Little Did He Know

12pm, Friday March 21st

A tattooed, tired man sits in a bar at the airport, waiting for his ride. He's wearing ratty old slacks and a t-shirt with a message that, if you understand it, is a good laugh (and one that's not worth explaining if you don't). In contrast, he's wearing a nice rabbit felt pork pie hat that is the height of fashion. Such the fashion that people around him don't get it and pass him strange glances. Or maybe those glares are due to the big bull ring looking steel piece in his nose...

Who knows really? Who cares.

He doesn't, he's content with immersing himself in the world of his small electronic device, in to which he is thumbing a message to the world. To be broadcast to all, but swallowed by the void. Immersing himself in that damned de-"vice"... and... and also his beer, of course. Of course. Yeah, of course. Well, to be fair, he is destined for Belgium after all.

Destined for Belgium. On a 12:30pm flight that was of course delayed 'till 1. "Or at least that's their story now," he thought, "the first delay is never the last..."

Last minute change of plans

Well, didn't have BBQ for dinner on Sunday. Decided instead to have sushi. Don't remember the name of the place, but I can say that it was a couple doors down from Spaghetti Western. I can also say that if you spend more than $15 dollars on sushi you get all you can drink house sake! Sounds like a deal! :) heh... The fish was very fresh. It was definitely good sushi.

My dinner plans aren't actually the change of plans I mentioned in the title. The change of plans was around my return to London. I was supposed to return on Thursday, but since my visa came through on Friday and other reasons having to do with work I moved the flight forward to a late Monday flight. Unfortunately no new stories about interesting food in NY...

So I'm back here in London now. I'll try to continue posting as often as I did while in NY. We'll see how it goes.

Catching up on food

Edit: Added photos from Balthazar

Ok, so this is a catch up post for what I've been eating since Tuesday. Even lunch at work has proved to be relatively interesting and I've hit a different place every day so far. Tasty deli sandwiches, Indian buffets, and something great called a rolly. They take fresh dough, throw your choice of ingrediants on to it, roll the dough around it to make something that somewhat resembles a calzone, and then send it through the oven. I chose the philly steak version, which had steak, mushrooms, mozzarella and a tomato sauce. I added onions, lettuce and tabasco to give it a bit of a kick. It was DAMN good!

Wednesday night I hit up an Argentinean restaurant named Industria Argentina. One of the interior walls was covered with a huge collage/mural that almost looked paper mache'd on. It was snippets of things from Argentinean culture. One thing that caught my eye amongst the randomness was an advert for Nescafe. Reminded me of the time I spent in Chile where when you order coffee they bring you a cup of hot water and a small mound of Nescafe :). I had an '06 Catena Malbec there that was really good, and for the meal had something called Cochinilla Patagonico, a.k.a. suckling pig. It's a special that they only serve on Wednesdays and Thursdays. The meat was super tender and tasty. The saltiness of the pork was offset well by the mild sweetness of the sweet potato puree and the slight bitterness of the broccoli rabe further balanced the dish. For desert I had flan with butterscotch icecream and fresh whipped cream. It was awesome.

Most of you might not find my Thursday night dinner very interesting, but I had to do it. Hot wings. I haven't had hot wings since some time before I left Seattle (Wing Dome) and have been craving them for awhile. Hot wings aren't really something you find in London so this craving has gone unsatiated the entire time there. So I got some wings and beer with a side caeser at a place called Atomic Wings. They were decent, though not as good as Wing Dome, and I was a bit dissapointed by the spiciness. I got the wings with their Suicidal sauce, the hottest they have. I'd say it falls somewhere in between 4 Alarm and 5 Alarm at Wing Dome (they serve wings in bulk up to 6 alarm and you can buy 7 alarm wings one at a time). But hey, at least I got some wings.

Friday night was Belgian night at Petit Abeille, a little restaurant just a couple blocks from where I'm staying. I had the Moules Marinieres and of course some Belgian beers :). It was like being back in Belgium again!


Yesterday was another day of great food. Started out with brunch at Balthazar, a SOHO restaurant I stumbled across when doing a search for "the best breakfast in New York." Rachelle also mentioned that she though I should try it. Well, I've got to say that it was not only the best brunch I've had in New York, I think it was the best brunch I've ever had in my entire life. I wish I was able to actually get across with words how great the food actually was. I've actually got a couple photos in my phone of the food, I'll add them to the post later. I had a warm goat cheese and carmelized onion tart and the Balthazar salad. The tart was taller than I expected it to be, but that's not a bad thing. It was cooked to a perfect consistency and wasn't overly rich. I could probably have eaten two or three more of them! The salad had haricots verts (a thin long green bean), asparagus, fennel, ricotta, avocado and truffle vinaigrette over mixed greens. Really fresh and great flavor.

Dinner was family style Ethiopian at Queen of Sheba in mid-town with two New York Infusion guys and their girlfriends. Coincidentally the atmosphere reminded me very much of Queen Sheba in Seattle. We had Doro Wot, Quanta Firfir, Special Tibs, Awaze Tibs, Mizir Wot and of course lots of injeera to mop it all up with :). I'd rate it about the same quality as Queen Sheba in Seattle, though the spicy dishes were not as spicy (unfortunately).

Well, that brings me up to date. Perhaps I'll post again tonight and let you all know how the food is at the BBQ joint I plan on hitting tonight.

ye olde onion

I was walking from the subway back to the corporate flat this evening and noticed among the other free papers at a local shop was... The Onion! This is the first time I've actually had a hard copy of the onion in my grubby little hands since I was working in Austin. Good stuff!

What does it take to get a cup of coffee around here?

I went down to security at about 9:30am this morning to pick up my building access card for the NY offices. Decided to head outside to grab a coffee at starbucks instead of free brewed coffee at work. That is until I got outside and noticed that the Starbucks across the street had a line of at least 12 people. OUTSIDE THE SHOP!! Didn't even walk over to see how thick it was inside. So I took a quick pic of the spectacle and enjoyed the sunshine for a minute before heading back up.

It's probably extremely difficult to make anything out in the photo. My apologies, all I have is the camera phone on my old smartphone, and it takes pretty crappy pictures. That shop across the street is the Starbucks and even though it looks like the people all the way to the right may not be in line because of the gap, let me tell you, they are.

First Day in New York

Ok, so I've been here for a day so far. Weather's definitely better here than it was when I left London :). London was extremely windy and rainy. Today was clear blue skies, albeit a bit chilly. So I'm going to try and do my best to take advantage of the food choices while I'm here and I'm going to try to relate my experiences as I go along. I asked for opinions of places to check out from the Infusion folks that live and work here. That in addition to a list that I've started with my own research gives me a large list to choose from.

Tonight I ate dinner at a place called Spaghetti Western. It's a couple blocks from the corporate flat I'm staying at here in Tribeca. The name on the sign caught my eye as I walked by it earlier today. I'm a fan of spaghetti westerns, in fact I just finished watching They Call Me Trinity (original name: Lo chiamavano Trinità) this past weekend in London. Ah, Terence Hill...

So the food at Spaghetti Western was ok. But the place itself was great. Tons of posters from actual (Italian) spaghetti westerns and photos all over the wall. Lot's of dark wood and some great blues playing. I'd definitely go back again, even though their beer selection is lacking.

Hey Rachelle, speaking of where I'm staying in Tribeca... You won't believe this but the corporate flat I'm staying at is right across the street from the little hotel we stayed at. When I arrived at 1am from the airport I looked at the grocer in front of the building and thought "damn that looks really familiar". Well as I was walking back to the place this evening I stopped and took a better look around and realized why it looked so familiar. It was the same one that was right in front of the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Craziness.

Well folks, until next time...
"You may think he's a sleepy-type guy
always takes his time
soon I know you'll be changing your mind
when you've seen him use a gun, boy
when you've seen him use a gun..."

Going back to the States next week

No, I'm not already tired of London. I'm finally getting my work visa taken care of. I'm still technically "here for training" right now. I've got my work permit and all, just not the visa itself yet. I've got an appointment in Manhattan on Monday to get my biometrics taken. Exactly what that entails I don't know (didn't do the research...). Perhaps just fingerprints, perhaps also a retina scan, perhaps they take my soul....

I'll actually be in New York for 10 days, as I'm the first Infusionite in London to go through this process for the States and we're not exactly sure what the trip will entail. Believe it or not the rest of the folks from North America are Canadian, and they've got the Canadian visa process down. When I'm not directly working on getting my visa I'll be working at the Barclays Capital offices in mid-town, got a desk waiting for me and everything.

I've already started doing some research to find some good places to catch some music (mostly been looking for blues and jazz so far), and food. If any of you out there have any suggestions I'd love to hear them. I've got a weekend while I'm there as well, so any weekend suggestions are welcome too.

Well, it's 8pm here and I haven't eaten dinner yet so I'm gonna get going. After that I'm probably just going to watch some t.v. and crash early. I was sick this week and I want to make sure I'm completely rested and healthy come Monday with the whole trans-oceanic flight and all.

Rockin' Da Bass

So after having returned the upright bass when I left Seattle I began to miss it. After moving here to London I realized how much space (that I don't have alot of) one would take up, as well as how difficult it would be to take it somewhere via the tube. Conclusion: No upright bass any time soon.

One of my roommates, Mike, plays music quite often. He's got a couple guitars and a bongo. I sat in on a jam with the bongo a couple times and talked about how I had been plucking around on the upright a bit and would have liked to have picked up a bass. He eventually talked me in to heading down to Tottenham Court Road to take a look at electric and acoustic bass guitars (ok, so it didn't take that much prodding). There's a narrow road right off of Tottenham Court Road by the Tottenham Court Rd. tube stop called Denmark Street that is just stock full of music shops.

I played around on a few electric guitar and electric upright basses. I was actually pretty excited about an electric upright I saw in one of the shops and almost bought it then and there... But the shop worker couldn't find a non-floor model in their store rooms (even though inventory said they should have had a few).

So a couple weeks pass and I head back out to Tottenham Court Road. Still no upright. Played around with a few more electric bass guitars, and the more and more I did so the more and more I was enjoying a specific model. One that was clearly out of the price range I had set for myself.

Ah screw it, you only live once.

I am now the new owner of a silver Fender jazz electric bass guitar (ok not soooo new, I've had it for a few weeks now).