Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much as the previous night to this dinner had me floating between tables while people shouted “Bam!” around me. However, I figured that that going to a restaurant and actually having a meal was a definite improvement over going to a restaurant and having only ice cubes. Mmm…

But I digress: back to the Commander’s Palace. Touted as one of NOLA’s best restaurants with inventive cooking and the like, we decided that it would be a nice place to end our time in Louisiana. Too bad that a lot of other people had the same idea, but thanks to a little bit of help we snagged a table for 8 at their 9:00 pm service. If this was Spain, it would have been an early dinner, but fairly late after the previous night’s Emeril excursion. After a slight crush that passed as a cab ride through some of the swankier neighborhoods of NOLA, we arrived at stately Wayne Manor the Commander’s Palace.

The dining room is full of plaster songbirds which look anatomically correct, and has the air of a classic old-style dining room with the wallpaper and carpeting and so forth. Our table for 8 turns out to be a round one which would normally seat six comfortably, but we squeeze in anyway because it’s going to be a fun evening. No sign of the other team as we realize that they’re likely seated in the upper chamber(s), which has a well, “colorful” history.

The meal

The wait staff must be tired because they come by within 1 minutes of seating to ask if we’re ready to order. Order? I haven’t even seen the wine list. After brushing them off a couple of times, the service team backs off and leaves us to consider the menu at our own pace. Lots of push for “special” bread pudding and a Jack Daniels soufflé (both requiring advanced prep time). Nothing really leapt out at me and as I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted, I elected for:

Shrimp and Tasso Henican (Louisiana wild white shrimp, Crystal hot sauce, pickled okra and five pepper jelly); this was somewhat odd. I didn’t mind the sliminess of the sauce as the peppery kick was there but it was offset by too much vinegar. The three shrimp also had the funky chemical smell one associates with poorly-kept commercially-processed frozen seafood, which is somewhat odd as Louisiana is supposed to be famous for fresh seafood. The okra was nice but ultimately somewhat of a miss.

Soft-shell crab (soft shell crab with lump crab meat, arugula salad and a light vinaigrette): the blue crabs are bigger than the ones I normally get. The crab itself was lightly battered with a flour dredging and had an interesting textural counterpoint to the lump crab, and I found that the remoulade was better with the soft-shell than the lump. All in all, this was quite pleasant and worked nicely with the remnants of the Riesling I had in glass. Didn’t match the Pinot Noir at all.

Butter Boy was with me at dinner and he had a crawfish maque choux; I think he liked it, though I’m fairly certain he would have enjoyed a bit more crawfish.

I think one person ordered a bread pudding (too sweet) and I saw several of the soufflés, which were deemed excellent. I skipped dessert.
 

The wines

The CP actually has a very large wine list that’s quite deep in primarily French and Napa offerings but they haven’t ignored other regions including Oceania, Spain, Italy, Germany and Austria. The list itself comes in a three-ring binder, which is great for updates, but not so great to flip through in the humidity (moist paper). When digging further into their offers, I began to notice a few things: Domaine de la Romanée-Conti? Sure, it’s there: $2700 for the 2007 (ouch! infanticide at a high price). Lots of 2003 and 2004 (not so hot vintages). Big name bottles but almost all from lesser vintages, and very few bargains as commodity wines had a 3-4x markup.

2006 Weingut Holzapfel Grüner Veltliner Federspiel Achleiten: a nice crisp if somewhat straighforward GV. Nice start to the evening as an apéro.

2007 F.X. Pichler Dürnsteiner Hollerin: a beautiful golden-colored floral Smaragd Riesling with a great balance between honey and acidity. Best bottle of the night and something I’d buy for the cellar: I would have been happy spending the night drinking this and skipping the meal.

2006 Kasuari Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir: I was sorry. I actually wanted something from Bourgogne, but as above most of it was over-priced or out of my allotted price range so a sommelier’s recommendation was required as most of their Californian offerings were not known to me. This was was described as a wine with moderate extraction and a nice balance between acid and fruit which was reminiscent of the Cotes de Beaune. Kasuari turned out to be disjointed high-alcohol pap which smelled and tasted initially of 2×4. After it aerated in glass for 10 minutes (after being decanted to boot), it retained that taste of wood, followed briefly with a hit of cherry cough syrup, then nothing but alcoholic heat. Okay, so I made the wine steward cry, but if this is what the CP’s sommelier thinks is a Beaune-style Pinot, they should start looking for a new sommelier. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that he was personally insulted when I told him that the wine isn’t like anything from Beaune, but his palate’s (considerably more than) a little suspect here.

Impressions

In hindsight, I should have insisted on going to Cochon.

For the cost of the meal, the Commander’s Palace left me wanting. Why? The food. My meal was flawed. In hindsight, everyone’s meal was flawed: . Not sure as to whether it had to do with being the last service, knowing the meeting participants were in town, or just that the brigade was having a bad night, but it didn’t quite reach what we had as expectations. Service was pretty good but restaurants are judged by their food and everyone found flaws with some parts of their meal. Unfortunately,  the sommelier’s little hissy was a detractor for me to be fully comfortable in. Big swing and a miss!

I successfully completed my targeted shopping spree, but my neatly-packed rollerboard and I get stopped by the crack TSA screening team at Terminal A. Why? It’s not the kilos of transglutaminase. It’s not the Pure-Cote. It’s one iSi stainless steam cream whip, and one bag of freeze-dried lime powder. The screener didn’t even use the ion mobility spectrometer but she insisted that I couldn’t have these two specific items onboard because it was a bag of lime and I could use the whip as a weapon. Checked luggage fine; carry-on, not fine.

What, like I’m going to charge up the whip and terrorize my fellow passengers by making them foamy lime rickies? Fruit prejudice is so ugly…

I fly back today. I elected to finish my week by going to see my friends Mark and Diane, which was 50% successful as Diane was feeling a bit under the weather. Next time when in Florida I guess. I miss working with them; they’re great people, have a great professional manner and execute things the right way the first time.

These billboards have nothing to do with Mark or Diane; they were just some of the color I saw around Ocala as I went to see them.

This one came as part of a three-pack.

There are no messages waiting for me when I get back so at least everyone thought it’s a better use of their Friday night to maybe not think of writing me email. Unfortunately the web check-in’s not working: I’ve misread the return segment and the entire trip is back on United (boo…). First segment is a codeshare with USAir, but check-in fails because it’s not able to hand off processing of the subsequent United (boo…) segments. Guess I’ll be heading into GNV early to do it the old-fashioned way. After I do the bag, it seems as good a time as any to snooze more than a couple of hours.

I’m fairly certain that I won’t be coming back to Gainesville any time soon, and with that knowledge it’s of course only natural that I walk out to a beautiful morning with bright blue skies and no humidity. Great.

I can’t really enjoy it as I have to return my rental and then check in manually, but it’s a very pleasant nondescript 7.5 mile drive back to the airport, with a drama-free refuelling stop along the way. I realize that the Rogue does 27.31 mpg, which in reality are terrible numbers since I can do better on my older and less-efficient (on paper) RAV4.

GNV-CLT

Car drop-off, check. USAir counterstaff – missing. Seems I’m a bit early for them. Once they did show, it took them a while to check me all the way through to the Big Croissant and I’ve got lousy seats because the new travel system doesn’t understand how to pick them. After asking a couple of times, I manage to move up from the lavatory row to the plane’s second row, but I’ve got to go and modify the seats and get my Aeroplan registered with United (boo…) once in Charlotte.

It should be about 7.5 hours total time for travel today including layovers thanks to the early arrival at GNV.

No Internet access, but there are tables to sit at with live power and if I’m really bored I can pay attention to the fishing show that’s playing at the concession stand. The people sitting around me all look tired or bored but there’s what looks like a family that’s creeping me out a little bit from the touchie feelie-ness. Ah! That explains it – they’re flying Delta.

Great – the USAir automat just called the P990i to advise that the outbound flight is delayed 20 minutes.

Uh oh. Another automat call – an extra 15 minutes on top of that so now I’m up to so I’m now up to something like 483 minutes travel time for the day.

The TSA screener manning the X-ray scanner is having issues with my luggage as she can’t decide whether or not the 7L All-Clad stockpot I purchased constitutes a weapon. It’s no weapon, it constitutes a bargain that let me contribute the local economy so please stop scanning it, but of course you can’t say stuff like that or else it’s “secondary screening”. I’m getting questions as to what I want to do with it (make chicken broth, cook pasta, make soup), what I would do with the lid (cover the pot)… it’s a pot! And as far as I can tell, there’s still no Homeland Security regulation that prevents the carry-on shipment of cookware.

The shift supervisor finally tells her to stop irradiating my bag because there’s a lineup now waiting to complete screening. That’s not something that you see in a regional airport on a non-NCAA game weekend.

I sit around and rearrange my luggage so that most of the heavy stuff is now in the rollerboard and not the shoulder bag. The combo’s more stable that way, and I don’t have as much to lug in/out of the Canadair RJ200. 20 more minutes until the inbound aircraft arrives. I polish off the last of the blood oranges and run through my Dragonfly photos to see which ones I’ll include in the blogpost.

The woman sitting at the work counter next to me has to reroute onto the 2:40p flight to Indianapolis because of the delay. She’s called eight people (and still counting) to tell them about the rebooking, having to go through security twice (and getting a special sticker), the terror threat level being orange (which it has been all along; she just never heard the PA announcements), and her having to go “potty”.

Well, that last one’s certainly TMI.

Please don’t be in the seat next to me on this flight. And as we’re going to be in the same aluminum flying tube, please wash your hands. With soap. Please…

They turned the flight around in under 20 minutes and I get to skip onboard first. The others are stampeding in after me because everyone’s panicking over the delay and missing connectors in Charlotte. I don’t have a seat-mate (yes!) but Indianapolis woman is sitting behind me while one of the two people in the row ahead of me has that sour eye-watering perspiration smell. Tyree the flight attendant notices as well but as he’s working, he’s trying really hard not to react.

I’m wondering if this man ever worked as a “club” dancer since his rendition of the in-flight safety demo is interesting in an eyebrow-raising sort of way, but the three women across the aisle are at least paying attention. He can give Deltalina a run for her money, or those nekkid kids in nothing from body paint from Air New Zealand.

Crap. I now know who it is as the change in the overhead airflow pretty much confirms identity as I’m now awash in aroma. I can feel my eyes welling up with tears and it’s not from knowing I won’t be back in GNV in the near-term: okay, I can do this – breathe through your mouth, breathe through your mouth, don’t hyperventilate now. It’s just over an hour to go.

Sweet! Tyree gives me the entire can of seltzer. I think he can see that I’m hyperventilating.

At touch-down, people start rushing the cabin door. Gee, we’re still taxiing to the gate. Tyree’s yelling “Sit down! Sit down!” I wonder if they realize that we still need to wait around for skycheck since it is a RJ. It would be faster if everyone had remained seated since we could have arrived at the gate earlier rather than have to halt on the runway until everyone sits back down. The woman who needs to go to Atlanta asks to get out of the plane before me so I let her, but the self-important fellow running up from behind and sitting in the aisle itself, well, he can wait.

As it turns out, my bag is the first to come off skycheck, so I make a leisurely stroll to find a United (boo… terminal).

CLT-IAD

United (boo…) to Washington-Dulles: I must be traveling in the 10th ring of Hell.

I’ve got to change my seating assignment and have my Aeroplan number added to the segments so that I don’t have to run through hoops to get the miles and segments. We landed in Concourse E and half of my Gainesville flight runs past me as I stroll to United’s (boo…) location in Concourse A.

As I said, I like Charlotte-Douglas so I don’t mind going to the other end of the terminal. Lots of service men and women in the terminal today, and looking outside I can see it’s a bit grey in North Carolina but the cherry blossoms are already in full bloom.

Ah. It’s really too bad that I can’t take a photo of this (I’d be arrested) but the TSA Team for Concourse A is busy taking our coconuts from a couple’s carry-ons. Coconuts. Who actually *needs* to have coconuts in their carry-on? And not just one coconut, there’s at least four or five of the things.

I won’t boo the counter agent; he was really customer-focused and changed my seats, added my Aeroplan and bumped out my eventual seatmate on the last segment home. I do however make a serious mistake by going to have lunch at the Manchu Wok: my hands are swollen from all the salt.

Stroll onto the flight and a woman going to Ottawa squeaks into the window seat while I get my rollerboard into the overhead. The week’s sleep deprivation and the rice from lunch finally catch up to me as I don’t remember anything about this flight. I buckled the seatbelt and the next thing I know we’re getting that bump and the Embraer 170 lands hard on the IAD tarmac.

IAD-YUL

United (boo…) to PET-Dorval: 44 minutes between the arrival of the inbound and the departure of the last leg.

Unloading my rollerboard is a whole lot easier than it was loading but you don’t see me rushing the door. There’s no jetway in the A Concourse so they’re rolling up the moveable stairs. Wow – this is retro; haven’t don’t this since we arrived in Fredericton on a turboprop way back when.

The intra-terminal shuttle to D doesn’t take a whole lot of time to get me to the flight, and it’s not like they had already started boarding. The flight for Ottawa is starting to board, but I can see that it’s already several minutes off schedule, but I can at least see that my plane is 1) at the gate and 2) not in some state of mechanical failure.

Odd – Moe’s opened an outpost in IAD right across from the United (boo…) gates. What’s a little more punishment, right?

I essentially have the same seat as on the previous aircraft, but this go around I’ve got this young troglodyte across the aisle. He’s busy yelling into his two phones, and then he asks if there are any open seats in “First Class” (the same seats that Air Canada calls Business Class J seating) as it would be a waste of the seat if it ran empty. The flight attendants slap him down by asking if he has purchased a First Class ticket, and then tell him to stay in his seat as he starts to move to take one of the empty Economy Plus spots.I just know he will ask to borrow my pen as he’s just eyeing it while I fill out my Customs declaration. I don’t have the energy to tolerate the insincere sliminess so I sacrifice it and dismiss him, now just shutthehellup and the flight will be okay.

Ottawa begins to pull away as the jet bridge is rolled back from my flight; guess they’re late. This flight is too, but it’s moving so I don’t really care since it means I won’t be stranded in IAD.

Cabin Crew Sarah runs through the motions of the safety demo but she’s not as entertaining as Tyree.

It’s a pretty uneventful flight and I wind up chatting with Cabin Crew Sarah over the differences between soda can sources (hint: there are nuances stemming from the sweetener used and regional tweaks to flavoring agents) while trying to type this out. They’re on a strict United (boo…) policy for drinks so it’s the tiny cups. I guess the word “low” printed on the cocktail napkins also applies to expectations.

Customs ugly. Very ugly. I’m competing for access to the agents with simultaneous flights from Swissair and Air France but I do have one advantage: I filled out my Customs declaration. So, apart from the 15 minutes of walking through that snaking path they set out, it took me all of 2 minutes to wait in line (because everyone else didn’t have their forms ready) and less than 15 seconds with the agent (where did you go? Gainesville. why?), including a nice “welcome back” (that’s new).

Sleep now.

Wanna know what would be cool? Arizona. I hear there’s one group there that’s worth meeting because they’re really diligent about reviewing proposals and getting back to people in a prompt manner. No bulk-flushing of email without reading stuff or anything like that.

Anyway, I’m not going to Arizona. I’m also not going to Australia either, at least not in the immediate term, as the Sunshine State I’m referring to is Florida and not Queensland. Probably just as well, as the major centres of Queensland are about 2000+ kilometres away from Greenock (as in Greenock Creek Winery and the Roennfeldt Road micro-bottlings).

I’m sort-of looking forward to this because my last eight trips to the state (2006 x 3, 2007 x 2, 2008 x 3) coincided with the arrival of a hurricane, and since we’re months away from the Atlantic storm season, it should be all good. I also understand that the winter freeze the state was suffering from has ended.

This year’s kick-off looks pretty good: I’m flying a combination of Air Canada code-share and Star Alliance partners so while it’s going to be cramped and uncomfortable on the sequence of Canadair RJs I’m pretty sure that my Aeroplan status will ensure that I eventually make it there and home again. The road trip won’t be as adventuresome as say, my pal Amy’s cross-country trek in a Budget rental truck, since she’s got mayhem, microflora and fried bologna to go with hers (note: don’t mess with chefs driving a truck – they’ll go old-school medieval on your poultry), but this one’s different for me because I’m to be a ghost.

YUL-IAD

The first leg already sucks because it’s a code-share to Washington-Dulles (the airport that takes the “dull” in its name seriously) and it’s United who’s handling the flight (boo…). They are just the worst Star Alliance partner but check-in was fairly straightforward today, though I suspect that it was a combination of my checking in online and there being no one else at their counter.

The checked baggage system at PET-Dorval failed but as I switched to Briggs & Riley’s Asian-airlines compliant luggage years ago, I could skip the line of 2000+ and head directly to security and INS. The new body scanners are now in place but one can refuse (for now) and go for a full body patdown; since I have a narcissist streak and don’t like anyone touching me to begin with, I elected for the scan. INS was a snap but at some point I’ll have to sign up for NEXUS and just hope that the retinal scanners don’t oh, burn out my retinas. I wonder if Steve and the Conservative entourage go for the scanners?

Nasty surprise – Maple Leaf Lounge Internet access is no longer free. CAD$9.95 for a 24 hour period, and it’s only valid 24 hours and within the Lounges themselves as there’s no partnering with other SA lounges. I guess there’s Boingo, but no 24-hour access plans across airports because it’s Bell that’s controlling the service in YUL (airport roaming requires *monthly* plan – one of Bell’s great ideas to help pay for that HSPA network they just installed). Of course, I wouldn’t have this problem if I had a 3G modem but I’m too far down on the food chain to warrant one. I’ll guess I’ll just content myself by drinking the lounge’s free tonic water while cursing Colin Rovanesceau.

While I’m playing with my glass of tonic water, I’m sitting beside a guy who’s on the phone with his real estate agent. He seems to be trying to get an inspection set up for a house he’s interested in buying in Outremont but rather than questions on say, presence of urea insulation, dry rot and potential water damage, he’s concerned about soundproofing. Goes on and on and on about soundproofing. Wants the inspector to look inside the wall (hello? you haven’t bought the house yet) to make sure that there’s soundproofing installed. And to also make sure that they used special soundproof pipes (not soundproofing material around the pipes, special soundproof pipes), because he doesn’t want to hear his “little woman” make cooking noises or listen to dishwasher noises. (FYI) Miele makes a dishwasher that puts out less than 45 dBa but I guess he’s from the Fred Flintstone generation since the little woman apparently gets up early to make him breakfast or something.

Troglodyte aspects aside, I’ve never quite seen someone that relaxed when it came to purchasing a house because the inspection’s going through and he hasn’t lined up his financing yet with the bank (“when he gets back from his trip”). Also been a while since I’ve seen someone so quick to miss the point. I’ll save the iMac joke for another post, but the whooshing sound was deafening as structural condition, roof, and infrastructure weren’t important. Just soundproofing.

This of course would have been better tolerated if Internet access was still free.

United (boo…) has gate slot 85 in the US terminal, meaning that it’s the furthest point in the terminal from the lounge, and that I’ll be getting some exercise in as I trudge over there. The flight itself is United’s (boo…) version of the Embraer 170 and for some reason the new travel system does not understand the concept of using Aeroplan status to oh, pick a seat that’s not right in front of the lavatory. I did manage to change, though United (boo…) goes out of its way to see if you want to *pay* them extra for extra legroom. Well, no, I just want a seat near the front of the plane and I want that free.

Take-off was on-time and they’re now using a larger cup for the complimentary refreshment (Seagram’s ginger ale) but the cabin crew didn’t let anyone move up into the Economy Plus seats even though they were all empty because no one paid for them. Does it improve my impression of United? Boo… hiss… (roll eyes now)

IAD – the “dull” in Dulles grows to new heights

Just how dull can Dulles get? Watch what happens when not one but *two* aircraft come down with the same mechanical failure.

The area surrounding Washington DC appears to be completely rid of snow but it looks like my clam quinoa risotto because everything’s the same shade of brown. Brown fields, brown trees, brown building tops. I think the area will be nicer when things start to bloom.

The United (boo…) flight landed on time and I hoofed it over to the Z Terminal (that’s a new one) since the United (boo…) Red Carpet lounges were too far from the next connector. No USAir lounge at IAD as far as I know. I don’t know when it was built but this definitely wasn’t there the last time I flew in/out of Dulles; wow – that was back in 2008 when I was on my way back from Vienna (ah, Austrian Airlines Business Class, how I miss you and your red jumper suit cabin crew).

It’s new. It’s shiny. It’s also desolate; not in a Children of the Corn kind of way but rather a “you’re in the part of the airport where everyone forgot that you exist” sense. What’s that movie? The Terminal? Z has that sensation of being cut off.

I found gate Z7 and since there was plenty of time, I beat a retreat out of Z and took their new commuter train (with that new car smell) over to B to find some food.

B is the Delta part of the terminal so I can see what Ronny would be faced with should she ever find herself in IAD. The B is for bargain!

City Wok seemed like a good idea, but then again, they were the only option that didn’t have an all-fried menu so I put in an order and did my Forrest Gump and patiently waited to see what I would get.

Friendly enough bunch in a food court sort of way with Hispanic FOH and Asians manning the wok and prep stations; one guy was using a cleaver to take his frustrations out on some char siu – lots of noise but very uniform squares of pork in spite of the rage.

Kung Pao shrimp. Okay, I actually had to ask what this was since it doesn’t exist in the Chinese culinary repertoire. Stir-fried dish served with white rice; it had red and green peppers, onions, water chestnuts, peanuts (amazing – they served peanuts in a litigious zone), 9 shrimp, ginger and a whack-load of raw garlic in a salty dark soy-based sauce. Not bad and they certainly didn’t skimp on the shrimp but I couldn’t finish everything because that garlic was an impressive “thwack!” to the palate.

Hot and sour soup. This was very good: black cloud ear, tofu, egg, lily bud bamboo and read chiles in a (slightly over-salty) broth. If I had to do this all over, I’d do a bigger soup and some little side instead of what I ordered.

So, back to Z in a train that smelled of Windex.

Back to recharging the hardware while waiting for the flight so that I have some power to continue “working” (no, seriously, I did have work to do). Then the announcement that the aircraft normally used to service the Charlotte run had a mechanical issue but that they’re flying in a replacement place from Reagan, so we’d be only 35 minutes late. Okay, it’s not United (boo…) but somehow that doesn’t work because the announcement’s being made at 1:55p and the revised departure is 2:10p. Then my P990i goes off and it’s USAir’s automat system telling me that I’m going to miss my Gainesville connector and to go see an agent. The nice lady behind the counter says that there’s nothing to worry about because the aircraft just left Reagan and is in range. In range? they’re what, 20 miles apart? The plan has to start landing procedures right after takeoff. Anyway the flight crew is pumped and ready to go and the plane touches down at 2:30p with a turnaround time of 20 minutes, which gives me exactly 18 minutes to get to the GNV flight once I arrive in Charlotte. I can do this – I’ve exchanged my crappy seat for one at the front of the plane.

Co-pilot comes back from pre-flight inspection and tells the captain that he needs to talk to him and my P990i gets another call from the automat. Uh-oh. I know what that means so I stake out the real estate in front of the podium for the cancellation call, which comes in while I’m pulling out my boarding passes.

Good thing! Turns out I don’t have to fly to Jacksonville and do the 90 minute drive to get to Gainesville. I can take the next flight to Charlotte and then take the last flight out to Gainesville directly. Okay then, that’s a plan. Too bad that the last flight is three hours later than my original arrival time, but it looks like I’ll get a crack at Charlotte’s Internet access after all.

The gate agent at Z9 is somewhat bewildered that everyone’s rushing the podium to board the flight but I guess she didn’t know about the sequential aircraft breakdowns and how people did so not want to stay in IAD. I get onboard and settle in, with Charlie the Mesa Air pilot deadheading to Charlotte sitting next to me. Am I missing something here? Spring must be coming because he’s hitting on the woman across the aisle, the man sitting behind me is trying to pick up the woman sitting behind me (in the literal biblical sense – he’s actually quoting scripture) and the two women in front are talking about how they can’t find people in clubs (no less). Just take off already.

Gah! What died?

The flight smells of a$$! Talk about one interminably long hour of flight time… we’re at cruising altitude and this USAir flight smells like a porta-potty. Breathe through your mouth, breathe through your mouth, don’t hyperventilate now.

IAD-CLT

We land. I’m in Charlotte. An hour of hyperventilating later, and I’m in Charlotte

I like Charlotte. The airport’s nice, the people are nice, and the Internet access is free across the entire airport.

That’s right – Charlotte-Douglas still has free Internet access; it’s slow access but it’s complimentary and free is always much, much better than not free. I somehow have 178 MB of email to transfer so someone must have been really attachment-happy. Haven’t had that since the J&T team decided that I needed to see the same email and associated attachments in quintuplicate (“best of the best” my a$$).

I don’t mind. I’m happy to be sitting in the USAir lounge in Charlotte; the air is a whole lot fresher than that RJ900 and apart from downloading that massive whack of messages, I have entertainment (business travelers thinking that the lounge is an extension of Ashley Madison) and potato chips to while away the time, and their pod machine is working and is cranking out palatable expresso. I’m also spending the time recharging all the electronics so that I can keep at it on the final leg. Good layover.

There’s a long walk over to E from the lounge but I don’t mind – CLT is very well laid out and it’s very pleasant to walk through.

No CLT NASCAR Café for me this time; I’m going to risk finding dinner in Gainesville since the flight should land just at 9:00p and Avis Preferred status means the car should be waiting for me.

CLT-GNV

Crap. I’ll land at GNV all right, but the aircraft’s number 19 for departure. So much for landing at 9. At least the cabin has a reasonable smell and they’ve given me the whole can of seltzer water (score!).

Dinner at Dragonfly

Nope. 9:43p touchdown and close to 30 minutes to get my vehicle means that Dragonfly closed well in advance of my getting out of the airport. I forgot that they don’t have a separate Preferred counter so my ride wasn’t ready for me and I even had to wait in line. Haven’t had to do that in a long while either. The two people ahead of me took the last G6 and the last Malibu (irrelevant – I have a “no Malibu” in my dossier) so I got a choice between an Aveo, a Kia Sportage and a Nissan Rogue. Aveo? While I’m sure that they’re fine, fine vehicles in their own right, I don’t need to be driving in Florida in one – there’s this general question of being able to survive bumps with the masses of SUVs and trucks that permeate the landscape.

It’s quite dark outside and there’s almost no one on the streets. I did pack my GPS; I don’t know Gainesville that well and it is not really that easy to get around when it’s dark.

The GPS says that Dragonfly is on the way to the hotel just to mock me, but the hotel is 7.2 miles away from the airport. And what was the replacement to dinner at the isakaya? The Clown. Sad but true, as the Golden Arches were the only option open outside of the Chihuahua.

Hilton

My friend Betsy tuned me onto the Hilton Garden Inn properties. No-nonsense stuff, with the important stuff like free water bottles, a cookie (that I don’t really need) and reliable free Internet access.

This one’s a bit out of the way (it’s close to a shopping complex) but easier to drive to and from where I’m going. They remembered my HHonors number and my free(!) bottles of water at check-in, but I was given an “accessible” room (which they swear up and down is in my HH profile – uh, no), then a room next to the guest laundry (Maytag industrial units definitely aren’t Miele-like for decibel output), then finally to where I’ll be holed up in until this is all over. It’s a “connecting room” but so long as the person doesn’t stay up watching pr0n all night I’ll be okay. Most importantly, there’s in-room coffee, the internet access is still free and the microwave actually worked in reheating without any resultant McNugget explosions.

They’ve got Travel Channel and there’s Anthony Bourdain on the Monday night loop so at least there’s background noise while I finish off the work I need to do. Looking forward to the next day – there’s going to be galbi on my order.

… again.

Today is the first major storm of the 2009-2010 winter season. The forecast predicts a severe one (20-30 cm total accumulation, high winds etc.) so I guess it is bearing down on the Big Croissant like a “shotgun full of snow”. However, like last winter, it looks pretty mellow when viewed from my office. Shoveling on the other hand, is already getting pretty old and I haven’t even done any yet.

• Camera Model: Panasonic DMC-LX3
• Focal Length: 5.1 mm (24 mm equivalent)
• Lens Aperture: f/2.0
• Shutter Speed: 1/200 sec
• ISO: 100

The little brother’s rampage across the wards of Toyko continues unabated: Asakusa, Tsukiji, Akihabara, Ginza… メイドカフェ ! Won’t he think of the Meido? Why won’t anyone think of the Meido? Oh wait. Silly me, I forgot – he did. @Sixth Floor at the @Home to boot (must. clutch. chest. too. much. kawaii. sugariness).

Anyway, after the traditional お帰りなさいませ、ご主人様！ greeting, seating and selection of the Hallowe’en Special, he was presented with a very impressive scary face doodled in ketchup on the side of rice (plain gohan I believe, actual オムライス costs extra). And the secret hand gesture. And Polaroids. In the heart of Akihabara, Polaroids!

萌え, 萌え, kyun!

Okay, ketchup art on rice, Meido, and bunny ears. How does one top a life-altering experience like that? With the pachinko maybe? Well, in a word, no. Chairman Kaga would probably suggest perhaps simple French with a natural taste and quality materials. L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Roppongi?

L’Atelier! ding! ding! ding! Looks like that was today’s Secret Word.

Yep, he went to his favorite chain restaurant as he continues his quest to determine which of the L’Atelier outposts makes the best oeuf mollet (I hope that the Chef of the Century appreciates that level of dedication).

I think I have an idea of which menu he opted to go with, but these are the elements which made their way to his table:

• Jambon de Jabugo (oh great, he starts off the meal with the deliciousness of pata negra jamón ibérico)
• Oeuf de poule. Mollet et friand au caviar et au saumon fumé (L’Atelier’s signature)
• Foie gras de canard. Sauté avec un condiment pomme et pamplemousse
• Le Homard. À la plancha accompagné d’une fricassée de girolles et asperges vertes sautées
• Le canard Challandais. Rôti au jus et accompangés des légumes sautées (wait! wtf? even more black truffles?)
• Pre dessert. A sorbet of basil and lime with blueberries and raspberries, spicy syrup in a shooter glass
• La Pomme. Caramelisée en duo de marscapone avec une glace à la cannelle de diner tuiles
• Mignardises

Not normally a dessert person am I, but La Pomme looks amazing! I could try and make this, especially as I just happen to work next to apple orchards (which I somehow don’t know how to get to) but you know, I don’t want to. I am actually curious as to how this mollet compares to the Paris outpost; they should be the same but I suspect that the Roppongi variant has the edge. Guess I should go and check it out for myself but there’s that Julabo ME-39 circulating water bath that keeps calling my name. And the Leica. And… the pony! (my trusty SonyEricsson P990i is unfortunately breathing its last breath)

Wonder if he’ll sleep this off in the Business Class pod on the way back? Or perhaps remember to take photos of his Business Class trans-oceanic food?

Quick Links: Tokyo Part 1 • Tokyo Part 2 • Tokyo Part 3 (you’re reading it now)

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