I'd booked (and upgraded) an HNL itinerary to party with
these guys, but professional duties reared their ugly heads, so I
booked a consolation for various things trip instead; no point getting
one's knickers in a knot, and one ought to make the best of the
situation (which turned out to be very good indeed).

UA 527 BOS ORD 0655 0831 752 2A Ch9 Y Empower N

Lynne appeared to be happy to see me at the club, where I
used to appear every two weeks or so; now it's a quarterly
event at best; chatted a bit about the state of the airline
(not excellent); I went off to take advantage of the free
wireless, which cut in and out. Left at :45 and hustled to
the gate to find zone 2 just being called. The agent didn't
look up when I loomed at the red lane and asked, rather
dubiously, when I presented my blue boarding pass "first
class?" I said "yep," whereupon she looked up at me. "Oh,
hi, welcome, it's been a long time."

The guy in 2B had obviously entertained the false hope that
he'd have an empty seat next to him and grudgingly made way
for me. The cabin eventually checked in full.

FAs were pretty good.

I slept through takeoff and order taking, but with my fine-
tuned sense of hearing noticed when the tablecloths were
being distributed. A FA asked me if I wanted breakfast; I
said I'd have the hot one; he said "it's an omelet."

Turned out to be our friend the cheese omelet with the
famous weird marinara sauce, sided by a greasy sausage. a
slice of greasy limp bacon, and potatoes that managed to be
burned crunchy and raw crunchy at the same time. All
lukewarm outside, somewhat chilly inside. Not a stellar
rendition. The croissant, offered by a rather pretty but
completely deadpan blonde, was quite good.

A different rendition of the fruit appetizer: cantaloupe,
grapes, blueberries, all okay.

Smooth flight, and we landed a bit early.

No dark Ghirardelli at the incredibly crowded B RCC, but
copious bad pastries, unripe fruit, and milk Ghirardelli.

UA 1 ORD HNL 1023 1424 777 1A Ch9 Y- Empower Y

As I was in the bulkhead, I made an effort to board early.
As it turns out, there was plenty of space in the overhead.

The pilot made a big deal about Channel 9. Some cool stuff
heard on the way:

ATC: Eagle 473, Delta Bravo to the gate.
E473: Maybe Delta Alpha?
ATC: No, Delta Bravo, but I reserve the right to change
that.
E473: You'll have to do it in a higher voice.
ATC: [in high falsetto] OK.
[after a while, ATC in fact changes the routing to D A]
E473: What a man.

Predeparture OJ, water, or "Champagne," this last being
some tasteless though foxy concoction that at least had a
decent mousse.

FAs were a mixed bag - one was nice but rather abstracted,
doing 3 runs of Champers down the HJ aisle and only one
down AB - the bar being of course on that side; the purser
was pleasant, attentive, and rather cute (though being my
age and gone all gray); there were a couple of others who
helped a bit, unobtrusively.

The movie was about the Loch Ness monster or something.

A Courvoisier helped me relax and went well with the
warm nuts with macadamias.

Astica Cabernet (Mendoza) was a nullity, but the FAs
kept it coming.

An unadvertised special: coconut chicken served grim and
cold with fruit mayonnaise, one skewer per lucky pax.

to begin
Fresh seasonal greens; Trader Vic's Javanese or blue cheese
dressing

The Javanese dressing was brown and salty and tasted like
shoyu and a touch of sesame and maybe a little demiglace
thrown in - very unlike the previous version of the Javanese
that preceded and was very similar to Conway's Asian sesame.

main course
TRADER VIC'S sweet and sour braised short rib; diced potato
shallot hash and glazed baby peas and carrots

What came: a chunk of nearly fatless chuck pot roast, at
least 10 oz, quite salty, in a sauce that tasted of nothing
but salt. A few chunks of almost raw white potato with no
seasoning to speak of and certainly no shallots - at least
it cut the salt of the meat presentation. The vegetables
were sweetish and incredibly salty. I had to keep drinking
red wine to get the food down.

TRADER VIC'S grilled mahi mahi with Trader Vic's ginger
fruit chutney glaze; saffron rice and green beans nui

The FAs were pushing this, saying it was very good. I
didn't see any.

dessert
Your flight attendant will inform you of the selection -
which was vanilla ice cream with pecan sauce and whipped
cream, the sauce incredibly sweet, the cream out of a can.
A hitherto unheard-from young cutish Asian FA gave me a
bowl that had half ice cream and half sauce; I don't know
if she was favoring me or if she was trying to kill me
through diabetic shock.

We invite you to begin your meal with a Trader Vic's
signature Mai Tai

I declined.

Channel 9 went off over the Pacific, as it usually does.
Channel 5 seemed to be featuring finales: among them a
fast-fingered but otherwise repellent version of the Bruch
Scottish Fantasy; Mozart 41st; and the excellent Brahms
horn trio (which I used to perform with my friends Jimmy
Mosher and Eric Mazonson, but that was so long ago that I
sleepily took half the movement to identify this day).

More Courvoisier helped me sleep, and by the time I woke,
it was half an hour before landing. I turned on Channel 9,
but it was dead air; asked the abstracted FA to call up
front and ask for it to be turned on, but she said it was
too late.

We landed a little early but drove around a bit before
docking. I hustled out of there and went to the wrong club -
I saw the PC, right near gate 13, where I was informed there
was a WC next door, so I poked my nose in there to see boxo
gesticulating wildly at me.

Think of missing the party plane this way

You get DEQM

Yay DEQMs ... I may get to 150 yet this year.

I was guested into the WC by DanTravels and/or boxo: it's a
small and austere room, not uncomfortable though, and with a
friendly staff. The booze and beer selections were the same
as at most WCs, except there was no Heineken. As I checked
out the catering (Flamin' Hot Cheetos, yay!), Hans the pilot
and his brother joined our group.

A pleasant chat running along the normal lines, only
pertaining to different airlines than my usual, and then it
was time for Hans & co. to go check out their standby
chances; the three of us hung around until time for Dan's
flight, whereupon boxo and I went out to meet ted nugent (no
relation), who was picking us up for dinner.

Ted is very proud of Oahu, though he's originally a
mainlander like most of us, and wished to dispel the popular
image of the island as a Disneyesque wasteland. So he took
us over to the north shore, where we visited a couple of
less traveled areas (a pre-antidote to my Waikiki stay),
including Pyramid Rock and Kailua Beach Park, where we got
a glimpse of Mrs. tnnr training for an Ironperson event.

Zia's Cafe is one of Ted's favorite haunts, so we went there
- it's pretty nondescript on the outside, but the food is
good and the beers are cold. The latter were Kona Brewing
Longboard Lager, a slightly better-hopped American-style
beer, quite pleasant on a warm evening.

I ordered the spicy seafood antipasto and asked for it to
come over linguine: this was shrimp, scallops, and cuts
from a big squid in a white wine and cayenne sauce in which
both the wine and pepper were prominent. Some garlic, too.

Forget what others got, but it all looked good.

Mrs. tnnr joined us after her workout, and in the course of
conversation we were both amused to know that we had had the
same sort of interaction with the same Famous Man professor
at the same school, only twenty-something years apart, both
encounters helping define our career objectives away from
the subject taught by said Famous Man.

All things must pass, and boxo's flight was coming up; tnnr
was so kind as to take us all the way back to the airport,
where I hung around with boxo until my bus came to take me
to my hotel, the Aqua Palms Resort and Spa on Ala Moana just
before Waikiki. The bus stops a block from the hotel, yay.

Check-in was a snap, and I was greeted with a slightly
rickety hotel that had at one time perhaps had pretensions
to something greater but that now was now a mainstay of
package tours and the bus trade. Not bad for that.

The room was pleasant, with a balcony overlooking a parking
lot, queen bed, and sofabed. A larger than average room,
fitted for handicapped patrons.

There was a sizable fridge, a cheap Black & Decker coffee
maker, and a fairly snazzy new Sharp Carousel nuke, so a
truly low budget vacation could be arranged if need be.

I liked the toiletries, which were made by Luxus.

One oddity was that the air conditioning seemed to be keyed
in some way to the front door, so that in order to turn it
off, I had to open the door halfway - whether there was a
sensor in the door jamb or a temperature, humidity, or
atmospheric pressure probe I don't know. I didn't figure
this out for quite a while.

The bed was fairly comfy, but I slept until 4 only, despite
having heeded the purser's aloha speech on United that
afternoon, which ended "get to bed really late, otherwise
you'll be up at 3 AM." Tried to get some work done, then
went off in search of breakfast, not a hard thing, as the
19 and 20 buses into town stop in front of the Holiday Inn
next door.

One good thing about Breakfast, Lunch, and Crab is that it
opens at 7, and if you're seated in the first half hour,
there are some pretty good $3.99 specials. Unfortunately, I
just missed the specials, even though I was handed a card
advertising them. Not a big deal: I wanted to try Da Pake
Moco - a loco moco made with char siu and lop cheong instead
of a hamburger. For an upcharge of 1.25 I got it with house
fried rice instead of sticky white goo, which gets me very
sated very quickly.

A fruited iced tea was pleasant accompaniment. I thought of
getting a beer (there's a brewery on premises), and even
though I'm sure it would have been served smilingly, I
figured this was too much even for me.

The bill was quite high, considering that I hadn't missed
$3.99 time by all that long.

"Served grim" is my new favorite expression. Thank you so much.

Zaney's on Nuuanu Ave. just north of Chinatown, is supposed
to be a must-see for its famous garlic chicken. Experience
indicates that those who rate it as such must be regulars at
cheap buffets. Not that the stuff is bad - in fact, it's
quite palatable for cheap fast Chinese. Thigh meat chicken
is deep-fried and then coated in a sugary garlicky sauce: it
retains its lovely crunch despite the coating, which is a
bit of a feat; but there is way not enough shoyu in the
recipe, and a touch of ginger would have helped as well to
cut the sweet. A healthy portion, 2 or 2 1/2 thighs' worth,
on the mini lunch, which came with a quite good though gummy
mac salad and decent though gummy rice. I'd consider going
back but would get plain chicken. And maybe a vegetable -
though the custom of putting lettuce salad in plate lunches
makes me shake my head with dismay.

=

Angelo Pietro, 1585 Kapiolani Blvd., is in the ground floor
of an office-shopping type complex at the edge of a pink
light district. It's apparently part of a Japanese-based
chain, and its "Italian" food often comes with a certain
Asian, er, perspective. I came here for the famous bacon
natto spaghetti - spaghetti I understand, and spaghetti and
bacon I understand, but natto? Natto, for the uninitiated,
is one of the more exotic cultured soybean products - I
don't know what microorganism is to blame for it, but what
you end up with is salty beans with a nice furuish taste
held together with strands of ropy glop. What came:
spaghetti, not in its first youth, and rather non-al-dente,
coated with the natto slime (the beans had fallen to the
bottom of the bowl), okay but not at all crisp bacon (the
dish would have been better with the textural contrast of
good hard-fried bacon), and a huge pile of nori julienne
on top. The dish, alas, is not notable in any way; the
experience is similar to what I'd imagine would obtain if
someone sneezed in my carbonara. The nori added a vague
intriguing fishiness, but it took on moisture from the
spaghetti steam and became sticky and unpleasant, adding
more texture than the natto had done.

Thank goodness for Kirin; the waiter, though, seemed a bit
disappointed that I managed to down the whole dish
without having to wash it down with a second one.

A propos the location, halfway through the meal a truly
gorgeous mixed blood girl in her late teens or early 20s,
dressed rather provocatively, sat at a nearby table and
kept looking over at me, and I don't think it was my amazing
handsomeness nor that of natto spaghetti that caused this
attention. I decided to take it innocently and assume that
she merely wanted to lure the miraculous mandarin someplace
and have some thugs sell him lingerie at inflated prices.

Noticed that there was a M+ Dining place, Harbor Pub and
Pizza, a block from the hotel - 1765 Ala Moana, same address
as the Chart House, Outback, and Red Lobster, only it's
tucked underground in the back, so it's kind of hard to
find. Also, its actually at the end of Hobron, rather than
where some of the mapping programs put it. So I decided to
check it out for supper. I can't tell whether it was a
mistake or not, as the scene was sufficiently depressing
and the aromas sufficiently unappetizing, that I was
instantly rendered unhungry. A loud obnoxious woman with a
grating voice who kept announcing what hotel she was staying
in (mine) and who was apparently (from the comments of the
patrons at her end of the bar) showing people TV porn from
her laptop didn't encourage me to partake of the standard-
looking bar fare of burgers, wings, pizza, and so on. The
bartender did pour an expert Guinness, though, and I had
a few before retreating with my tail between my legs.
As of this date (a week later) the points have not posted.

=

Eggs 'n' Things, 1911 Kalakua Ave. I'd heard so much about
the wonderful buttermilk pancakes, and the joint was only
a few blocks from the hotel, so I just had to investigate.
This despite the fact that I don't generally do breakfast
and am not a major starch person at all.

I was going to go for one of the standard breakfasts, but
the specials board (which I had to go over to read) had
some interesting choices: I chose the ahi and eggs, which
came out as a medium-sized thinnish filet of fish, pan-
fried to medium-well but juicy and melting tender, probably
the best ahi, in fact, one of the best pieces of fish that
I've ever had. Eggs over easy. On the side, three large
pancakes, which were delicious indeed, served with a knob of
butter half the size of my fist and an array of sweeteners -
two kinds of bright red fruit syrup, probably guava and
passionfruit, but I couldn't really tell; crushed oranges;
coconut syrup, which I used; and a high quality maple blend.
Lots of food, and as exceptional as the place's reputation.

A small orange juice was was maybe 14 oz, fresh squeezed,
sweet, very tasty. Not $3.75 worth, though.

Having put this much into my stomach at breakfast, I
abandoned the idea of doing a comparison tasting for lunch
of Cheeseburger Waikiki and Cheeseburger in Paradise Waikiki
and instead decided to go to Side Street Inn for just a half
order of pork chops and a beer - so I trucked it up Piikoi
St only to find it shut tight. Where to go? Not too far a
walk up Kapiolani Blvd. to Kaffe Imperial, where I'd heard
that some of the best katsu in town is to be found, which is
borne out by the reliable Ono Kind Grindz blog saying "this
is the best chicken katsu that I've ever had!" My own
experience is compatible.

I ordered the #1 tonkatsu at 8.95, a regular bargain. This
combo began with miso soup with turnip and a little cup of
edamame, enough for a light lunch in themselves, followed by
a giant piece of thin-beaten pork cutlet with a mountain of
shredded cabbage and a scoop of the strangest potato salad
I've encountered in recent years - essentially sweetened
cold mash with minced carrots and other vegetables mixed in;
a bowl of rice on the side. A considerable surplus of food,
but I ate every scrap; I wonder what a "large" would have
looked like, at $3 more. Asahi went well.

Walked down to Ala Moana Blvd and caught the airport bus,
a fairly quick and quite bargain trip at two bucks. Though
on several bus rides this trip, I find the drivers to be
pretty much the least cheerful people I've found on the
island ... and capricious - as we steamed into the airport,
our driver suddenly pulled over and abandoned us for places
unknown, reappearing after 10 or 15 minutes, during which
time the successor bus steamed past us without skipping a
beat. No matter, I'd allowed plenty of time, and by the
looks of them the rest of the passengers had as well.

I have to smile when I imagine what you encountered at the Harbor Pub.
We were there as a snack break on our last trip, nothing special except that it was a good place to be for a couple of happy hour drinks and a pizza, on our way from the Prince to our beachside hotel pub crawl along Honolulu.

Not a bad stop if you want a 2-for-1 snack and drink and make some use of the Ent Book.

Thanks for the stories and keep them coming. ^

Thanks. The fact that it's a Mileage Plus Dining place means that
I'll go back anyway

UA 2 HNL ORD 1619 0520 777 3J Ch9 Y Empower Y

A loony agent, who gave me molto grief when I gave him my
PNR; he looked at me as if I had two heads, and said, well,
just type it in - quite oblivious to the fact that I'd
clearly done so, and the machine had been unable to print
my boarding pass (I could see being relegated to 99Z from
1A because of an uncooperative Mr. Easy Chicken and a surly
Mr. Human Chicken, and I shuddered). With a considerable
lack of aloha spirit (almost matching that of the transit
workers) and muttering under his breath, the guy eventually
came up with 3J, on the wrong side of the plane but quite
acceptable. I thanked him and cut off the interchange as
fast as possible. While I was getting my stuff together I
heard the guy telling the next customer that his upgrade
hadn't cleared, but for the same 15000 miles he could keep
his ORD-MIA upgrade, which had gone through. Not sure that a
1200-mi flight on an RJ is worth those miles, but I walked
off before hearing the outcome.

Security was fast and friendly.

From the RCC, one of the nicer ones in the system, I saw
four F22s taking off, twenty seconds apart, an amazing
sight. Rested a while, sampling various kinds of fruit
punch, and soon it was time to head downstairs.

Boarding was pretty chaotic, with plenty of people pulled
out of the red line to wait in the front of the regular
line - that nonupgraded passenger being one of them.

Predeparture Champers, water, OJ. As before, the HJ side
got more refills than the AB side.

Sat next to a very pretty Japanese woman who was doing
contract research for a drug company - she was ending up
in Indianapolis. I commiserated with her, and then we
talked mostly about music and personal relationships.
Then drinks (she had half a glass of red wine, purely for
the health benefits, she said) and dinner and a nap.

Off menu appetizer: zucchini and bell pepper skewer with
some kind of mayo.

to begin
Fresh seasonal greens; Trader Vic's Javanese or ranch
dressing

This salad, I found to my dismay, was composed mostly of
quite fresh crisp nappa cabbage. After all the cabbage I'd
been eating, I anticipated generating enough gas to power
the plane all the way back to Chicago. (It turned out not to
be quite that bad, and had they relied on my methane, they
might have had to land maybe in Seattle.)

main course
TRADER VIC'S pan-seared beef tenderloin with mango chili
sauce; three mushroom rice cake, red onion, bell peppers
and bok choy

The beef was hardly seared - it looked if anything boiled,
but at least the middle was pink. The sauce, as you may
imagine, was nasty, very sweet, very salty. The veggies
were quite salty as well. The best thing on the tray was
the rice cake, a good-textured umami-filled extravagance.

TRADER VIC'S pan-seared mahi mahi with orange beurre blanc;
wasabi mashed potatoes, sauteed spinach and hearts of palm

My seatmate had about two bites of each component of this
offering and returned it, explaining to the rather concerned
FA that she didn't usually eat much.

dessert
Your flight attendant will inform you of the selection -
this was chocolate sundaes with whipped cream, no nuts;
I passed.

We invite you to begin your meal with a Trader Vic's
signature Mai Tai

I passed again.

Also off menu: breakfast fruit plate served shortly before
landing, which disappointingly had normal fruit - grapes,
melon, kiwi, not bad actually. A quite nice croissant.

The FAs were matronly in a good way. Worked the cabin for
as much of the flight as I was awake. Plenty of drinks.
Smiles, even. I overheard one of them coaching a bewildered
older couple who apparently had passport expiry problems -
she was both patient and detailed and took lots of time.
Amazing service, and something one would expect of a (good)
matron rather than from a hot young thing. I gave her a GTEM.

UA 518 ORD BOS 0805 1121 319 2A Ch9 N Empower N

I asked the FA if she'd ask for Channel 9, and she said,
of course ... but then came back with a frown, saying that
the captain had no intention of ever putting it on, or
something like that.

No breakfast choice: it was "scrambled eggs and sausage"
or nothing. What came: the hockey puck frittata, which
didn't taste like eggs or salsa or anything but rather did
a reasonable facsimile of the taste of water; a hard tough
but not unpalatable piece of Canadian bacon; a Soylent
sausage (mystery meat, I don't think pork); underdone soggy
flat tater tot patties. Your standard fruit appetizer -
crunchy tasteless melon, good grapes, a good strawberry. The
croissant was greasy and tough.

Service was fine, though the prim, not unattractive FA
(in her 40s) questioned me about whether I'd soon be
driving when I asked for a second refill of the not so
stellar De Bortoli Chardonnay. After my answer, she
was quite happy with filling my glass ad lib.

Took the T to the Association, where I relaxed and prepared
for my next assignment, listening to a bunch of high school
kids (extremely talented, but still high school kids) to
determine which would get one of our scholarships. Beer
helped.

P.S. I recommend you look out for the Ungerleider twins:
very talented indeed, and the cellist, who will be competing
in a less crowded market, may go far.