Law v. Life

Ready to...

Tomorrow the conference fun begins.  The YLD conferences crack me up by involving as many social events as actual programming events.  This one starts with the welcome "reception" at ONE Sunset, followed by the dinner dance at the Pacific Design Center the following night, and another reception the following night at Skybar.  I'm skipping Skybar because I think ONE will fulfill any desire I have to go to a pretentious/trendy LA spot, and I was less than excited by the opportunity to pay $50 for the privilege of arriving at Skybar during a 35 minute window.  Plus, I'm sure there will be other fun things going on Saturday night, and if nothing else I can relax in my hotel room or see if anything is going on at the hotel bar.  So, if you're in town for the conference, let me know if you want to go out Saturday.  Also, is anyone else so excited about the Screenwriters Panel?

Another conference

I am getting ready to head back home from the YLD fall conference, and at the moment I am enjoying lounging around in my hotel room, temporarily feeling pretty relaxed.  It was a fun weekend, with decent to good programming, fun but not too crazy nights, lots of new contacts, and ideas to take back to the CBA.

Last night we went to a restaurant called Luce for dinner.  If you visit Charlotte, I would not recommend it.  It was fine.  Other people in our group liked it.  But if you are going to a fancy restaurant, you shouldn't settle for fine.  First they brought us a big plate of warm bread, which I think was the best thing the whole night.  I should have eaten more.  It came with a bowl of beans.  When we asked what the beans were, the waitress told us, "beans."  They appeared to be white beans in olive oil with fresh garlic and some other ingredients, but it would have been nice to be given a little more information than the obvious.  The "beans" were pretty good, especially if you scooped deep enough to get the garlic.  I started with the lattughe e zola, which included bibb lettuce, carmelized walnuts, cherry tomatoes, gorgonzola, and chardonnay vinaigrette.  The lettuce was actually perfect, and you can't go wrong with gorgonzola, although it was extremely mild which is not my preference.  The carmelized walnuts appeared to not be carmelized at all.  I don't prefer the overly sweet ones that many restaurants use, but a little sweetness is much better than the bitter taste of the ones in my salad.  The chardonnay vinaigrette was basically the equivalent of enough water to make it easier to swallow the lettuce.  I suppose that's better than an overbearing dressing, but I like actual dressing on my salad.  Fortunately someone had requested oil and vinegar for her bread, so I was able to add vinegar to my salad and then I enjoyed it quite a bit.  My main dish was agnolotti alla piemontese, which was "square shaped house made ravioli stuffed with roasted veal, braised Swiss chard, and parmesan with a sage veal jus."  The pasta itself was fine.  The filling tasted like ground beef that had been seasoned only with salt.  The sauce was decent, but equally salty, and it completely overpowered the Swiss chard.  I didn't order dessert, but I tasted two.  One person order the "cannoli classico."  I love cannnolis.  A lot.  It was a very cute presentation, with four tiny cannolis, probably less than two inches long, stacked on a plate.  They looked better than they tasted.  The shells were not crisp and the filling was extremely sweet.  I love cannnolis, but I've had better ones from grocery stores.  Another person ordered some sort of chocolate mousse cake.  It was awesome.  It was perfectly sweet and bitter, and was essentially just mousse, not cake.  And the coolest touch was that the bottom of it had a very thin crispy layer of some sort.  I wish I had ordered that...  Everything was decent, we were able to get a table, and it was moderately priced.  I wouldn't go back, but it served its purpose.

My flight isn't until late afternoon, so now I have to go try to find a way to entertain myself.  That might end up being at the Charlotte airport.  With stores and rocking chairs, it's a decent airport to spend time in.

Okay, now I'm at the Charlotte airport.  My flight doesn't leave for almost 3 more hours, but the only earlier flights that still allowed me to sleep in had stopovers that meant I would actually get home later.  So here I am thoroughly appreciating the free wireless.  That alone makes me like Charlotte.  This airport doesn't have nearly as good of a selection of stores as Pittsburgh (for some reason the GAP in the airport there is sooo much better than at any mall), but it's a decent airport.  I walked the entire length of every concourse looking for something good for lunch, but ended up eating fast food Chinese.  And I bought headphones at the Brookstone store.  And a book, God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens, which I have been wanting to read.  It has just been such a nice waste of time.

Dinner with friends

I ended up having birthday dinner out, at Rossi Bar and Grill. Good bruscetta (sampler with citrus shrimp, prosciutto, and some tomato thing) although soggy. Really, really good shrimp with goat cheese wrapped in proscuitto over a melon salad. Decent pizza with sausage and red onion. The sausage was flavorful and spicy. The pizza was soggy. I like a thin crisp crust. Not a thin soggy crust. Anyway, still good. And an excellent chocolate mousse to end the meal. Slightly gritty in a good way, and kind of semi-sweet. We all enjoyed the mousse, including a guy who honestly is not a big dessert fan. Dinner out was definitely better than Chipotle.

The real issue with dinner was not the food though, but the company. I went with my "best friend" and her boyfriend. I don't even know how to refer to her, because at this point I don't even consider her a friend at all, but we are supposedly best friends. (Flower girl, as she was called in the comments, is really the best friend I have). I wish I could think of a good literary name to use, but I can't. All that comes to mind is Brutus, and this girl hasn't betrayed me, she is just a lousy friend. Anyway. I have been sick of her self centered-ness and lack of consideration for a long time, and things have gone rapidly down hill since graduation. For the last couple of months I have been trying to spend less time with her to help alleviate the problem, but every time I see her, or even speak to her, I am reminded, in a way that I can't ignore, just how serious the problem is. It wasn't necessarily that big of a deal in itself, but her blowing me off Friday night was the last straw for some reason. I just had enough. Especially when she expected me to act as her taxi service Saturday morning to go pick her car up where she had left it Friday night. Six blocks from my house. So when she called today at 5:30 to make plans for my birthday dinner tonight, I was less than excited. Does that seem a little late to be making plans to anyone else???? But I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to say, "I don't want to be your friend," because I am not twelve. I didn't want to deal with it. With some people, it would make sense to talk about it. With some people, if I tried that, we would communicate and we would both learn something and the relationship would grow stronger. This is not that situation. I have tried that before, and as soon as I begin to speak, she starts attacking me and crying and saying how I make her feel bad about herself, and all sorts of other manipulative stuff to avoid responsibility. So, I don't know what to do. Cutting back the time we spend together has definitely made me happier, but it hasn't fixed anything because she still wants to see me (when her boyfriend is busy), and whenever we see each other, her behavior is worse than the time before. She is really not someone who can listen or change. I don't feel I would lose much if she was no longer a part of my life, but we have enough mutual friends who I would not want to put in the middle that I don't think completely walking away is a good solution either. I really don't know. Maybe I just expect too much, but objectively I think it is just the opposite. If she were a guy, everyone I know would tell me to dump her and never talk to her again. But the "rules" are different for friendship, apparently. For now, I think I need to keep trying to focus on other things and try not to let her interfere with my happiness.

Birthday brunch

Birthdays are such a good excuse to eat good food. My mother took me to Spagio for brunch today, which was quite good. I had the eggs a la maison. They described it as brioche filled with poached eggs, black forest ham, and topped with hollondaise sauce. It was actually served on top of a piece of thick toast, which was perfectly good, but not exactly brioche. It also came with these sliced, sauteed potatoes that were fine, although nothing special. It was supposed to come with tomato salad, but since I hate tomatoes, I got the green salad with french vinaigrette that was served with most of the other dishes. I wasn't a big fan of their choice of greens, but the vinaigrette was fine. For dessert (it was my birthday!) I had this thing called the calypso, or something like that. It was a cylindrical thing with two thin layers of chocolate cake with creme in between, with a layer of mango mousse on top, and white chocolate decorations. The cake was essentially flavorless, but the mousse was pretty good, although it was a strange texture, kind of like gelatin. The desserts there are so beautiful, but they never taste as good as they look. But the eggs were really good. I think my birthday dinner might be chipotle. I'm ready for some normal food.

Rigsby's still the best

Last night, before I got angry at my friends, I had a wonderful dinner at Rigsby's.  A dinner that confirmed that I still consider Rigsby's the best restaurant in Columbus.  I got there before my family because I went straight from work, so I had a drink at the bar while I waited.  I love their new bar, since the renovation at the beginning of the year.  The old bar in the back was cozy, but it only seated five so it wasn't especially practical.  The new bar has nice deep marble countertops, and a well lit backdrop featuring the wide selection of liquors.  The bartender selected decent vodka for me, but the tonic was quite flat.  I didn't say anything though since I didn't care that much, otherwise I'm sure he would have taken care of it.  Other than the bar, I also like the addition of mirrors in the center of the restaurant.  I do not like the renovation of the bathroom, making it into a single bathroom rather than two stalls.  I also miss being able to see the food preparation.  Overall, it is the exact same, outstanding restaurant.  And like usual, Kent Rigsby was wandering the restaurant, making sure everything was perfect and everyone was satisfied.

I started the meal with prosciutto di parma with arugula and fig vinaigrette.  Wow.  There were four large slices of delicious prosciutto over the arugula, and the vinaigrette complimented the prosciutto perfectly.  The waiter didn't mention that there was a menu of Venetian small plates in the center of the table, so we all missed those.  I was examining the wine bottle and noticed the menu, so we ordered the deviled eggs, which were made with chopped shallots and other seasonings that made these gourmet enough to be served at a place like Rigsby's - but at only $2, probably the cheapest thing ever served there.  My family all enjoyed their antipasti enough not to share, so I didn't get to taste anything else.

For my main dish I got coffee rubbed beef medallions with polenta and something like (but not) roasted pepper dolce, which basically meant roasted red peppers that were kind of sweet and kind of tart.  The beef was so, so good.  There were two fairly large, extremely thin medallions, coated in a spicy, peppery, flavorful seasoning.  The waiter asked me how I wanted it cooked, and although I said medium rare, it was medium, but it didn't matter.  It was so thin, that it would have been virtually impossible to make it medium rare, and it was still very, very tender.  Usually I'm very picky about how my meat is cooked, so the fact that I didn't mind reflects just how flavorful it was.  The polenta was a perfect vehicle for enjoying more of the flavor, and the peppers went perfectly.  It is nice that at Rigsby's thought is put into precisely what foods will compliment each other the best.  And it is always done artfully.

I also tasted the Mediterranean sea bass, which was nice, but not as good as my beef medallions.  The cappellini natasha (spicy cream sauce with salmon), one of the constants on the Rigsby's menu,  was the best I have tasted in a long time, with bolder flavors than I remember.

For dessert I had something that I totally can't remember the name of, and couldn't pronounce last night anyway.  It had something that meant chocolate upon asking, and orange (or maybe mandarin) in the name.  It was an incredibly rich chocolate cake type thing.  Actually, it was not cake at all, it was thick chocolaty-ness, like a torte maybe?  Or mousse on steroids?  I have no idea, but it was good.  It was served with a honey like sauce on the plate, dollops of chocolate sauce infused with orange, and these orange gelly things that were awesome.  I also tasted the pistachio creme brulee, which was good, but I'm not a creme brulee person.  I asked the waiter to select a dessert wine for me, so I had a glass of banyuls with my dessert that was very smooth, and went perfectly with the chocolate.

It was a good birthday dinner.

Alana's...making a run at #1

I just had an amazing dinner at Alana's.  Although I normally love the entrees there (the meatloaf, when Alana has it on the menu, is the most incredible thing ever), tonight everyone I was dining with stuck to appetizers.  Before we even ordered, Alana brought around these little mushroom tartlette things that were delicious.  One of the best things about eating at Alana's is the samples she brings around.  After that, I started with thai curry shrimp, served with pumpkin.  I think it was the best dish I have had there, which is saying a lot.  It was fabulously spicy, without masking the many flavors other than the curry.  I'm always nervous about pumpkin, but it was tender and soaked up the sauce well.  I think there were about six shrimp, which was a generous portion.  It was so good, I considered just ordering more for my main dish.  Next, I had a mizuna salad with gruyere and croutons with a light vinaigrette, that was delicious.  The vinaigrette was not sweet at all (which I hate) and it was delicate enough to let the unique flavor of the mizuna and the gruyere come through.  Two of the people I was dining with had the mushroom cream soup which was quite good, but not my thing.  Another person had sauteed scallops which were perfectly cooked.  Next I had grilled salmon croquettes, which were two small crab cake-like creations, but with salmon obviously.  They were served with some kind of greens that I can't remember the name of.  They were good, but after starting with the shrimp, nothing could compare.  The rest of my family ordered their own orders of shrimp once they tasted mine.  When we got to dessert we shared the Chocolate Menage Trios (which everyone kept calling the menage a trois, of course).  That consisted of an amazing chocolate truffle, a raspberry soup (oh my God), and a flourless chocolate torte.  All three made us gasp.  We also shared a combination of Jeni's ice creams (not on the menu), including burnt orange (also led to sounds of joy), some kind of cherry, and lavender berry (which I dislike).  The ice creams went very well with the chocolate torte.  We also had some kind of muscat that I didn't like, but that's because I'm not a dessert wine person.  Anyway, it was a fabulous dinner, and might have moved Alana's into first place on my best restaurants in Columbus list.  For many years, my absolute favorite has been Rigsby's.  I'm having dinner there in a couple days, so I will see soon if it retains its top spot.

Mickey's Karaoke Bar

This evening I went to happy hour at Mickey's Karaoke Bar with the OU alumni association. I have always wondered about Mickey's because it is very close to where I live. It always looked like a bar old people would go to. It was pretty cool really. There were lots of younger people, although they might have been mostly OU alums. There were also two pool tables, and some remarkably good pool players. The bartender introduced herself to me which I found very unusual, but nice. I left before the karaoke got started, but I do find karaoke amusing, and it's nice that there is somewhere that does it that isn't a Chinese restaurant. The bud light (I was trying to fit in) was only $1.50, which seemed really cheap to me, but maybe that's just because I'm not used to drinking cheap beer. It felt like a friendly comfortable place that I would enjoy going back to. Except for one problem. The smoke. I'm 99% sure Mickey's isn't actually in Grandview, which means they are one of the many bars simply choosing not to abide by the smoking ban. For this reason, I am unlikely to go back. The smoking ban has made so many bars into better versions of what they used to be. They are still packed, still full of young people drinking, and basically no different than a year ago, but I am able to breathe and don't wake up feeling sick the next day. But the bars that let people smoke are far worse than the average bar used to be, both because smokers flock there and also probably because I have become more accustomed to being able to breathe when I go out. Some bars are a little lax, but it's not too bad, like B. Hamptons. Others, like Brewstirs, which used to be a favorite, are simply intolerable and I will never return to. Mickey's wasn't quite that bad, but after spending an hour there I was coughing and my chest was tight, and that just isn't worth it when I have so many other options. Once the Grandview smoking ban goes into effect, I won't tolerate it at all. I know my opinion is anti-freedom and paternalistic and all that, but all I know is I was only there an hour and I feel sick. So, my verdict on Mickey's is that it is a comfortable neighborhood bar, but I really wish they would enforce the smoking ban.