch with tequila) and the Blue
Lagoon (pineapple juice, vodka, curacao).
We had five Blue Lagoons between us and
rolled back to our room for a dinner of leftovers.

end of trip, with a TED :( leg
 

It was time for Carol to think about running
back to BWI, so we had a lazy morning, took
a quick run out to the Superstitions so she
could see that also impressive formation, and
then back to Carl and Ellen's, whence we
decided on brunch at Z Tejas on the strength
of the Chambord margaritas. The place isn't
bad, after all, for a chain. At brunch,
mimosas and MYOBs (choice of several chic
vodkas including Chopin and Belvedere) are
$3, which is good.

My chile relleno with smoked chicken,
apricots, pecans, raisins, and jack cheese
sided with Spanish rice and black beans was
pretty good, a big poblano pepper split and
folded over the said filling; Carol's
Southwest enchilada with roast pork was
pretty standard. Carl ordered the grilled ahi
tuna with a soy-mustard sauce, and it was in
fact excellent - I had a bite, and I thought
it was the equal of what they serve at fancy
restaurants. Alas, not all was well, as
Ellen's chicken hash (the only thing on the
brunch menu that we ordered) was almost too
salty to eat. I guess that's to encourage
the consumption of drinks, so she had another
mimosa and all was fine.

We had just time to visit the Pueblo Grande
park and marvel at the native architecture
once again, and then it was time to head
back to Sky Harbor. We said goodbye to Carol
at the WN terminal and went back to the
Four Peaks for a few IPAs before my flight.

UAT1458 PHX DEN 2032 2313 32S 3F

I've lost my Ted virginity, and I feel sort
of screwed. It's not that the experience is
painful, just that it's not what I want now
or ever. Total Southwest, only done by
personnel who aren't convinced, so the
feeling you get is of people going through
the motions, the grins and jokes seeming
even more insincere than usual. I think the
flight was ok; anyhow it was almost on time
(hard time getting a guide in, though), but
as we landed at A-fortysomething, and all
mainline connections are in the B terminal,
and there are no monitors that tell you
where your connection is, there was some
confusion at the gate. I hustled down to
the train, calling the 1K desk on the way
to find out where my gate was. Got to the
gate in about 8 minutes, but people kept
straggling in (including some unfortunates
on the flight from Vegas, which was even
later than ours) until departure time and
beyond. If my experience is any indication,
if they don't shape up quick, not only is
Ted doomed, it may also truly be "the end
of United."

UA 568 DEN BOS 2355 0534 319 2A

Back to mainline, thank heaven. Service
was okay. They offered a deli plate or
penne with something. I had just the cookie,
which was chocolate chip, and a couple
Courvoisiers. Some bumps on the flight,
nothing surprising or out of the ordinary,
and we landed a few minutes early (again
having to wait for a guide in to the gate).
Slept like a baby most of the flight.

I'm sorry to hear about your Roaring Fork experience. The next time you're in town, we'll have to get together for a meal there. I've had nothing but positive experiences there.

Nice to see you returned to Four Peaks for IPA. Which Z-Tejas location? Downtown Tempe?

Well a man who chooses to sleep in a bug infested $40 hotel room on "prostitute row", rather than my nice clean guest room and then drinks a $30 gallon of sangria has got to make me wonder :D

I was a bit nonplussed by the Roaring Fork, which showed signs of
being able to do better ... my guess is that they pulled in extra
people to work the kitchen that night, as pretty much every table
was full of folks, and I bet that the cooks were being run ragged.

The IPA at Four Peaks is probably the best alcohol bargain around.

The Z Tejas was in downtown Tempe, convenient to the airport
and the Pueblo Grande museum, important 'cause we had to get
Carol to the airport for her flight. The food wasn't bad on the whole.

How was your trip? How about sending a trip report here (and TOBB
as well)?

Excellent report. Pleasure to read it.

Thank you for the viola joke (my brother plays viola) and the trip report

jan: all experiences are valuable! Would I repeat that particular one,
probably not.

flamboyant, flygva: thanks, you're welcome, etc. I figure only
violists are allowed to tell viola jokes!