The Bistro- Off topic and fun posts!

[rafinmd]

For today I grabbed another Port Nassau webcam photo of the sun coming up over the Crystal Serenity and Adventure of the Seas:

 

Roy

[mskatiemae]

9 hours ago, drib said:

I drove a 1974 midnight-blue AMC Gremlin, which was cooler than you might think during the gas shortage. It had a twenty-one gallon tank, and a gas cap in the back over the license plate. (Cooler would have been a gas cap hidden behind the license plate!) None of that fuss about pulling up to the pump on the left or right side for me.

Ah, the vaunted Gremlin! In 1974 it was the first car I ever drove. At my high school in State College PA we had a driving range on campus with a tower and the instructor gave directions to us over radio. Backing into a parking spot is what I remember. The gas cap was not something I was aware of, as they did not have us gas up these cars! In those days in PA there also were not any self service gas stations. I figured out self service gas (and other new urban driving skills) when I was driving in Chicago during my college years.

 

Circling back to Coors beer, I had my first taste in 1978 while on a chartered bus in the SW high desert area for two weeks for a graduate level field plant ecology course. I remember thinking it had very little flavor but was exquisitely refreshing (just like the tap water in our Boulder hotel was so clear and fresh).

[KenzSailing]

12 hours ago, drib said:

I didn't have the kind of bank to buy beer at those prices. But I did run three cases up to New Jersey for my uncle - this was at least three years before Smokey and the Bandit. I drove a 1974 midnight-blue AMC Gremlin,

 

 

 

 

I saw that movie.  It was the prequel "Bandit: Before he Made Bank."

[Keith1010]

One of the things I miss about the East Coast are the Reubens, Steak n' Cheese Sandwich and Pizza.

 

Keith

[KenzSailing]

1 hour ago, drib said:

Billy's served water in conical paper inserts to heavy metal bases - not the Black Sabbath kind, maybe pewter. Invariably, my kids would pick up just the paper, expecting it to be heavy, and fling the water into the adjacent booth.
 

 

 

 

Oh gosh, I remember those.  Bet it's been 50 years since I last thought of them.

[KenzSailing]

Dragging the thread back to DC in the 70s, there's a factoid I just can't come up, maybe someone here can have a lightbulb moment.  In the 70s, there was a very high-end Italian restaurant downtown, on K or L, maybe around 18th(?)  The signature decor element was their light pink tablecloths.  It wasn't Cantina d'Italia (that was a different place,) but I can't come up with the name of it.  Ring any bells?   

[KenzSailing]

On 7/7/2021 at 8:13 PM, May B said:

 

Do you bake your own rye bread? Around our neck o’ the woods, we sometimes order a grouper Reuben. Ain’t life grand? We are so very fortunate.

 

May, nope, I'm at best an infrequent, and poor, baker.  Wrote a much wordier post responding to this several days ago.  Appears I did everything but hit "send."

 

Alas, my lengthy defense of the Omaha origin of the Reuben is lost to the electronic void.

[suitedreams]

1 hour ago, KenzSailing said:

Dragging the thread back to DC in the 70s, there's a factoid I just can't come up, maybe someone here can have a lightbulb moment.  In the 70s, there was a very high-end Italian restaurant downtown, on K or L, maybe around 18th(?)  The signature decor element was their light pink tablecloths.  It wasn't Cantina d'Italia (that was a different place,) but I can't come up with the name of it.  Ring any bells?   

Goldoni at 20th & M

Edited July 10, 2021 by suitedreams

[KenzSailing]

4 minutes ago, suitedreams said:

Goldoni at 20th & M

 

Thank you!  I'll sleep better tonight.

[suitedreams]

The one you were thinking of may have been Cantina d'Italia on !8th St between M  & N

 

Len

[RLMSLL]

2 hours ago, drib said:

LA's best old restaurants:

• The Pantry. There would be a line starting for breakfast at 6am.
• Blairs. Also downtown, near Broadway Plaza, back when there was a Broadway store.*
• Should have been number one with a bullet, but Lawry's California Center. It was Awesome - all kinds of variety in beautiful gardens, close to downtown, and they sold spice too.
• Phillipe's for French Dip. If you worked downtown, you could be a hero and get orders for Phillipes from your co-workers. Coffee there was just five cents until a few years ago.
• Scandia - beautiful A-frame building on Sunset, serving Scandinavian food. Upscale. What's not to love?

====

Lawry’s California Center was so special.  It was such a lovely venue for dining in the gardens for lunch, brunch, or dinner.  If you timed it right, you could catch a Mariachi band!  Today no other venue quite compares - at least at that price point.

 

Hamburger Hamlet in Pasadena was always a nice splurge while I was in college.

 

[BWIVince]

47 minutes ago, suitedreams said:

Goldoni at 20th & M

 

42 minutes ago, KenzSailing said:

 

Thank you!  I'll sleep better tonight.

 

I'm glad you all knew!  That was a little before my time, so out of curiosity I glanced at my father's matchbook collection, which of course was no help because there was no context of years...  There were all kinds of Italian restaurants within this few blocks over the years though, besides Goldoni:

 

Fellini -- 1800 M

Ristorante Primavera - Wisconsin at Mass

Gusti's - 19th and M

Christini's - 1140 Conn. 

 

...And of course a matchbook for Cantina d'Italia that Ken disqualified up front:

 

OTOH, for two people who never went downtown to eat, and never ate Italian out, there sure are a lot (besides these) of DC Italian matchbooks.  🧐 🤔 The secret lives of parents...

 

Vince

[KenzSailing]

Darn it, it wasn't Goldoni.  That rang a bell because, looking at the pix, we've been there.  But that was in the early 2000s, and that place didn't date back to the 70s.  Check it out, and you'll see that Venetian decor theme Symphony's Prego originally styled.

 

The Cantina's signature was a complimentary glass of Sambuca, with two coffee beans in it, at the end of your meal.  Celebrated our 10th anniversary there.

 

And Vince, your father's matchbook collection, interesting...

 

Also, I miss logoed matchbooks.

 

Tonight's menu features a rib eye the size of my head. Oh boy, oh boy...

[RLMSLL]

36 minutes ago, drib said:

 

Were you a Cal Tech Rose Bowl prankster? Respect.

 

So, Pasadena, the false address for JPL - it's in La Canada where I lived for a few years in the 80s, and it always annoyed us when reporters say that JPL is in Pasadena. Anyway, here's some oldies but goodies from Pasadena.

 

1. The Chronicle, on Lake, was a nice restaurant where I took a girl once for a first date (kind of). She ordered the halibut, which was the least expensive item on the menu, so I married her.

 

2. In the same general area was Monty's steakhouse.

 

Why is it they still haven't finished the freeway running through there???

 

3. The kids loved the Hot Dog Building company in the old town area. I think there was a very pretty restaurant there made from an old church, but I can't recall the name. Also on Green Street, I remember a short-lived crepe restaurant. but not the name.

 

4. On Allen Street, the original Topps Char-broiled - there was a second one at Colorado and Rosemead, I think. The original was a dive, but the hamburgers were great, as were the fried onion rings - reminiscent of Don's Drive-in in Livingston, NJ, if you know that one.

 

5. Wing Wah (no relation to Doo Dah, which was an alternative to the Tournament of Roses parade) on Colorado Blvd, near Sierra Madre, I think. Excellent hot and sour soup.

 

And that's all I have to say about that.

 

I was a freshman at Caltech the first year they admitted women as undergrads.  The Rose Bowl prank did not occur while I was on campus, but we had our share of pranks.

 

One of the students left campus for a week to visit his girlfriend.  We decided to make his room disappear while he was gone.  I sprinkled computer dots from punch cards (remember those? - that dates me!) among all his clothes in his dresser.  We then completely filled his room with wadded up rolls of computer paper from floor to ceiling.  We stuffed it into the room through the transom, so we could get up to the ceiling.  We plastered over his door and painted the new wall to match the rest of the “alley”, so that he could not find his room.  A light fixture was moved to where his door used to be.  When the student returned to campus, we pretended not to know him. He found an axe and started hacking away at where his door used to be.  We called security to report a vandal.  Security came and hauled him away.

 

The Chronicle and Monte’s Steakhouse weren’t in my budget, so I never visited them.

 

Our favorite burger place was Tommy’s.  The preferred plan was to visit the original location on Rampart at 2:00 or 3:00 AM and have a chili cheeseburger - single for me, double for the guys.  If Rampart was too far, there was one in Eagle Rock.  (These days there is one on Hill in Pasadena, so it is an easy walk from campus.)

 

Our favorite sandwich shop was Stottlemeyer’s on Colorado. All the sandwiches were named after famous people, and they were the most innovative and the best tasting sandwiches I have ever had.

 

The 710 freeway was never extended to Pasadena, because South Pasadena successfully fought it.for years.  It would cut the small town in half, and completely destroy the ambiance.  I used to live in South Pasadena and always voted against the freeway extension, so you can blame me if you like.

 

Joe Coulombe founded Pronto Markets in South Pasadena.  He later started Trader Joe’s in Pasadena on Arroyo and I visited it frequently.  Eventually the Pronto Markets also became Trader Joe’s.  Now Trader Joe’s is nationwide.

 

I had a summer job at JPL and much later worked programs with them.  It is odd that you have to drive through La Canada to get to JPL in Pasadena.  Since Caltech runs JPL for NASA, perhaps that influenced the gerrymandering.

 

[KenzSailing]

8 hours ago, drib said:

 

Anyway, here's some oldies but goodies from Pasadena.

 

 

 

 

Now, if you tell us you know THE Little Old Lady I'll be impressed. 

 

[rafinmd]

Today's sunrise is another from my 2009 Galapagos cruise on MS Evolution.  It was taken July 23, 2009:

 

 

Roy

[May B]

19 hours ago, KenzSailing said:

 

May, nope, I'm at best an infrequent, and poor, baker.  Wrote a much wordier post responding to this several days ago.  Appears I did everything but hit "send."

 

Alas, my lengthy defense of the Omaha origin of the Reuben is lost to the electronic void.

How frustrating!

 

I must say I was truly surprised to hear that a Reuben originated in Omaha.

[May B]

22 hours ago, Keith1010 said:

One of the things I miss about the East Coast are the Reubens, Steak n' Cheese Sandwich and Pizza.

 

Keith

Why can I not picture those as your go-to dining choices?!

 

Pizza, maybe, thin crust, as Mr B makes.He does make his own crust, and we all get our individual one so nobody’s toppings encroach on anybody else’s. He offers us anchovies each time, but he knows we will never accept the gracious offer.

[nancygp]

14 minutes ago, drib said:

Now, moving on again, where can you get the best Margarita in H-Town?

 

Back in the 80s, we liked the Pappasitios on Richmond, east of Fondren.

 

don't drink Margaritas anymore but frequented the Richmond location Pappasitos in the late 80’s and early 90’s.  I lived in the Galleria area at that time,  since then, I moved several miles east/inside the loop and there’s a “little”, not so little Pappasitos on Richmond close to where I live.  It’s a very popular place.

 

 

we also have an excellent deli restaurant, kenny and ziggy’s.  It’s as good as many I’ve experienced in the ny area over the years.  

 

Nancy

Edited July 11, 2021 by nancygp

[Keith1010]

2 hours ago, May B said:

Why can I not picture those as your go-to dining choices?!

 

Pizza, maybe, thin crust, as Mr B makes.He does make his own crust, and we all get our individual one so nobody’s toppings encroach on anybody else’s. He offers us anchovies each time, but he knows we will never accept the gracious offer.

I did eat differently in my younger years but Pizza I still love.

Thin cruise.  Great cheese,  Swizzle the oil.  During the Pandemic we made Pizza  from  time to time and took three deliveries too.  

 

Keith

[KenzSailing]

OK, here it is, the Reuben sandwich origin story (hey, Marvel makes millions on this origin stuff, I can try to cash in too.)

 

Way back in the day, their was a premier hotel in Omaha NE called the Blackstone.  The head chef there participated in a weekly poker game that rotated around the residences of the participants (think "Guys and Dolls," but without the sewer, the extravagant costumery, the singing, the dancing...OK, don't think about "Guys and Dolls.")

 

Anyway, it was tradition that the host of any particular game provide the refreshments, to include modest snacks.  And one particular evening the hotel chef hosted the game.  He concocted a fairly elaborate sandwich creation he thought one of the other players (probably the sucker at the table) would particularly enjoy.  And that player's name was...Reuben.  And the chef who gave us this monument to the melting pot (corned beef, Russian dressing, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese, Jewish Rye) is lost in the mists of time.  But the sandwich, and the weak poker player who gave it its name, will live forever.

 

They should make a movie.  BTW, they sort of did. In the movie "My Favorite Year," Mark Linn-Baker, playing Benjy Stone, attests to the veracity of the above.  I mention this because it's one of the more unheralded absolutely perfect movies ever.  If you have any memory of, and fondness for "Your Show of Shows," you will swoon at this movie.

[ctjon]

Sorry there is NY then the rest of the world. Katz deli. 

[KenzSailing]

36 minutes ago, ctjon said:

Sorry there is NY then the rest of the world. Katz deli. 

 

Funny how people who most strongly hold these opinions don't actually live in NYC.

[rafinmd]

Today's sunrise is from my 2010 Blount cruise from Rhode Island to Quebec.  It was taken July 24 and we were in the Bras d'or lake area of Nova Scotia.

 

 

Roy

[BWIVince]

22 hours ago, KenzSailing said:

 

This is correct (which is the snob way of saying I agree.)  Balmoreans consider Faidley's the gold standard.  And they are one tough crowd when it comes to crab cakes.  You think NYCers are picky about bagels, eh, they're pushovers compared to the denizens of Charm City and their crab cakes.

 

I have two rules:

Never order crab cakes if more than 30 miles from Balmer

Same for cioppino and the bay area

 

Would bloviate more, but it's cooking time (already got the chocolate/chip ice cream firming up in the freezer.)

 

Time to apron up!

 

I saw a bumper sticker last night that seemed live the perfect overlap in the Venn diagram of the local 70's restaurant discussion and the Balmer food discussion...  EAT BERTHA'S MUSSELS.  🙂  I thought of this thread immediately.

 

Vince