Back to the story, and the eight ball tells me that we will now cover the topic of dinner. We hit up a ton of Phoenix area restaurants - some twice - and big thanks to all of our parents for some delicious meals. On the first Wednesday of the parental invasion, we headed to a new spot, Michelina's Italian Cuisine, on Beck's colleague Katy's recommendation. SERIOUSLY good. Beck and the normal eaters got excellent oysters for appetizers. I was force fed soup. And had ridiculously good Chicken Parmesan for dinner. Beck forced me to order flan for dessert. And the meal came with an after-dinner cordial that was a mix of amaretto and creme de mint; it tasted like mouthwash but was still good. Just a great dinner, great restaurant, fantastic service, and they even have fresh flowers. Good times, and the iPJ was so taken that he made reservations for Saturday night when my parents would get into town. On the next night:
Beck's family ate raw fish.
Ha! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Faulkner! We headed down to Houston's on Friday night, giving Beck ample opportunity to bust out "El Fisto Fe." Houston's does not take reservations - we know this because Beck called and asked to make a reservation. While Beck was waiting in line to put our name in, she overheard the hostess say "if you call ahead, the wait is fifteen minutes; otherwise it's 45 right now." Beck, having indeed "Called ahead" but not having been informed of this option, was less than amused by the hostess informing her that our wait would be 45 minutes. Beck went with the uber-logic of "can't we just pretend that I asked to be put on the waiting list when I called?," which falls in somewhere along the "can't we just pretend I paid my insurance premiums on time?" continuum. The hostess said no. So Beck then tried the existentialist approach and pointed out the absurdity of the situation: "You're saying if I walk outside and call you, the wait is fifteen minutes, but if I ask you here, the wait is 45?" Again, the hostess did not flinch. (Which, really, was a good call, seeing as it was all a bluff: Beck's phone was sitting in the rangers office at Tonto Nat'l Monument at the time. However did that happen, you might ask? Don't).
So we had to wait on the patio for 45 minutes, which turned into a little over an hour. The good news is that either because of the extra wait or because of the voodoo evil-eye style curse that Beck put on the hostess, we got free spinach dip out of the deal. Ah, the manager. Nice work. Of course, when the manager brought the dip to our table (seconds after iPMM had said "should we get some spinach dip?"), iPMM rebuffed her, saying, "We didn't order that." Mass confusion and awkward, nervous attempts by the manager to placate us. I was tempted to give the 2007 Best Actress in a Supporting Role to her, but it turns out that someone had already turned in a better awkward, nervous performance. After all of this, the meal was excellent - ribs for me, hawaiian steaks and ribeyes and steak salads elsewhere. Good stuff.
Saturday Night was Michelina's II, vastly better than the Marquis II (props to my Rice readers!). My parents were in town as were Mike and Anne, the King and Queen B of CBS. Another great meal, and great times / conversation with everybody. Liz sent us puppy pictures throughout the meal and Jim sent us Duke-UNC updates. Margie tried to learn me in the ways of Phish with her iPhone. But oh, out near stonehenge, I lived alone; I know all the Phishtory you can throw at me. Bring it! Incidentally, the Bs were staying at "The Sanctuary" on Camelback Mountain. If you need to look it up, go ahead and google the word "schwank."
I'll skip Sunday for the benefit of a stand-alone Sedona / Jerome post. Monday night we went to Carlsbad Tavern which, I am informed, is some sort of pun. The restaurant is decked out as a cave, complete with bats and spelunkers, and I have no idea why you would do that with a restaurant. Beck, my mom, dad and I got there a little early, so we sat at the bar and chatted with a bartender from Alaska who, for a security guard, had an awful lot of information, don't ya think? We eventually sat down out on the patio and had a fantastic, spicy meal, and were enlightened re: the proper Rochesterian pronunciation of the word "Chimichanga." We also discussed historical context and judgment, and I'm pretty sure we concluded that little old ladies are incapable of doing anything wrong so long as you're related to them. I think. Great last night with the Searls; we ran over to their hotel in the morning for official goodbyes and to pick up the standard Corona / Lipton tea combo platter.
On Tuesday afternoon, I introduced my parents to the glory of Chompie's, where we all got sandwiches that invoked the ghost of Mitch Hedberg:
"I like New York delis, but the problem is that they put too much f***ing meat on the sandwich. It's like a cow between two crackers. I want a pastrami sandwich. Anything Else? Yeah, a loaf of bread, and some other people!!!"Seriously, what's up with that? Great sandwiches, but we each ate half and saved the rest for a quick bite Wednesday night before we went to the movie of the decade, Vantage Point. Wait, hold on a second, I'm drooling sarcasm right now and need a napkin. I headed to work, and Tuesday night we hit up local Streets of New York Pizza which was excellent as always.
Thursday night probably won the game for my parents - we went to Los Olivos, a place I'm sure I've mentioned here before, down in Old Scottsdale by the Contemporary Art Museum. Great food that's a little more Tex-Mex and therefore right in my parents' wheelhouse - very, very, yummy, and if you come visit me we are going there pronto.
Friday night we reprised Streets of New York, this time getting spaghetti and calzones, and settled in to watch Michael Clayton and Reign Over Me, two movies which I had already seen but thought Mom and Dad would enjoy a lot. And I think that's pretty much it for the food review, other than the 5 dollar bourbon-injected hot dogs at the Cubs games. Seriously, coke and a hot dog, that'll be nine dollars? I felt like I was in an airport and a movie theater at the same time. Ugh.
I'm sure that was highly un-exciting, but I just crossed a fair amount off the blog to-do list. SO phbbbbt. In the meantime, we'll cap this with some more links:
Poker simulator!
Cool video on a glass structure called Prince Rubert's Drips.
Say goodbye to Dad, it's a website full of chess problems.
Beck cannot make fun of me any more.
Good article on the myths of torture.
Internet web gaming on copious quantities of crack.
Slow motion karate chop.
VERY INTERESTING article on the differences between eastern and western science.
(But wait - how can things that are objective be different?).
And we'll leave you with the fantastic lunacy of garfield minus garfield. Best idea I've seen in a while.
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