LeiaCat

The most common reward for a volunteer job well done is someone telling you "you have a clue, come do another one". And so at last year's PhilCon I was approached by someone I impressed at the NASFIC, who asked me, "if you wanted to learn another area, what would it be? We have apprenticeships." Which led me to the title of Deputy DivHead of Events for the Montreal Worldcon next year.

Which put us on the road to Montreal for a weekend of meetings and a site visit. ( Food, of course, with minor SMOFing and a health scare )

There was a trip to Buffalo, but it wasn't the trip to Buffalo that I thought it would be. (Damn it, there's still a trip to Buffalo post from last summer that sits in my drafts unfinished - maybe someday I will).

The paperwork necessary for me to finally start actually doing things about my father's estate came through, just short of the one-year anniversary of his passing. (Please, no condolence reiterations, for whatever reason those in digital format push wrong buttons in my brain.) So, it was my intent to go into town and meet with a realtor who specializes in estates and hand him a key and let him do his thing and come back at closing.

On the way, with much nostalgia, I picked a restaurant to maximize fond memories. Most choices have long since shut down in the 20 years I was away, but still there was the tranquil May Jen Chinese restaurant by South Campus, right by where I used to live for my first 3 years in the area, and therefore a site of many special occasion. It was, as one expects from restaurants, where I expected, but it looked entirely unfamiliar. (It turned out in caught fire 8 years ago and had to be rebuilt, but the owner was the same, and the food was as expected.)

( And then... )

For our 10th wedding anniversary we went to Japan, so for the 20th I felt obligated to plan us something no less epic. But also I was getting overwhelmed with my customary planning of all the details, and so decided to experiment with a packaged tour. As always the March-to-April timing limited our options. The closest new-to-us warm place that offered a variety of packaged tours turned out to be Costa Rica. Most tour itineraries and costs were relatively similar; we chose amongst multitudes of well-reviewed options based on date availability.

The package included hotel bookings, bunches of guided activities with hotel pick-ups, and shuttles to deliver one between destinations every other day, which is a pretty good pace for my travel preferences. One can WhatsApp the agency for clarifications and issues, and they respond reasonably promptly, even if there's not a whole lot they can actually do since all they do is book third-parties. Which is no small logistical feat, and on the whole while I might have chosen a few things differently, I appreciated the result. Also, I probably would have hesitated to book all the individual activities at their published rates if I knew what those were in advance, but somehow the package which rolled it into reasonable-compared-to-a-cruise pricing seemed reasonable, even if no doubt it added up to much the same thing plus a bit of overhead for the agency.

For a summary: a tropical paradise is a fun way to spend a couple weeks. The terrain is gorgeous. The cuisine is tasty - especially if you like tropical fruit. The folks are friendly, and their catchphrase, used liberally and unironically, is "Pura vida" - literally "pure life", serving as a mix of "aloha" and "hakuna matata" - hi, bye, life is good, don't sweat the small stuff. Which somehow comes across as charming and grows even on this curmudgeon.

( Day 1 - Arrival in San Jose )

( Days 2-3: Tortuguero )

( Days 4-5 - Caribbean Coast )

( Days 6-7 - Inland on Carribean side )

BeforeTimes I used to have a tradition of going out for dim sum the weekend before (or of) my birthday. This seemed like the time to revive the tradition.

A new dim sum place opened on 40 in Ellicott City (or Catonsville? Over by Iron Age), so I led an expedition. Everything was of excellent quality. Language barriers weren't bad - they even mostly understood me! A few things were odd, like having to explicitly ask for water, and refills on it being by request rather than offered. (I did try a couple things I don't think I'd had before - a shrimp and truffle dumpling and a shrimp on top of a block of tofu thing). The total was higher than we're used to Mai Dragon being, and the place is further away for most people I'd want to go with, so despite an excellent meal, next year I will seek points further South.

For my Birthday Actual I took my theater kids to Hungry Bowl in Bowie. It's an all you can eat Mongolian grill / sushi place (with some Korean elements), and they have a birthday deal of a free meal with a purchase of 3. The Mongolian was buffet-style. Appetizers and sushi were ordered via tablet and brought by a human. The grill quality was good, though I was disappointed that the choices lacked some basics, like sesame oil or sesame seeds. (Could be those aren't standard for Mongolian, but their sauce selections certainly didn't stick to types native to that style). The sushi selection was a bit curtailed at lunch, but there were still plentiful options, and it was good to have four people to share the rolls between so that we could sample more variety. But, it's a 40 minute per direction drive, so it would really take someone else deciding to include us in their outing to try it again. Or being in Bowie already with folks so inclined.

In the evening I splurged on a feast for my friends, and treated them to a catered Georgian meal. I have been in correspondence with Supra in DC for a good month prior, making them help me figure out how much of what to get. They thought they deliver to Greenbelt, and Gracious Host graciously allowed me the use of his place for a party, since my own place is both too far to be practical and too small to host an effective party of a size I hoped for. (It did come out to a size I could have handled after all the attrition, but would have required an hour per direction drive to pick up the food, which likely would not have survived the trip.) Once the order was placed we were informed that they were wrong, and we're 2 miles beyond their delivery range; once I offered to throw money at the problem they were willing to get one of their own to drive it. Most of my friends had never had the cuisine before, and it felt wonderful to introduce them to a thing I love. (I definitely overbought on wine, so now I have a good case and a half of leftovers. I need to host more parties and/or drink faster than I actually do. For better or worse, my packrat tendencies manifest most strongly in the consumables department.)

So, now I'm 50, and I'm in tech week for my show! Which is complicated slightly by the snow storm hitting on our tech-in Sunday - which we expected, and we have contingencies to make it work, but they will certainly require some exhausting overtime on the part of my crew.

I still owe my future self a write-up of my last visit to Buffalo last summer. Maybe someday.

I am directing a show, and it's going great. Here's the elevator pitch: so you know how Shakespeare didn't make up Romeo and Juliet, but the plot was from an older Italian source? Well, meanwhile in Spain the very prolific playwright Lope de Vega found that same source, and went "this is cool, I'll write a play... I'll make it a comedy!" So the result is so familiar but at the same time so different as the writers obviously looked at the same plot points and made very different choices. Like, what if Juliet drank that potion, but actually didn't know what she just drank? And what if Romeo had a wacky sidekick, and also a competent messenger?

Meanwhile, restaurants:

Thai At Laurel is located in that large "town center" shopping complex with the Regal in it. We were recommended it as a answer to the question "what restaurant in Laurel is good quality and feels nice to sit in for meeting with out-of-town family", it fulfilled that need. The food was of excellent quality - we ordered half-dozen different things for our large party, and all came well-reviewed. We split examples of all the desserts, too, and those were likewise great. The prices were higher than I'd expect from Thai food. But, I'd say, worth it for an occasion like that.

Meanwhile after a long conversion from a former Panda Express, Yu Noodles finally opened in Columbia, and we hit them in their soft-open week. They were hopping - we got sat at a 4-person table with another couple on the other end. Almost immediately a rushed-looking waiter with a tablet arrived at the table and looked expectantly, and sternly enough that we rattled off a trio of dumpling orders in lieu of asking questions about any of the items we were less sure of. They arrived in due course; shrimp dumplings were ok, chicken soup dumplings were better than at Shimiaodao (which, faint praise, because Shimiaodao had a better selection so it wins), and chicken mushroom dumplings that were not as good. I was pleased to finish expediently and clear out as rapidly as possible. For a regional chain with fewer than a dozen MD and VA locations, they sure felt very chain-like.

Also a disappointment was Pho Live which opened in Columbia where the excellent Tai Chi poke and ramen was, near Target. Spouse's pho was fine I guess, I'm not a very pho person and can't compare, but it hit the spot for a blustery day. But the summer rolls appetizer, listed as "Shrimp, lettuce wrapped in rice paper served with peanut sauce", contained undocumented pork. And my attempt at an entree with the request of no onions and assurance that they got it when I asked to double-check came with a stratum of onions, so I asked to just let us take the pho to go so we could get out. (They normally charge for a take-out container, but in this case waived the fee.) We were there their opening week, so perhaps they will improve, but I will continue to advocate for An Loi when my companions want good pho and I want excellent Vietnamese that's not pho.

For Christmas - having, over the pandemic, abandoned the notion of Chinese food, since it appears everyone realized that it's a great plan and incorporated that into their actual Christmas celebrations - the same foodie friends who lead us to discover Ugane, suggested Kim Bob Na Ra, another Korean street food-themed place, which turned out to be run by the same owners. Our party included a pair of omnivores, a vegetarian, and a handful of pork-avoiders one of whom can't handle spice; there were ample choices to order family-style with everyone having a few things to choose from. We made several modifications (like, two orders of veggie kim bap, but one of them without the crab stick, and bibimbap with meat on the side so the vegetarian could have it and I could have the meat); all came out correctly. Cold soy-and-sesame noodles were successfully un-spicied. Fried seaweed rolls with glass noodles were warm and surprisingly addictive. Evidently I don't like tuna kimbap, but the rest of the table did. All in all, a good outing.... but eater beware, the Vegetarian markings stand for "vegetarian option available" rather than "is vegetarian by default", so remember to ask for the modifications if needed.

Ten years ago at Spokane Worldcon, for which I was Assistant Tech Director, our sound designer was a DragonCon regular, and he issued an invitation to come play with him when we can. And then we couldn't until this year, when I had no obligations to our summer show. So, I messaged him that if he could figure us out a room, we'd be there. He assured us he would, told us to fill out the volunteer form and promised to message the TechOps director about us. The room turned out to be his own, in The Other Tower in the Hyatt, which was absolutely the best place for us to be.

( The Trip, The Con, The Experience )

Synetic is a DC theater troupe specializing in movement - circus-level acrobatics combined with choreography both dance and combat to supplement or entirely replace dialogue. I'd seen a play of theirs once before (since I wasn't going to miss someone, anyone, tackling Master & Margarita), but they're not convenient and not cheap, so I'd not made a habit of them. And then at a party someone said "so I have a pair of tickets I can't use to Synetic's Midsummer Night Dream happening at once of the nicer suburban theater spaces - anyone want to buy them for cheap?"

( So there we were. )

In foodier news, we have revisited Shimiaodao, wherein we had the dumplings that I actually tried to order the time before, Chicken Mushroom, and they were great. Also the beef soup dumplings, and they were much better than the chicken ones. Also the mushroom moodle soup, and it was addictive enough that I will try to recreate it at home once the weather gets cooler.

And, we tried Ugane, a Korean Bunsik-style restaurant, which purveys a variety of soups and dumplings and noodles and so forth. We went with a couple more familiar with the cuisine and family-styled it all, and so got to share more things and more adventurously than we might have with just us two. The service was English-speaking and very helpful. The potato pancake was a latke-like texture I didn't love, but the flavor made up for it. The cold soy-and-sesame noodles were enormously large and quite filling, if a bit subtle on the flavor even for me. (One adulterates it with salt, which I was handed, and also sugar, which I was prompted to ask for if I wanted it - I wish it came with more cucumber). Tempura seaweed rolls with glass noodles were excellent and very much up my alley, if not Spouse's. He shared spicy tteokbokki and chicken with our friends and enjoyed both. The rice balls looked really good, but by then we'd ordered so much that it seemed unwise to order more, so another trip is definitely in order.

A couple weeks ago we went out to Shi Miao Dao Noodle House, which for the last year-or-two occupied the location of the rather lovely Japanese joint next to my favorite Vietnamese, An Loi. They also go by "Ten Seconds", which I believe their name translates to.

What they do is a bowl of broth into which you throw many things, but all of their broths are either spicy or porky or tomatoey, so I hadn't tried to make the time. Well, they do have other things, and I decided to go for dumplings and supplement them with a rice ball. Spouse went for a tomato-broth soup, and reviewed it favorably, and the spicy soupy things our friends had also hit the spot with them.

Me, I was a bit less lucky: as everyone else was served I got a question instead: did you order the chicken mushroom dumplings, but instead I made chicken soup dumplings, is that ok? I can't say it was necessarily thrilling, but I didn't exactly want to wait for a whole nother batch, so I went for them. And they were entirely ok. I also got the rice ball described as "shu mai" (shrimp); the shrimp was chopped into small enough bits that little texture remained, and the texture of the rice ball made me feel like it had sat for a while. (A couple days later I picked up a very similar rice ball from the deli counter at Lotte supermarket, and it was superior in nearly every way.)

We split an order of milk buns for dessert, and those were just fine.

It took rather longer than 10 seconds, but I would go back, if only to try the thing I actually ordered. Though maybe with a different second thing.

When last October The Big Greek Cafe first came to town (to replace the excellent Madrid tapas place, sigh) we attended its grand opening and won a door prize in the form of a gift card. (Then we forgot about it for a while.) We split a trio of appetizers - falafel for Spouse (which came with a bonus salad), calamari for me (with pita), and spanakopita to split. The first two came with containers of very dense tzatziki, and each was a perfectly adequate example. The spanakopita was, nicely, a rather sizeable mini-pie of it, rather than a slice of a larger sheet; I think I prefer this presentation, and it was a good size to round out the meal. All in all, a pleasant enough outing, though I don't know that I'd prioritize returning to it.

Kong Pocha is the second location of a Baltimore Korean pub in Columbia, in the spot where K-Manna briefly was (next to the noteworthy Boro Kabob off Snowden). Where K-Manna had all the personableness of a fast-food joint (while not being fast in the least), now the decor charmingly hints at pretending to be outdoors, with light-adorned awnings accenting the walls and tables separated by movable mini-fences. Rather than experimenting with many nifty offerings like rice bowls and omelets and noodles we had soy garlic chicken. The portion was sufficient for the both of us and came with mayo-slathered fries. The chicken reminded me of Seoul Pub - irregularly sized chunks like someone's grandma might make. I'm usually unexcited about fries, but the the mayo combination worked great.

Chin - located in Ellicott City over by Honey Pig - brands itself "A Xi-an Style Restaurant", that being (I learned) a location in Northern China. Their speciality is hand-torn noodles, most of which come in spicy or pork or spicy pork.

While the place had many vacant seats, we were directed to sign into the waiting list of zero on an electronic screen (which also permitted ordering take-out). We were seated within a couple of minutes, so no big deal, one supposes.

The waiter expertly guided us through the no-pork-or-spicy options. I went for Northwestern style beef noodles, was given a choice of wide or narrow noodles and confirmed that I didn't want any chili oil in it. This landed me a beefy, gingery broth with rice noodles and thin slices of fat-specked beef; I was reminded a bit of pho, not so much in the specific flavor profile as in the comfort-meal vibe. (The specks looked ominous, but did not make for problematic texture).

Spouse went for a seasonal mutton dish. The herby green broth concealed cellophane noodles and finely sliced vegetables, and came with separate little bowls of chilis (which for my sake Spouse skipped), scallions, thin slices of meat, and a pita-like flatbread. That last item was dried to a nearly-cracker consistency, and we were instructed to break it into whatever-sized pieces one chose and throw them in the broth. If my soup was a warm blanket, this one was a picnic on the lawn. I added the beverage described verbosely as "Chinese Osmanthus Sour Plum Drink (Suan Mei Tang)", which was reminiscent of the better less-sweet grades of plum wine in non-alcoholic form, and I should see about finding that in a store sometime. Enough of soup leftovers came home with us to make a serviceable lunch next day. Definitely a place to revisit... though possibly on a cooler, cloudier day.

Ellicott City Diner had opened in the former Double T in the same strip mall as above at the top of the pandemic; we finally got around to trying it. Under new ownership the diner retained the general theme of overwhelming multi-page menus, but I was on a mission - EC Diner had bragged about being a contender for the county's best crabcakes, and has a Wednesday special of their crabcake sandwich with a soup or salad and a desert-of-the-month for about their regular price of just the sandwich. I've been meaning to try it, but they only have it for eat-in, which during the pandemic annoyed me into not prioritizing them.

I should explain for non-Marylanders: crabcakes here are a big deal. If you've had a "Maryland-style" crabcake anywhere outside of Maryland (and possibly a handful of DC places, though don't bet on it), you've never had a Maryland crabcake. If it doesn't have large lumps of crab, it's not a Maryland crabcake - at best it's an extra-large appetizer crab ball, which are permitted to exist, but do not deserve the title of crabcake. Or, it got lost on its way from Virginia. If it's seasoned with garlic or parsley or visible amounts of black pepper, it's not a Maryland crabcake. (Maryland crabcakes do have Old Bay in them in various proportions, and often come garnished with more). If it contains vegetables, it's not a Maryland crabcake - Louisiana and the Carolinas get to exist if they must, but should stay in their lane. If it's shaped like a hockey puck rather than a conical heap with identifiable lumps, it might possibly be a Maryland crabcake, but it probably shipped frozen. If there's more binder than crab, it's definitely not a Maryland crabcake, and it should be ashamed of itself. And if you think Marylanders are obsessed with the whole Maryland thing, you are correct, and we're ok with it.

Anyway, the verdict is that the crabcake is worthy - a generous serving for the price, with balanced seasoning and good crab-to-binder ratio with ample lumps. The soup of the day was cream of broccoli, which was fine; the dessert was creme brulee, which I was too full to eat in place, and by the next day it wasn't particularly brulee and I couldn't tell if it ever was crispy, but that aside it tasted good enough. (As far as "best"... possibly best-for-the-price in the casual category. Cozy's was downright disappointing twice; Timbuktu never disappoints but is pricier and not quite in the county for the purists; G&M is the golden standard but is a bit further out, Lee Lynn are pleasant and with the best summer ambiance, Floyd's are overseasoned, and Corner Stable overrated in every way. And Hudson Coastal are so good about every other kind of seafood that can't be found elsewhere that I've not actually tried the crabcakes there yet. Double T used to be very, very good when I first found them, and this is comparable, but they'd skimped on portions and ratios a bit over the years.)

The diner does have some wines and beers and cocktails; we didn't try them this time. They also have milkshakes - both regular and the trendy over-engineered with too many items perched precariously on top. Spouse had a classic milkshake and reviewed it favorably. He also had a Greek salad; when that arrived without the anchovy they apologized for having run out and offered to make something else, but then found the anchovies and by way of an apology served him a double serving of the fishies to add to the salad, so he was ultimately content, too.

Which probably adds up to more going out for meals than I really should indulge in, but lined up is a return to Ram's Head Waterfront for the sunset.

Meanwhile, I stage managed Much Ado.

( Speak low if you speak love )