• 255 more Texas

    From MICHAEL LOO@1:123/140 to ALL on Wednesday, April 17, 2019 11:26:12
    Someone told me that my friend Sheila had moved to
    Houston, so as I was going to be there anyway, it
    was a no-brainer that I should try to see her.

    When I got in touch, she suggested we meet at the
    Coppa Osteria in Rice Village, as her retirement
    job is as a docent at the museum at that university.

    It's a trendyish spot in what used to be a kind of
    rundown neighborhood that has picked itself up
    remarkably in the recent years of the Houston
    renaissance. Essentially it's gone from faculty
    housing to student rentals (which it was when I lived
    in this town) to trendy hipster quarters.

    One of the reasons she'd moved down was her family's
    concerns for her health - back in the day she had been
    a high-powered businesswoman with a bad schedule and a
    bad diet; the new environment must suit her well, because
    she's looking very good, rather alluring in fact, and she
    dresses much more fashionably than when I knew her.

    She'd got there early and was sitting at a nice table
    out front and made a nice welcoming little picture.

    I think she was genuinely glad to see me; in any case
    we spent a pretty jolly time reminiscing about our
    experiences from 10-20-30 years ago.

    The time went fast, despite the food.

    According to its name, the restaurant should be serving
    Italian fare, and it does, by its own lights, but no
    Mediterranean native would recognize it.

    I ordered porcini pappardelle with jumbo lump crabmeat,
    lemon, and salumi toscano, which was an ill-conceived
    perversion of all that's delicious but that I found
    actually quite edible. The porcini were in evidence
    only as little flecks in the thick housemade noodles,
    looking like mashed-up insect parts and imparting
    little - perhaps a little tang and umami, but bug bits
    would have done the same; these had been tossed in a
    thick lemon cream with lots of torn pieces of basil.
    The lemon cream was actually kind of tasty, but there
    was far too much basil, and I picked out and left over
    half of it. Crabmeat? Well, maybe a few shreds. Until I
    got to the bottom and found a big clot of the stuff, a
    couple ounces at least, that would have been welcome if
    strewn over the top rather than hiding under the hot
    pasta, which overcooked it to the point that one might
    have thought it came from a mediocre can; in fact, I
    suspect that it had previously lived in a good can,
    like the crabmeat in Denver. What actually topped the
    dish was some crumbles of either dry-fried or freeze-dried
    ground-up salami - very strange. The dish was also bizarrely
    overpeppered, enough so I suspect normal people would have
    been pur off, but I was amused. A massively misbegotten
    and peculiarly executed, but it turned out satisfying and
    decent tasting, though quite expensive for what it was.

    My friend seems to be going keto or Atkins or something
    and had what was represented as an Italian salad; this
    was iceberg lettuce, bland mozzarella, and that same
    salami sand. There were a couple assorted other things,
    cherry tomatoes, cucumber slices, but all in all, this
    could have been the product of a bad restaurant in 1965,
    when I lived near here.

    I had a Blonde Bombshell beer (the waiter characterized
    it as "super delicious"; Sheila tossed down several doses
    of Diet Coke, which came in a cocktail glass, so one was
    paying $3 for about half a cup of beverage and a lot of ice.

    ==

    I decided to go to a fancy Hilton before my 0500 flight;
    the bus goes right by there from downtown, and bang goes
    60 cents. I got there just in time for the manager's
    reception, which apparently takes the place of the
    executive lounge but happens only on Tuesday, which must
    represent a substantial cost savings. The offerings were
    crap beer and wine and respectable liquors, the best of
    which was the 1800 Reposado, so that's what I had.

    Snacks were abundant. I didn't try the tomato artichoke
    finger sandwiches, which didn't look all that appetizing,
    but maybe I should have had one for research purposes.

    A peculiar riff on satays, skewers with an inch or two of
    scallion, a square each of red and green pepper, and a
    chunk, a scanty ounce, of actual sirloin, marinated in soy
    and garlic and hot pepper, done pink - decent food and
    much spicier than I'd expected - I had four of these.

    Sweet-sour chicken nuggets - these were hand-cut chunks,
    about the same size, of Srirachaed and breaded velvety
    tender chicken breast - I had two and debated going back
    and making this my dinner but decided against.

    This guy sitting by me who looked and sounded Good Ol'
    Boy, made the surprising recommendation that I try the
    Vietnamese fresh rolls, which he reported to be excellent.
    They were in fact nicely done, rice noodles, lettuce, mint,
    and thin slices of boiled shrimp in the rice wrapper. Turns
    out Eric was not a southerner but a New York (probably
    very lapsed) Jew whose mom had been hired to run a textile
    mill in North Carolina and dragged him along when he was 13.

    It was generous for a happy hour but kind of scanty for
    dinner, and I toyed with going back down to the restaurant
    for a full meal but found two forgotten bananas in my carryon
    and had those instead.

    Something I ate let loose all the little internal marbles
    and turned them miraculously into, well, you don't want
    to know. Probably the dairy from lunch.

    It turns out that the hotel shuttle doesn't start until 0500.
    Though it bills itself as an airport hotel, this Hilton is in
    reality as close to downtown as it is to the terminal, and so
    that meant a $30 cab ride (it's 50 from downtown), so that
    made the room quite a bit more expensive.
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