Sunday, March 3, 2013
Woke up around 2:30 AM, couldn't return to sleep. A couple from the upstairs unit was arguing, but I'm pretty sure they didn't wake me nor were they the reason I couldn't return to sleep. Ate leftovers from King of Thai Noodle. Back to bed around 5:15 AM, slept until 10:30 AM. Light breakfast: small bowl of granola with diced apple and soy milk. Caught up on journaling. Rode Muni with Patrick to Union Square. Lunch at M.Y. China. Elegant surroundings (in particular the hanging lamps), mostly typical Chinese dishes but, atypically, with much higher quality of ingredients, noodle-pulling demonstration in the dining area was a treat to watch, some of the tableware was extraordinarily beautiful, the glass tea cups in particular. Service quality seemed mostly normal—this is approaching fine dining prices, but this is definitely not fine dining. When our busboy poured our water he spilled it rather significantly and made no apology and no effort to wipe the spill; we did not complain, and we laughed about it after he left. We loved the clean, open kitchen. We could see into the refrigerators even. This place is more about the decor, theatrics, and showmanship than the high quality food, so although you can probably eat a similarly tasty and filling meal in Chinatown for half the price or less, it's worth coming here at least once, clearly a splurge for most people, including us. We sat nearish the kitchen, and the restaurant was nearly full, so it was pretty loud. When the waiter spoke from Patrick's side of the table I could not hear him at all. Patrick noted how calm the kitchen seemed despite the large quantity of orders streaming through. We had complimentary sparkling water, dim sum collection (shiu mai, har gow, steamed bbq pork bao, multi-grain rice wrapped in tea leaf, mongolian beef bao, seafood dumpling)—$19, bowl of wonton soup—$12, half order of peking roast duck (with housemade pancakes, hoisin sauce, green onions, cucumber)—$20, pot of iron goddess king oolong tea—$6. About $60 before a $12 tip. Shopping: Johnston and Murphy (met salesperson Thomas), Zara men on Post Street. At Crate and Barrel I decided to buy a new extension dining table so that we can comfortably seat more than two other people. I've had my eye on one model for a few months. Ruthie helped me through the purchasing process following Trey's assistance last week. Bloomingdale's. Patrick got a mocha with soy milk at Peet's and we sat in Union Square for a bit. Nordstrom men's shoes. Rode Muni home. Weight training: bam bam. Patrick gave me a foot massage. Archived the web page and photos describing the dining table. Prepped and uploaded image galleries for craigslist items. Dinner at home: Patrick had oatmeal, I had wild chanterelle mushroom ravioli with marinara sauce from a jar mixed with leftover vegetables that cooked with baked chicken Patrick prepared last week. More new camera purchase research. Maybe not the PEN E-PL5 like I thought. The 18-month-old, now-discontinued Sony NEX-5N appears to be better in a lot of ways except there's no image stabilization, and I don't know what's going on with the NEX-3N, which was just released. More editing: pages 68 to 71.