Hawaii, day seven

You will be not be surprised, I am sure, to find that day seven of the Hawaii trip started in much the same fashion as day six.  That is to say, a walk.  And a longer one than the day before - we weren't due to meet in the lobby until a half hour later than the previous day.  The morning walk included part of the park but part of Waikiki first. 

And yes, a few photos from the stroll. 

A good start to the morning!

Oh, and I wore a new shirt with a cool manta ray pattern on it.  Love it! 

The work at the college went easily that day.  The morning was busy, but by shortly after lunch, we had finished what we needed to do and were waiting for the mid-afternoon report-out.  That event happened quickly, and before too long, we had made our return to Honolulu.

I've done five of these teams now, and this one was the one that went the smoothest and easiest and quickest.  But that also made it the one where the team members bonded the least.  We had dinner together the night before, and we had two breakfasts and two lunches at the college, but as soon as we got back to the hotel on that last day in Hawaii, the team chair was out the door of the van, thanking us each sincerely, and then heading off to his room, not to be seen again.  The assistant chair (or whatever the title may have been) beat a similar path but lingering several minutes longer.  That left the four of us to head to Pint and Jigger for drinks.

I like that bar.  I don't like the sports bar aspect to it, but I like the bar.  Good drinks!  I asked for one called Mr. Fancy Pants,

and the server was very careful to make sure that I might like it.  Like, super cautious.  And I get it.  Cynar is weird, not everyone likes mezcal.  But it was, in essence, a mezcal negroni, and I do like those, and so I liked my cocktail. 

As we went for round two, one of my colleagues decided she liked it as well.  I'm sure the bar was a little gratified that we all did!

Drinks done, we went our separate ways.  I could have invited one of them to dinner with me, but no, I decided to have a last evening to myself.  I hemmed and hawed (I get weirdly anti-social in situations like this and sometimes would prefer to have delivery food or something and just watch television I've seen before) and eventually got myself over to the Halekulani for a light bite at House Without a Key.  And it was nice.  It rained lightly on us.  My cocktail - a mai tai

- was good but not as good as what I'd had three nights earlier at Orchids.  The food was fine - some loaded fries and a mildly bland tuna tataki.  I enjoyed the singing and hula - the current Miss Hawaii was the dancer (but she sang a bit as well). 

It was all very pleasant.  But I felt guilty that I was there without Conrad and Van.  Oh, we would have loved being there together.  Sigh.

I spent the rest of my evening packing.  I was at the airport

early the next day, which meant time in the United Club there,

one of the nicer ones in my experience.  And, lo!  The one seat available for upgrade on my flight was assigned to me.  1A for the ride home to California. 

Good work done, good time spent, good food and wine enjoyed - I'd call the trip a success.

I can't wait to go back to Hawaii....

Vedge and Vernick Fish

I'll write more generally about my few days in Philadelphia in the next (I think) blog entry.  First, however, let's talk about the food.  Specifically, two dinners I enjoyed.

The last time I was in Philadelphia, I was doing a monthlong cleanse diet.  Not quite vegan, but pretty close to it.  And it wasn't a problem.  After all, there is a gem of a vegan restaurant in Philadelphia:  Vedge.  Here's what I love about the place:  it doesn't serve up tofu or seitan or other such things pressed into shapes and called "Mom's meatloaf" or "turkey dinner" or stuff like that.  I have vegetarian friends, and they love stuff like that, for sure, and good for them.  I mean that.  Like what you like and eat it.  But if I am going to be meat free, I want to really enjoy vegetables and fruits and grains for what they are, not what they are pretending to be.  So I love places like Vedge or the now sadly gone Green Zebra in Chicago where the vegetables were the beautiful, glorious stars of the plate.

My dinner dates on Saturday in Philadelphia were Andrew and Ed, two good friends who both enjoy food.  Neither had been to Vedge before, so I was glad to bring them there for the first time.  It was an easy walk from the hotel.  We got to our table, ordered drinks (the Sea Legs for me, which I enjoyed),

and alerted the server that Ed had a food allergy that we needed to work around.  She took the menu back to the kitchen, and shortly after returned with it marked up.  There were eight dishes that we could share with Ed, one or two of them modified a little, and so we ordered them all.

I didn't get photos of everything.  The light was low, and I don't like being too much of a nuisance taking photos, especially when enjoying a meal family-style.  I liked everything that we ate - no surprise there - but my favourites were the spicy dan dan noodles,

the eggplant bracciole (which I remembered from previous times eating there),

the deviled celery root crepe, and the rutabaga fondue.  Look, here's how much I enjoyed things:  I willingly ordered and ate and enjoyed things with mushrooms, like the portabello carpaccio. 

Andrew and Ed enjoyed the savoury courses as well.  Opinions were more mixed on the ice creams (the potato chip ice cream wasn't what we hoped, though it was fine), but the blueberry buckle with sage ice cream was a clear winner at dessert.

It was a very good meal, just what I had hoped from the restaurant, and though Mike teases me that there are other worthwhile places in Philadelphia to try, I will come back to Vedge when next I am in town.

After the dinner, we didn't simply return to the hotel for drinks with whatever colleagues were hanging out in the bar.  Instead we headed to a comedy club

to watch Stand-Up with Strings.  Andrew's son, Eli, was playing bass throughout a multi-comedian set, and we were there to enjoy it all. 

Eli was terrific - my first time meeting him and hearing him play.  He improvised and responded to cues, intentional and otherwise.  The comedians were a mixed bag, and that's fine.  The last two were the best, each of them interacting with Eli, able to do so on the fly.  It was a fun way to end the evening. 

The three of us walked back to our hotels, and my long day (I had landed that morning at 5:30) came to a good end.

Sunday night was dinner at Vernick Fish.  I gather that the Vernick name is a known one in Philadelphia, and I liked what I saw when I was researching a dinner place online.  I hadn't realized it was essentially in the lobby of the Four Seasons, and it was perhaps a little more upscale than I had expected, but that's all fine.  The company with me (Van was there, Sara and her husband Peter, and Amy)

made for an excellent evening.  I didn't photograph every single thing at dinner (like my cocktail, the A Day in the Life, which was tasty, or the eggplant katsu we shared and that I think was the best thing on the table that night), but I did get shots of my oysters (delicious)

and the halibut (the accompaniments outshone the fish, which was - sorry! - a little overcooked)

and the desserts (an olive oil cake, a dark chocolate mousse, a banana pudding sundae, all of them quite fine). 

We had some good wines.  The setting was bright and attractive.  It was a good dinner.  I realize I have less to say about Vernick Fish than Vedge, and perhaps that's because Vedge is the more interesting to me.  But both meals were fine.

I think most of us had a nightcap at the hotel bar after that dinner - it is a conference, after all.  And that capped the last of the finer dining I had in Philadelphia!

... and then we saw Jimbo

Friday night held for us two good things.  The first was an enjoyable dinner at Openaire.  The second was a show at the Wiltern:  Jimbo's Drag Circus.

Don't know Jimbo?  No worries.  Jimbo is a Canadian drag queen based in Victoria.  He first appeared on Canada's Drag Race season 1, and while he made it pretty far, he didn't win.  Arguably, however, he was the star of the season.  He appeared on two further series in the Drag Race family, ultimately winning RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars season 8.  And now he's doing a tour to capitalize on fans' familiarity with and love for what he did on Drag Race.  In short, there were a number of things I knew and was delighted to see.

Take, for example, how he opened the show in the outfit that he wore when he entered the work room on the first episode of Canada's Drag Race. 

He established the framework for the show ahead (which included a clown and two dancers),

and we were off!  We got the Shirley Temple he won Snatch Game with in his last season morphed into a modern version

and the Joan Rivers he won his first Snatch Game with. 

In the interstitial video clips, there was his Nancy Grace from a mini-challenge in his first season.  The things the fans hoped for were there.

There were two characters I didn't know (but perhaps others did).  One was a German stripper investigator.  The other was an old-timey sort of burlesque/stripper who revealed breasts all over. 

That second one involved spraying cream from her main (and very large) pair of breasts on the dancers and then on front row audience members).

And there was the baloney ghost. 

I don't know how else to call the character.  Jimbo debuted the ghost on television in the talent show for the UK Versus the World initial season, and it was weird and funny.  On stage, it was weird and funny and - we think - suffered a little wardrobe misfunction.  Ah well.

All in all, it was stupid and funny and good.  It showed so much thinking about how to link these things together.  It had singing and dancing and many jokes.  The set was great. 

It was very worth it.  Plus, come on, the theater is gorgeous. 

Over 100 years old.  A real beauty.  The three of us had a super time of it, surrounded by many many many gays and more.  And yes, I bought the tshirt.  Two of them.  😉

cool things for free

The Olympic posts will jump around now on this morning of catching up. Two days ago, yesterday, whenever.

For example, I had wanted to post these images and video last night, but I was rather tuckered out. We were on our way from the hockey game in search of dinner, and we stopped in at La Maison du Quebec. Ultimately, the four of us ended up at Campganolo for a late-ish dinner and a bit of wine. However, we did have the good luck to hear the tail end of some music and see this guy with his hoop.






Conrad and I had seen him a few nights ago during the performances at the medal ceremony at BC Place, though not so close. This time, he almost got out of control and ran a couple of people over in front of me.

I don't get a lot of the media complaints about this whole event. I wonder if the media are actually getting out and seeing the crowds enjoying the free or inexpensive entertainments like this. I was so very glad we stopped in to Quebec House, and I think I must take advantage of the free download the musical act gave out.