Hob Nobbing Pt. Deux . . .

 . . b/c you have to use French when really hob nobbing it.

Monday started things off with a bang and today the week ended with a bang.  The middle pretty much sucked though and is not really worth mentioning.  I think I had some leftovers and then I went out of town and had some bad airport food followed by some government agency cafeteria food, followed by more bad airport food.  At one point I think I had a meal that consisted entirely of a king size Mr. Goodbar.  This also prompted me to look up that movie about Mr. Goodbar from the 70s which I always assumed with a name like that was a kooky rom com.  Um no.  It is totally F'd up man and nothing I think I ever need to see.  So, where was I?  oh yeah, bad airport food:  FYI Tidewater, when you say you have a crab cake and describe it as having Lump Crab Meat, that seems to imply that you have a higher crab meat to breading ratio.  Not the other way around.  Super disappointed in your crab cake, but then again, I was also at the airport so perhaps the blame is all mine.

Thursday while I was eating Government Agency Cafeteria food (which was a nicely done grilled cheese with bacon) in DC, my cohorts were over at Grove for our department Christmas holiday lunch.  Pretty sucky that I missed out on that and instead was stuck doing some admin litigation in a room full of crazy people.  But anyway . . . today more than made up for it.  Twist and I joined a couple of entertaining and pleasant folks from the regulatory floor for a last hurrah buffet lunch at the Plaza Club before one of companions cancelled her membership.  I'd never been there before but use "club" and "buffet" in the same sentence and I'm in.

Look at the fancy sign and the marble entry!  It reminded me of the old executive dining room that the McGraw Hill building in Rock Plaza used to have.  Anyone know if they still have it or if its been repurposed as office space?  It was sweet and so was this.  Great views but poopy weather today.  However we did have a super view of the building that our company is moving into over the next couple of years.  Check it:

Aww and they even put out green and red napkins for the holidays!  How can you not love that?

No photo of the buffet b/c I did not want to embarrass my host, but nice spread.  Not your typical buffet either.  My compliments to the PC for inventive buffet menu.  A Caribbean table had some panfried pork, an unidentified roast veggie of some sort that may have been a plaintain but was more squash-like, fried oysters and fried shrimp and Caribbean cabbage slaw.  There was also some fajita chicken and tortillas along with some sausage that I meant to try but didn't get around to getting up and procurring.  Also- a soup and sandwich table.  Brilliant!  Soup was gumbo.  Tasty gumbo with a nice kick.  Made my nose run, but not so much spice my mouth went numb eating.  Juuuust right.  Base was really dark brown which freaked me out a little but I was reassured by the service piece which was a giant cast iron and enameled dutch oven.  It looked like the gumbo was actually cooked in that pot then carried out to the table.  No warning dish or crappy soup tureen.  It was sort of impressive.

I forewent salad and jumped right in with entrees.  I had a full plate before I found out about the sausages so missed those.  Reports were that they were very tasty and had a good spicy kick.  I just did a little bit of everything.  Highlight was fried oysters and smoked salmon.  I am a whore for smoke salmon.  I would stuff myself silly with it if I could.  I was trying to be classy though and not pig out so only got a few pieces.

This is not my plate.  The picture of my plate has mysteriously disappeared so you get to see um-- the other guy who is not Twist's plate.  Now that I have lunched twice with these two and expect to do so on a more regular basis I think they qualify for code names.  I'll have to work on that for next time. . .  Suggestions?

Meanwhile, dessert options were presented.  Choc mousse cake, turtle cheesecake that actually looked pretty bitchin and dripping with caramel, banana fosters pie that also looked intriguing eventhough BF is not my thing.  Keylime pie, um, some other stuff and mango creme brulee.  Actually all pretty tempting options.  Key lime pie most definitely IS my thing so I ordered some up.  Again, distracted by conversation on how cats are dicks so forgot photo.  You tell me if I liked it or not:

Yes- absolutely disgusting.  No, just kidding.

Really lovely and not a fake green color which I appreciate.  Solid graham cracker crust that tasted homemade and some nice heavy whipped cream on top.  A perfect finish. I don't know what a membership at this joint costs but the buffet would make it totally worthwhile unless it's like crazy money every month.

Company again, fantastic and almost brought me to tears at one point I was laughing so hard.  Cats really are dicks.

I guess you had to be there.  Ran into Chungry and Ducky Momo on the way back  and got the stink eye from both of them. Not sure if it was for going off floor for lunch mates or going to the Plaza Club without them or both, or maybe they are just a coupla cats?  hmmmmm

PS-- found it! This is my plate.

Monday Revelations . . .

Some life changing news today people! A fortuitous turn of events resulted in lunch with Twist. Thinking soup might be the way to go since its sort of legit cold here today, we headed towards Corner Bakery.

Alas, spicy Thai coconut is not on the Sun-Tues roster of soups. Jerks. That should be an everyday soup instead of that tomato basil nonsense.

Vaguely recalling that Ducky Momo had suggested awhile back he thought there was a chance CB did breakfast all day I threw caution to the wind and asked. I thought that was intel worth getting a definitive answer on.  I am happy to report to you that yes, this is true!!! With the exception of oatmeal, but who wants to eat oatmeal all day? No one, that's who. Good call CB.

Twist and I both went breakfast route. He with a chicken sausage panini and me with the Anaheim panini. His came with roasted potatoes that were excellent. Slight crisp on the outside and good seasoning. His panini was also reported as satisfactory raising the level of CB in the lunch rotation to new heights. The Anaheim was a glorious lunch. Not too big. Lots of good scrambled egg and avocado. The sourdough bread was also fantastic. And, the eggs were real.  So a big huzzah for Corner Bakery!

All in all we were super excited by the breakfast all day (except oatmeal) revelation. I'm pretty sure that this will make my week.

I have to go with a 5 on my panini. It was GOOD. Seriously, I'm so psyched to know I can get breakfast for lunch. Commuter Croissant, watch out!!

Leftovers . . .

Brought my leftover meatloaf and potatoes from Barnaby's.  Still awesome.  Meatloaf has great texture and the potatoes heated up well and were still nice and moist.  yum!  Nothing new there then.  I still recommend it.

A quick digression if I may.  Last night I put a plastic lidded fast food cup with a straw that I had been drinking out of for 2 days in the fridge on my way out.  In the cup were two lemon wedges and water mixed with a little bit of iced tea.  Also in the fridge was my ziploc baggie of lemon wedges I brought from home.  The lemons are homegrown off my own lemon trees.  They are really good!  Anyway, I come in today and go to collect my water and lemons and they are GONE.  Some bendejo TOOK both the cup of water and the lemons!  Nothing else in the fridge was gone so it was obviously not the cleaning crew.  Besides, they never clear out the fridge until it is stuffed to bursting with stinky old food.  I am told by reliable sources that it was most definitely someone from the department on the other side of the floor who work 24/7.  Whoever you are, NOT FREAKING COOL, MAN!  I will find you someday and there will be repercussions.  Serious repercussions.  You have been warned.

peace out!

At the Coppa-cabana . . .

So Thursday was free lunch day.  Department lunch celebrating co-worker's promotion at Coppa in Houston on Washington.  It's Italian.  It was ok.  I didn't think I ate that much but sitting here at my desk  it is apparent I thought wrong.

Really liked the environs and food for the most part was prepared pretty light which was a nice change.  However they used some spices I am not a real big fan of.  Primarily fennel.. Gag me.

For starters there were meatballs, fried zucchini, and frito misto (fried seafood).  The friend stuff all had alight lemony essence which was ok.  Seafood and zucchini fried almost tempura style.  Very light though and nice.  The meatballs were ok.  The sauce was kind of spicy and I don't really dig spicy Italian.  Not sure why, I just don't.  Next had a Caesar salad with lettuce that looked wilted and old, but turns out was actually grilled. I started out eating it thinking it was fine but then Chungry was convinced it was freezer burn.  I got so freaked out about it (I HATE old lettuce, totally grosses me out) that I couldn't eat about half my salad.  Ultimately that is fine b/c I didn't need it anyway.  I started a  boot camp on Tuesday. More on that in a bit.  Nice spicy dressing with anchovies and homemade croutons.  Nice presentation.

frito misto

 

fried zucchini and meatballs

For my entree I had the baked pork chop.  It was listed as coming with seasonal vegetables so I assumed that meant a serving of veggies on the side.  It turned out to be more like a garnish.  It was onions and spinach and some other stuff I couldn't recognize all chopped up around the pork chop.  Presentation on the plate was nice though.  I was disappointed that I really didn't have any vegetables to eat.  I also didn't like the seasoning on the vegetables.  they were cooked with orange peel which left a bitter citrus taste--combined again with the fennel so no thank you  to that.  Pork chop was lighter on the fennel so not bad.  Meat was kind of dried out with not much flavor.  I ate about a third and left the rest.

 

pork chop al forno w seasonal vegetables

Dessert was better.  The whole table had these Italian donut holes that were ok.  Then there were some extra orders of a chocolate malt cake with pistachio ice cream.  Really nice choc malt sauce on the plate and garnished with crushed Whoppers.  Cannot go wrong with that.  Best of all, excellent strong coffee to top it off.  I never get though why Italian places don't give you warm milk for your coffee.  I don't like putting cold cream in my hot coffee and then drinking luke warm coffee.  Anyway, it was good so hats off Coppa on the coffee.

 

coffee and Caesar salad.  Chocolate malt cake below

I should not have had dessert since I am trying to get off the sweets.  I have managed to go 2 and a half days without sweets.  Don't laugh.  If you have a raging sweet tooth, two days is an eternity.  Now I have to start over.  I need to get one of those safety signs that say how many days its been since the place had an incident but mine would be for eating candy and cake and whatever.  And why am I not eating sweets?  Because I started a boot camp on Tuesday.  It's an aquatic boot camp that is supposed to be based on the Army Deep Dive training.  They also have a nutrition component so I'm trying to follow that eating plan loosely for how many helpings of proteins, starch and fruits and vegetables for each meal, staying within 

1200-1400 calories.  I may have just blown that wide open at lunch just now.  Boot camp was cool though.  Pretty sore today on upper body.  At some point swim fins will be involved which makes me a little nervous.  And if I may take liberties to talk about the pool location for the boot camp.  Holy crap is it nice.  It's like an Olympic training facility.  Boot camp is held at the school district's natatorium--and yes they really call it that.  Olympic size pool with 8 lanes, 3 diving platforms, hot tub, locker rooms and I don't even know what else.  There were so many people there Tuesday night for various swim practice and lessons and water polo it was nuts.  Oh and it's a salt water pool to boot.  Water temp was a little cold for my taste but I got over it after the initial shock of jumping in.  I'll have to take a picture tonight when I go.

Ok- have to get back to looking up Santa Barbara real estate.  I'm planning my retirement today.