To the SIN Do
 

0107 UA 135 BOS IAD 1145 1332 319 6A

Saw my angel Joanne at the gate and clogged things up
chatting with her, but it was a half-empty flight, so
nobody complained (I didn't get to the gate until zone
3 had been called, so the great washed were not forced
to wait); she's going back to school, which is an evil
harbinger for United Airlines in Boston. Got to my
favorite seat, the row 6 shady side window (when the
adjacent is unoccupied); the rest of the row was empty.
Put my shades on; heard some kids commenting enviously
at the E+ area; and snoozed - much comfort. Vaguely
smelled food, which meant that perhaps I should have
upgraded, but what the heck. Woke up as we got to
around Sugarloaf Mountain; noticed that some guy had
upgraded himself to 6F and that the pair of kids had
taken row 7 (a perfectly respectable row). Thought
about the Flyertalk discussions about the integrity of
Economy Plus, shrugged, put my eyeshades back on, and
slept until we were at the gate, around 1:15.

Decided to try the Metrobus route home instead of a
$50 taxi ride. Got on the mobile lounge 16 minutes
before the 5A was supposed to leave; the sign said
that it was leaving in 00:21, so I figured I was
golden. I wasn't. It didn't leave for another five,
and I got to the bus stop at 1:35 on the button -
no bus. Waited until 2:05, still no bus. I guess that
the 5A had left early. Being stubborn and wanting to
save $47, I took the 2:30, which, with transfers onto
the 38B, 34, and T2, got me to my father's house shortly
after 5. As my time wasn't billable, and as I really am
not eager to sit and watch football on television with
my father, I didn't sweat it.

Did some paperwork and took my father and brother out
to La Miche, which is easy to get to and which holds
some modest good memories. As Jonathan was driving and
my father drinks little, I just had a few glasses of
the mediocre house Chardonnay. My father and I had
mussels in the style of escargot (broiled in garlic
butter), pretty good; my brother had the onion soup,
which I tasted and found okay, but which he said tasted
like chlorine. We determined that it was the cheese,
which he thought had been bleached (his perceptions are
often unique) and I thought was slightly but not notably
moldy. Nonetheless, he ate the whole thing, then had the
gall to complain to the waitress (our regular waitress,
who by the look and sound of her is Thai-Chinese). She
of course offered a replacement (for the empty bowl!),
and I vetoed that.

For mains, Jonathan had the cassoulet, easily a quart of
slightly liquidy beans with a vast amount of fatty pork
and duck - he pronounced it excellent and proceeded to
down it all, quite a feat of appetite I thought. My
crab cakes were two large blobs of broiled crab Imperial
over steamed vegetables; pretty decent, a lot of crab,
not much filler, a pleasant green-pepper-scented mayo
binding it all together. My father had ordered the
boeuf bourguignonne (I asked if he was sure he wanted it,
as he isn't really a beef stew person, and he rather
angrily said yes) ... what came was much better, I thought,
rockfish in crabmeat sauce. Oh, it was pretty dark in the
corner they put us in, but not that dark. My father tucked
in with appetite and said, "this isn't beef bourguignonne";
after we determined that it was rockfish in crabmeat sauce,
I asked if he wanted to keep it. No, I ordered the beef, he
said, continuing to eat. I signalled to the waitress to
take it away (as he kept eating); and soon a plate of the
stew came out. It was okay, not nearly so good as the fish,
made with rather acidy and rather poor wine, and he ate
only a little of it before deciding he wasn't hungry. Turns
out he got bourguignonne mixed up with Wellington.

Dessert comes on the $35 prix fixe (a bargain in Bethesda),
and I had a nice and very big creme brulee with raspberries;
my family decided they were too full for dessert. The check
was rather modest, rather bistrolike.

=

Next day we had a few people over for my father's birthday;
went to Timpano, a chain "concept restaurant" on Rockville
Pike that - despite the inexperience of the staff and its
tendency to oversell everything. Present: the next-door
neighbors, uncle Sy (really a second cousin or something),
the three aforementioned, my b-i-l, and my sweetie.

The poor college student newhire waiter was a little out of
his depth and was not too convincing in his upselling ...
nonetheless, we got a lot of grossly overpriced spinach
salads and a couple of the grossly overpriced mozzarella
and tomato salads. I told him I wanted a draft beer, and he
said that they didn't have any draft beers, and I sort of
went off on him, saying that that was a really stupid
business decision, as a glass of draft costs pennies, and
you can sell it for five bucks. After unhinging him
slightly by this, I took him completely aback by saying
that in that case I wanted a glass of Jim Beam Black for
my appetizer. At least I got my Beam (which I like better
than most of the competition, including Daniel's).

For my main course I should have had more whiskey, but
intrigued by the "double-bone Kobe pork chop" I ordered
that medium-rare. It came blood rare, which was kind of
interesting; I decided to give it a try and discovered
that raw "Kobe" pork has a very pleasant crunchiness to
the texture and a nice fresh taste - supermarket pork
would be flabby and taste of fish meal. The stuff appeared
to be quite lean and not particularly "Kobe"like. Maybe it
is "Kobe Bryant" pork. The outside was sugar-crusted but
not cooked long enough to completely caramelize the crust;
hence it was kind of sweet. On the side: asparagus (not as
goodas the last time I was here, rather fibrous, but what
can you expect for the middle of the winter) covered with
a surprising amount of decent Parmesan. I gave much of the
cheese to Carol, who loves the stuff.

My father had veal piccata, a good-size serving of decent
tender meat rather overfloured and in a thick but tasty
sauce of wine, lemon, broth, capers, and artichokes.

Carol's shrimp with goat cheese on pasta was pretty good
but not nearly so nice as the Bolognese she had had last
time.

I'm not sure what the others had, but they seemed pretty
well fed on sizable portions of reasonably semiauthentic
Italianate food, and a number of doggy bags (only one
destined for an actual dog) left with us.

We had a couple bottles of the Penfolds Koonunga Hills
Shiraz-Cab 02, plummy and quite soft, good with food
although a bit on the sweet side. It is possible our
server had never used a corkscrew before.

We were too full for dessert. If you aren't familiar with
the schtick, the waiter comes by with these little tiny
desserts - puddingy things in shot glasses at about $3
and cheesecake lollipops presented on a silver tree for
about $2. Very silly, and we (bad us) sort of hooted at
them, which confused our unfortunate server even more.
I gave the poor soul $15 on top of the 18% included
service, with which I hope he bought a couple drinks
after work (I like the French "pourboire" idea).

0111
UA 373 BWI ORD 0827 0933 320 1D
was UA 253 BWI ORD 0925 1035 752 2A

Got to the counter just before 8, and after a bunch
of typing, the agent said that they had a seat for me,
please run, which was odd for a 9:25 flight. Turns out
I'd been proactively rescheduled to the 7:40, and they
were holding it. Security was negligible (at this station
it's either negligible or horrendous), and just after 8
I presented myself at the gate. More typing, and I was
given 1D - meaning that some unfortunate had gotten
downgraded because of my 1K clout (hope that s/he got
some modest compensation). Turns out there were about 50
people they were holding the plane for; it didn't push
until it was chockablock. Took off around 8:30, landed
9:30ish. Not a notable flight. Turns out the guy next to
me was going to SIN via HKG; judicious questioning
indicated that he was not a DOer but rather a Hopkins
professor gone to speak before that school's outpost
in Singapore.

Two drink coupons willingly given at the ORD C RCC:
unfortunately nobody was at the bar to take them or
to dispense booze.

UA 881 ORD NRT 1200 1620+1 744 22A

Tried to get my preassigned seat changed, but, alas,
the few seats I prefer were taken. The only window
upstairs that was available was in row 18; didn't
inquire about 25 and 26 middle, figuring 22 was just
fine, just so I didn't get SARS from the draft. Turns
out the exit was - unlike others in my experience -
pretty well sealed.

As I was getting settled in my seat, I overheard
snippets of my seatmate's phone conversation, which
included words such as Bird Park and Night Safari. So I
very obviously signed the Voices page on both of the
Hemispheres in the pocket - no rcognition, though. Turns
out my seatmate was new (1 post) Flyertalker GVD-IAD, who
is unfamiliar with the UA forum custom. We had a pleasant
chat about miles and points and Singapore and what to
expect at the Do. A pleasant young lad (although [whisper]
a lawyer.

Was asked early ("as you are my favorite passengers,"
said the FA) for meal choice; GVD said Bento for the
first choice, but anything was okay; I said that I
didn't care, whereupon she replied, "you really are
my favorite passenger."

The options were the Bento, short ribs, or crispy
halibut. I trust someone will post the details on
the appropriate thread over on UA; if not, I'll type
the menu descriptions out later.

Ch. La Boutignane Corbieres 03 was slightly corked,
rather light and cherrylike; didn't care for it; the
pleasant FA asked if I wanted to try the other red;
affirmative. So I had the Pedroncelli Three Vineyards
Cabernet 03 - heavy oak, quite smooth, also slightly
corked (worse, the second bottle was slightly corked -
if I keep being hypersensitive to TCA like this, I'll
have to quit drinking wine, on planes at least.

The FA came back and said, "I bet you like fish." I didn't
- what came was like a fish stick on steroids, about 8x
as big and 8x as tough, with the same freezerburned
taste I've come to know from my father's fridge. The
sauce, which came on the side and was an onion-sriracha
concoction, was very spicy and rather palatable. Rice
was nicely done, in the slightly sticky Asian style; I
ate it all. Sugar snaps and carrots, though overcooked,
were tender, not mushy, sweet, and decent tasting.

For dessert I had some very soft rubbery but not bad
tasting Cheddar, a few nice grapes, and a glass of
Sandeman's Founder's Reserve.

Good snacks - chips, snack mix, cheese and crackers,
Chinese noodles, shortbreads, Twix, Jelly Bellys,
fresh fruit, deli sandwiches (small), plus leftovers
from the dessert service.

Took a rejuvenating nap, and when I woke, it was almost
time for the second meal service. Despite the bread basket
smelling fairly appetizing, I decided to pass, not needing
the calories.

Flight landed a few minutes early, so the connection
was made a tad easier. I even had time to duck in to
the RCC and upload this report.

Service was matronly (as the FAs were mostly female
and in their 40s to 60s) but unobtrusively excellent.

Sounds like a ghastly run foodwise so far. At least there's crabs to look forward to.

Well, I did a food stall crawl myself this lunchtime, and life is better,
after several helpings of duck noodles. (Best duck: at the kopitiam
right across from my hotel!)

I was unable to do my e-mail at the RCC; oddly the only
sites I could access were united.com and flyertalk.com.
Didn't have time to jump up and down at the beer machine
or sift through the numerous white males working on
laptops, or fiddle with my network settings, but just
sent one report and hightailed it out of there and got
to gate 45 as they were calling zone 3.

0112 UA 891 NRT SIN 1715 2350 777 9A

On this aircraft, there is no 8AB; so full recline
with no one reclining into one, plus an overhead per
person.

Extremely pleasant mostly Japanese cabin crew - much
younger and cuter than on the previous flight. A little
more unbuttoned than I expect of Asian FAs; perhaps it's
American training. Good service, but I'm not sure that
I would say it was "better" than that of the older crew
on the transoceanic. On the one hand, when I had one of
my famed Niagaras of blood out my nose, one FA asked
what I would like, and when I asked for a bag of ice,
another magically appeared with one in five seconds;
on the other, my water glass was kept full for the
entire duration of the transpacific, and on NRT-SIN,
my glass sat empty for a couple hours (not a big deal,
I was one row ahead of the galley, so I could have
asked any time if I'd really wanted). On the whole I
was quite pleased with the service on both flights.

Laboure-Roi Chablis 04 was very pleasant although a bit
light and perhaps on the amabile side. On the other
hand, the 03 had some character - very pleasant aroma,
real Chardonnay flavor, good acid.

Again, I was a good boy and told them I would take the
least popular meal - this time it was a way overcooked
filet of pink snapper, a large serving, sided with
a yuzu sauce, a cooked scallion garnish, and really
excellent vegetables - oyster mushrooms, taro, carrot,
a shiso leaf (cooked), and a roll of bean curd sheet
whose deliciousness made the whole dish. Also rolls
of sticky rice sprinkled with purple stuff, I forget
what it's called. The guy next to me had the Chinese
noodles with shrimp and cuttlefish, and it looked
great and enormous. He ate every scrap of it.

GVD-IAD scored a seat in the middle of 14; after my nap
I discovered that cawhite was also in 14, and gfowler-1k
was in the wilds of row 30. I let sleeping flyertalkers
lie. When I returned to my seat, a giggly Japanese FA
had come by with a bottle of the 03 Chablis; apparently
I'd enjoyed it enough to be noticed. Waited with cawhite
and CGK (come in to meet the flight, on his way to do a
segment run with KiwiFlyer) for gfowler to appear, but
apparently somehow he'd sneaked out. I had wanted to
give him the bottle as a consolation prize, but too bad.

Waited around to greet kluau and then off to immigration
(which took seconds), taxi queue (10 mins) and the cheap
hotel.

Taxi guy professed ignorance of the Rendezvous, and when
I told him where it was, asked dubiously, have you been
there before. It's not as though Bras Basah were an
unknown little cul de sac. I blearily tried to remember
his license number just in case and took out the map,
which he grudgingly studied for a moment (my finger
pointing at the hotel), and off we hurried, the speeding
buzzer going off frequently. The trip cost about $3 less
than Carol's and my cab ride there last year.

The hotel gave me a room with a king bed and a cot, as if
that would make up for the two-twin room they gave us last
February. Got four hours of nice shuteye and then was faced
with the question of what to do on a rainy 7 am with no
Internet (the ethernet connection in this room is off, and
there wasn't anyone who knew how to authorize me for
wireless; this was remedied later). Put the do not disturb
light on and crawled back into bed.

At 9 I rolled over and noticed that there was sun and blue
sky outside, so I went to run errands for Carol - she
wanted to see if essential oils for her soaps can be got
cheaper here than using Internet sourcing. A couple of
hours of legwork indicated to me that the answer is no; but
in the trekking through the Indian and Arab parts of town
I went past numerous good-smelling food stands, and as I
write now am full up with a couple kinds of duck noodles
and a few other Chinesey comestibles.

Oh, also I spent a pleasant hour at the Malay Heritage
Centre museum (off a gorgeous courtyard at the Istana
Kampong Gelam on North Bridge Road).

Lau Pa Sat
 

I was tempted by this flyer (verbatim) on my desk:

Ocean Catch & Chip Promotion
Retreat in the comfort of your room and savour
our cleverly tailored menu created by our creative
and award wining chefs.

Fish and chips
Choice of Selection

DEEP FRIED CODFISH WITH BEER BATTER, SERVED WITH
SPICY GARLIC SAUCE

or

OIL POACHED SEA BASS WITH MAZOL MEAL, SERVED WITH
TANGY TARTAR SAUCE

or

BUTTER FRIED GAROUPA WITH ALMOND CRUMB, SERVED
WITH MALT VINEGAR

$19.90 nett per set

Served With COMPLIMENTARY SOUP of Clam Chowder Puff

(Please dial `2' for room service)

but instead chose to nap after drinking half the bottle
of United Chablis. Didn't have an opener so used a
combination of a BIC pen and my teeth to almost get
the cork out; then the thing busted, so I ended up
pushing the cork in anyway. The sleep was fitful, and
twice (luckily) I went back to flyertalk.com; the second
time I discovered that tom911 and Magic111 would be
there an hour early, so I hastily threw on some clothes
and caught the last 167 bus from my hotel to Lau Pa Sat.
I actually beat them there by a couple minutes. They
looked relatively hale and hearty after their journeys.

Also present were (in approximate order of arrival) :

monitor

the Canadians - Seanthepilot + his Thai girlfriend,
whose name I didn't catch, TaxDude, Ian (handle forgotten),
Jack (handle forgotten)

fly4fun

Falco Peregrinus

two young local members, whose handles I didn't get
but whose Christian names are Michael and Lionel

zvezda

Kevin (handle forgotten)

Disappointingly, four of the first five mentioned don't
do beer, so I parched for half an hour before the welcome
Other Canadians showed up, after which we ordered numerous
pitchers of Tiger and numerous sticks of satay, including
beef, lamb, mutton (I believe there were two different
ovine products), chicken, and duck. Also some specials,
which I found I ate most of (didn't order them, so it
wasn't my fault) - beef liver, lung, and tripe. A good feed
and I hope good conversation was had by all.

At 2:15 we gave up on the UA runners and went our separate
ways, some of us having been up for a very long time.

Kevin, monitor, and I decided to camp out at the Marriott
and await belle3388, who was coming in on SQ11 (in F,
natch); she showed up just before 3, with many cheerful
facts about her ordeal, I mean itinerary, and more trips
to come.

And now, if you please, I'm ready to try the remainder of
that Chablis (now warm) and get a tad of shut-eye, as it
is 5 am. See you all tomorrow! Er, today.

Starting the day right
 

I couldn't sleep much after dawn and fussed with my
e-mail until almost noon, when monitor called: we made
lunch arrangements, to wit: Meet at the Marriott at
1:30 and put ourselves in the able hands of belle3388.

So off we went, Falco Peregrinus and Franny joining,
to Din Tai Fung in Paragon Center, Orchard Rd. This is
a branch of a Taiwan restaurant that is famous for its
xiao long tang bao, steamed Shanghai-style dumplings
stuffed with meat and broth.

The place was hopping, which guarantees fresh food, and
we waited for what seemed like an hour (but was probably
15 minutes or so). As the lunch crush was tailing off,
we got a table for 8, which was good, as the food (we
ordered it while we had been waiting) started filling
up all available space.

We started with shrimp egg fried rice, which, as I told
belle, was pretty much like what my mother used to make;
then the famous dumplings (we got pork ones and pork and
crab ones; I had a hard time telling the difference),
which had extra thin wrappers and were appropriately
filled with juice, which you sip after puncturing the
wrapper; then you pop the rest in your mouth and make
the yummy sound.

Dan dan noodles were excellent fresh noodles in a very
nice peanut sauce; I thought they needed a helping of the
hot oil that came on the table. Sa jiang mian, noodles
with meat and soybean sauce, were almost as good, a tad
spicier. Franny has come to love a slightly out of the
way dish - soup noodles with pork and pickled cabbage -
so we got a bowl; this was a very delicate version.

Shrimp with dou miao (pea pod sprouts) featured the
youngest pea sprouts I've ever had. An order of the
special siu mai was pretty standard except for a
teaspoon of broth hiding in each one (the secret: pop
a little blob of aspic in with the filling as you make
the dumpling; the aspic of course melts on contact with
heat; and, presto, magic!),

Dessert was a pretty standard thousand layer cake;
belle had said that the version made here melts in your
mouth. It doesn't, but it's pretty decent.

We then went to Takeshimaya to look for durian, which
monitor and Franny hadn't seen before. At the food hall
we were informed that it wasn't season, and they wouldn't
have any until new year's. I don't know what's up with
that, as for the last two SIN Dos they were available at
the Carrefour stores.

As I was halfway home, and as I wanted a bit of a nap,
I said goodbye and walked back to the hotel and had a
brief snooze.

It was soon time to go to the Conrad, where I found
Magic and tom911 comfortably situated; gradually people
filtered in: I met some new people (Dedehans, Johnosan,
JayBee and Mr. JayBee, some guy named Joe who looks kind
of like Joe Namath) and saw friends from ago (peteflys,
RestlessinRNO, gvdIAD (from the day before), Punki and
Hunki, Manchester Flyer, etc.). And at last we found our
host, who had been incommunicado for what appear to have
been reasons beyond his control. He hustled us into a
couple snazzy white vans that whisked us in short order
to the No Signboard Seafood, Geylang Branch.

Hi violist,

Lionel here. Nice meeting up with you!

violist, good to see ya again this yr at the SIN-Do!

kaysquare, u were there? which table were u at?

Thanks, Lionel, good to meet you and Michael as well.

Wilson, a pleasure, as always.

ML

What Wilson Said!! :D
Best wishes, Dave

I was sitting at the other end, youngish looking. Still need time to remember the faces and names. *sheepish look*