UA2394 BOS EWR 1050 1213 319 2F

A pleasant little prelude, with more of
those Paqui's nacho corn chips and an ounce
of almonds. We got in a bit early on the one
day when I would not have minded being up to
6 hours late.

The club was SRO, and the food was wretched,
so I got on the horn and made a reservation at
Classified, which is really the private back
room of Saison, which is not all a bad thing,
as the food is decent and only moderately
extortionately priced. I was greeted like a
repeat customer (I was) and shown to the same
corner table. I told the waiter that I wasn't
hungry but was just going to get some shellfish.
So I looked at the net while mulling over the
virtues of cherrystones on the half shell at $2
each, a relative bargain given the price of
seafood these days. I exhausted my weekly food
budget on uncounted clams and a couple Sam Adamses.
Well, that was a pleasant but expensive frittering
away of a couple hours, and I still had lots of
time, so back to the club, which had considerably
cleared out as time passed. About boarding time
I moseyed to the gate to discover that the flight
was an hour late. And so another bout of sitting,
punctuated by periodic breathless announcements
of the coming soon! variety, from which we learned
that they had found us an aircraft, and then due
to taxiway congestion, it was just sitting around,
and then finally we got the play-by-play of our
equipment's anabasis to the gate, where it
eventually showed up, and we boarded a bit later
still. Oh, yes, there was a Polaris lounge at
this airport, but it wasn't going to open for
another week or so, bad timing on my part.

UA 134 EWR ZRH 1945 1001 764 6D was 1D
was 1830 0830

Somewhere I read that 1D is deficient in storage,
so I switched to the farthest back of the thrones,
which was reasonably comfortable but none too big,
and zoned out as we sat around a bit longer on the
tarmac, because we had lost our time slot. After
we actually got going, the flight was uneventful.

Welcome aboard UNITED POLARIS
WELCOME DINING SERVICE

STARTERS
Chilled appetizer
Seared tuna, kale salad with apple and red quinoa, wasabi

The tuna was fine if a little light on flavor.
I picked the apple bits out of the salad, which
otherwise was pretty nasty. The wasabi was by far
the most interesting part of the plate, and it
really didn't go. It was kind of yellowish and
very aromatic, and I toyed with the notion that
United might have actually paid for the real stuff.

Salad
Cabbage, bok choy, carrot, mango
Served with dressing and assorted breads

I ate the quite ripe mango slivers strewn on top
and then actually ingested the salad with its
ginger-sesame-soy dressing, which was not bad.

Bouchard Cote de Beaune Villages 15

This was a disappointment, dumb and unaromatic
and also a bit corked.

ENTREE
Seared beef short rib
Bordelaise, grits, fava beans, shiitake mushrooms, cherry
tomato, shallot

Okay, I always get suckered into this. As usual,
it was toughish and nearly fatless, and I shredded
it up a bit to find anything I could eat.

Switched to the Catena Cabernet Franc 15, which
was pretty gutsy and moistened the beef fibers well.

Spicy chicken
Thai-style coconut ginger broth, udon noodles

I would perhaps have asked for this but for the
udon, which didn't seem to make sense in this
context.

Seared turbot fish fillet
Basil beurre blanc, risotto with mushrooms and fava beans,
cherry tomato

Or this, but why basil in the beurre blanc.

Portobello mushroom and carameilzed onion ravioli
Garlic-Parmesan Alfredo, baby portobello, kale, leeks

Nah.
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