Today is going to be a bad day at our office, for anyone on a diet. We’ve already had bagels and fruit for breakfast, plus the VP wandering around the office with a little red cart full of donuts, and there’s still lunch and the 3pm party yet to go.
I’m glad I did an extra set of crunches this morning. Not enough to make a difference, really, but still a feel-good-exercise =p
That’s what I’ve decided to call soft gingerbread, baked in a cake pan. It’s not like it’s actually ground up gingerbread man, plus filler, but metaphorically it seems close enough, and then I get to say “man meat” with plausible deniability =p
OK, they actually say they serve “burger, ice cream, and more”, but the phrase isn’t “wtf bicm”.
I say “say they serve”, because, despite having an open sign up and two people there, this new restaurant on a barge that opened up near work didn’t seem to be interested in actually selling anything. They had the gate to board closed, and when I started to ask the woman moving tables around, how to get on, she just turned her back on me and walked off.
It’s an annoying pity, since burger choices have been limited in their neighborhood for a while now. I guess I’m still going to be making the longer walk to Blue Moon Burgers.
Finally, a Tom Douglas creation I can get behind, Dahlia Workshop. At least in the morning when they are serving biscuits I’m happy. I’ve only tried the Fried Chicken biscuit, without egg-extra, so far, but I have tried it twice. =p
The biscuit is very tasty despite it’s square shape; nicely browned on top, creamy bready goodness on the inside. Add on a healthy chunk of fried chicken, and smother it all in spicy gravy, and you have the best breakfast I’ve had in Seattle for quite some time.
If there’s any complaint it’s how inconvenient the hours are, at least for an early riser like myself. They don’t start serving till 7am on weekdays, and 9am on weekends, which is 2-4 hours after I’ve gotten up most days, making it 1-3 hours too late for me to wait for breakfast.
The sausage biscuit looks very tasty as well, must go back and try it too. There was somebody there this morning that ordered one that was neither the chicken nor the sausage, looked to be some sort of hoity-toity northwest veggie-grilled-concoction, so worry not foody-snobs, there’s still some more Tom Douglas-y fare available as well. =p
For April’s Fools Day, someone put a joke card on my kanban, “Get Coffee”. Today as I was getting ready to pull the card from my WIP, our group lead stopped me and said we were going to make it a real card and our manager was taking out out for coffee.
When we got to the nearest Starbucks, I was wondering what I would order, given the lack of decent hot chocolate at Starbucks now, when I noticed 3 little lollipop looking things in the food case. On inspection, it turned out they were something called “Cake Pops”, presumably a tiny bit of cake on a stick, covered in a frosting/candy shell. I got one of the tiramisu, and it was pretty much as expected. Very sweet, and the cake was on the underdone side. It was OK for free-to-me, but not as a paid-for item.
Made it down for a second year, to the Edible Book Festival, a unique fundraiser event for the Seattle Center for Book Arts (SCBA). Basically people make book related foods, often puns on the titles, but sometimes more abstract. This year there seemed fewer professionally done entries, but still plenty of entertaining ones whatever their creator’s skills. Easily my favorite was the pixel-painted Jesus in French Fries.
Flickr’s uploader had a bit of a hiccup and split my pics into two events with the same name. One and Two. About 1/3 of the way through fixing titles and creators.
The was my first trip to the Jazz Alley, but hardly my first Michelle Shocked show. The Alley is nice, and I thought the food was tasty enough, even if they don’t take Discover =\
I was probably 20th party in the door, but still managed to get the table right in front of Michelle’s mic stand. Ended up sharing the table with 1 guy who said very little and a nice couple from La Conner that had been to the Alley before, but had never seen Michelle.
It was a good show, only a small bit of ‘opening act’-ish stuff from her backup band without her, some of her doing seriously retro stuff solo, then the band and her did 5 pieces to go along with 5 paintings her man has done, Georgia O’Keefe, Amelia Earhart, Ella Fitzgerald, Anne Frank, and Audrey Hepburn. After a short break, she came back to do mid-career favorites, ending the encore with a medley of requests in semi-alphabetically order, even playing Hello Hopeville. I’d like to think it was because I kept asking for it and remembered her introducing Leroy the last time she came to town.
So I think I’ve learned to avoid the early show at the Triple Door, at least for something like burlesque; this review covers the 7pm showing on Thursday 3/24/2011.
Food first – I decided to go against habit and tried the evening’s special, a lamb curry that was supposed to be spicy-hot. The portion size for the ‘full’ order was good, and the sauce was a very tasty curry, but not hot at all. The veggies were minimal which wouldn’t have been a bad thing if the meat had tasted fresher/less-game-y. In the end I ate less than half the meat, but all the rice/sauce/veggies I could. It was a disappointing start to the evening.
I was a little put off by the way they started the show with what seemed like at least a half hour of the band singing cover songs. Well, maybe they were singing. Everyone but the drummer looked to be lip-syncing and faking their instruments, but maybe it was just the aural dissonance of seeing such a Johnny-Cash-esque-bass come out of such a small guy. Either way, I was really surprised at how long they kept the stage dancer free. When they did finally bring in dancers, the guy side of the cast was underwhelming to say the least. Usually a Can-Can show is fun for watching both guys and girls, but not this one. The girls did have very realistic showgirl attire, but it was hard not to compare against the Nutcracker show I saw last Christmas, which was much more elaborate in sets and costumes.
Three ladies performed a nice set on the rings, and came back again to perform on hanging ropes during the second half of the show. Which brings me to another WTF moment, getting back to my seat after intermission, looking at the clock and seeing 8:16, when the show is supposed to be over by 8:30. And it was over by 8:40, so they did a 10 minute intermission before a 20 minute set? I have to assume the balance of musical and dancing numbers is better during a late show. And I also assume that in the late show you see more skin; you got a brief peak at “Marilyn’s” covered nipples at the end of the 1st half of the show. There seemed to be a lot of missed lighting cues during the entire evening.
Frankly I was underwhelmed. I expected more out of a Can-Can show on the Triple Door stage. Don’t get me wrong, I think all the performers put in a good effort with the material they were working from, but it seemed like a half-hearted attempt on the part of the director. It could be just an effect of cutting down the 10pm show for time and age (I notice the 7pm show is listed as just 17+), but still seemed like they could have done better. I was also confused by how comparatively gay/bi unfriendly the show was for something with a Wizard of Oz theme, and seemed very out of character for the Can Can shows I’ve seen before. I don’t me unfriendly in the sense that they did gay-bashing-jokes, but rather in a if-you-are-gay-dont-bother-coming-nothing-to-see sort of way.
And to the Triple Door itself, this marks the second time I’ve been recently where I felt like the service level has declined noticeably. They did at least take my drink order this time, but it took 20 minutes to arrive, on a night where they weren’t anywhere near capacity. And I found it really skeazy that when they found out I hadn’t come up with a date for my second ticket, they tried to sell my second seat to someone, without planning on giving me my money back. I can live with a no-refunds policy, but if I paid for two seats, but come alone, as far as I’m concerned I paid for a $20 coat check that I can keep an eye on. Certainly not without at least asking me if I mind some stranger sharing my table, ON MY DIME, while you take their money as well.
I think the biggest lesson learned is that there’s a difference between “can can presents” and “the can can castaways present”. I will be paying closer attention next time.
I don’t get my co-workers obsession with Tom Douglas’ Serious Pie. It strikes me, like a lot of what I call “Seattle’s nouveau riche cuisine” (all the Microsoft millionaires feel somehow obligated to upscale their food choices), as something more akin to a dare than a dining experience. I personally can’t stand the place. It’s not that the food is bad per-se, just so not my style that I feel like I’m wasting my life choking down something I’m not interested in eating, just to prove something? There’s not a single style of pie with pepperoni, only one with a sausage, and lots of expensive mushroom and veggie options, if you are into that sort of thing. The potato pie is the best one, but there’s never enough of that one to go around. Even when someone else is picking u the check, I just don’t feel like it’s worth my time to go with.
Spent last week on a whirlwind tour of all the Disneyworld parks in Floirda, and the Universal Studio’s Orlando parks as well. Didn’t do any of the waterparks, it was only 80.
Day 1 started with the Magic Kingdom. Stop one was Space Mountain where the regular wait time was listed as only 10 minutes; if probably took most of that just walking through all the empty switchbacks. The ride itself was all the fun I remembered from Disneyland 20+ years ago. Definitely going to go back and volunteer for a lights-on ride =) On the way to Space Mountain, Mom pointed out the Stitch’s Great Escape ‘ride’, warning that you got spit on and how disgusting it was, so of course I had to check it out. You go into a ‘stage’ with a group of people, with animatronic robots cracking wise for a 5 minute ‘show’, then move on to the real show, where everyone gets seated around a central column. When it comes, the ‘spit’ is light but unexpected.
Next up was Big Thunder Mountain railroad, a more recent ‘classic’. A traditional steel tube rollercoaster, again with a really short regular wait time. We did that one twice in a row, the line was so short. Small World was a nice relaxation break, wait time 10 mins. Then on to Pirates and the Jungle Cruise, not in that order. This mid-week, off-season stuff rocks, both rides less than 10 min wait times. Still haven’t needed to use a FastPass yet.
Mom had something to do, phone calls to make or something, and she skipped out on Haunted Mansion, another classic just as I remembered it. We had a couple of times where they had to stop the ride (wheelchair people getting loaded, and then unloaded) that meant I got a good look at a couple of place you normally don’t have enough time to study.
All the important rides hit up once, it was on to Epcot for the second half of the day.
I was majorly psyched to find out that Captain EO was making an encore appearance. I have no idea how faithful the theater and pre-theaters were to the original, but the movie itself was untouched, as I understand it. It isn’t too long before you realize that the Borg were ripped off from this short film. It’s a strange moment when the Queen comes down from the ceiling in all her tube-y glory and you have that WTF moment of recognition.
We hit up Soarin’, which had the longest line of anything that day, somewhere around 25 mins as posted. That is one impressive ‘ride’, reminding me of Cirque du Soleil’s KA in terms of the engineering required to hold up so many people on a moving platform. The screen had some really noticeable dirt streaks on it that my mom says aren’t usually there. I had a nasty stopped up head, but she says there’s scents as well.
Test Track was our last in-park activity, and had the second longest line of the day at 20mins. It is an OK roller coaster. No loops or swirling really, just speed and bumpy bits.
Day 2 started in the Animal Kingdom, with 3 back to back rides of Everest. There was a moment of surreality on our last ride, when mom and I noticed a group of 20 Buddhist monks in orange robes, waiting for their turn on the ride. We did the Safari ride, saw lots of animals, including an ostrich that started to follow our truck.
We checked out the Lion King musical show, which was quite acrobatic.
Lunch was had at the Rainforest Cafe; the soup is tasty.
Afternoon two was Hollywood Studios. Starting with the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, a fun ride if the line is short, a too-short ride if the line is long. We did the backlot tour, getting to take part in the filmed ‘scene’ as Wild and Wacky Deck Crew. We also checked out the stunt car show. It was impressive and ate up a fair bit of time.
After a quick ride on the Rock n’ Roller Coaster, did another couple rides of the Twilight Zone, then off to dinner on top of the Contemporary, with an excellent view of the fireworks. And a birthday cake.
(see next post for days 3 and 4….)