E.T.'s L.J. U.R.L.

For those of you who haven't heard, Shalom Beijing is no longer going to be kosher as of next Tuesday night. I heard about it earlier today and was very disappointed, for many reasons: (1) We thought the food was much better there than at the newer Chinese place; the food at the other place, in addition to being inconsistent from visit to visit, is much saltier and usually gives me heartburn. (Shalom then-Hunan was the first kosher Chinese restaurant in Boston, and my first-ever experience with Chinese food.) (2) It was the only kosher restaurant in town where you could comfortably have a quiet conversation. This is a major issue for me because I have trouble projecting over crowd noise. The other place is usually so crowded that you feel like you're eating with a stranger's elbow in your neck. (3) They had recently changed ownership and had a new menu with a lot of new dishes on it, and we hadn't had the opportunity yet to try most of them. (4) It's always better to have more choices. In my experience, when there's only one of a particular type of restaurant, and they have an effective lock on the community, they start to take their business for granted and the quality starts to deteriorate. Then people stop coming, and they eventually close... leaving even fewer options.

So, despite the fact that it was a long day (I got out of work about 8:30, and sdavido met me there on his way home from teaching), we decided to go to Shalom Beijing for dinner while we still had the opportunity. Knowing that we may not have another chance to eat there, we took a very long time choosing which things to order. When we did eventually decide, everything was excellent - we both ate a lot more than we'd intended to, and went home with much less left over than we had expected. And considering how much food we got (deliberately planning for leftovers), the price was very reasonable. But there were a bunch of other dishes that we would have liked to try as well... sigh.

I'm really surprised by their decision, I would think they'd get less business by eliminating the Jewish community from their client base. But they must feel they have reasons for it. In the meantime, that leaves us with one less choice on the occasions when we do feel like going out to dinner... Fooey.

Tonight I had to drive out to Somerville for an Arisia meeting. On the way there around 7:15, while stopped at a traffic light (merging onto the McGrath near the Museum of Science), the person next to me rolled down their window and called, "Excuse me, what road is this? I answered, "It's the McGrath / O'Brien, also known as Route 28." He called back, "Can you tell us how to get to the Fleet Center?" I glanced over... car full of confused-looking people, out-of-state license plate... describe how to get to the Fleet Center from there? Oy. I called back, "Do you have a map?" They said, "No." Double oy! (I've since checked the F.C. website schedule, and it looks like they were probably going to a Madonna concert.) I must have looked flummoxed, because they said, "We think we missed a turn." "Yes, you probably did." "We'll try backtracking and see if we can figure out where we should have gone." "OK, good luck..." The light turned green, and traffic moved forward. I felt a little badly about not answering their question, but I couldn't think how to give them foolproof directions between those 2 points in a few seconds... hopefully they found their way there.

On the way home after the meeting, again while stopped at a traffic light (this time waiting to turn off the McGrath near the underpass), the guy next to me (also with an out-of-state license plate) rolled down his window and called across, "Excuse me, can you tell me where to find the Cambridge post office?" (This was around 10:30.) I said, "Which one?" He said, "Any one, doesn't matter." I called back, "I don't think any of them are open this late." He said, "I don't need it right now, but I'm new to the area... I just want to know where to find a post office." Oh, okay! That one I could answer... I gave him directions to Central Square. He thanked me happily, the light turned green, and traffic moved forward.

Do I look particularly knowledgeable, or do people just tend to get lost in that area? Or maybe it's both...

I just wrote to Senator Barrios to ask him to stop his ridiculous campaign against Fluff. (See here and here.) Some things just cannot be tolerated...

thnidu pointed out this real-life example of Make Way for Ducklings...

While working in the store this afternoon, we heard a crash! from outside. ( Read more... )

This afternoon, my mother and I decided to go down to Newbury Street so we could walk around and enjoy the lovely weather. (sdavido wanted to work on syllabi et al for the classes starting this week.) Beautiful day, and it was nice to be outside... ordinarily we're in the store all day, so being outside in daylight, with no specific destination, was a treat. We wandered by lots of restaurants, galleries, and clothing stores with no real interest, going into the occasional odd store that caught our attention. Naturally I picked up a few treats for SD-. :-) A particular highlight was seeing two Lamborghinis (a Murciealgo and a Gallardo, I think) and an Aston Martin (maybe a Vantage?) valet-parked in front of Emporio Armani. We had noticed a wider mix of stores than there used to be, but apparently that's still where the high rollers hang out... or at least park their cars.

If anyone likes Shakespeare, and has some free time... ( Read more... )

I had intended to post a long, entertaining story about my hunt for a Boston Globe this morning - some relatives in NJ wanted a souvenir of the Red Sox win, and I wound up spending over an hour going to something like a dozen places before I found any. (Who knew they would sell out so fast? Amusingly, there were plenty of extra Boston Heralds...) But I'm up too late packing (surprise!), have to get up early to catch our flight to OVFF, plus I think I'm fighting a cold... so I had better call it a night. I'll catch up on mail and posts when we get back. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Was working on an order this morning with an engaged couple (lesbian couple, as it happens), and while talking about their wedding plans we segued onto the topic of weather. One of them turned to the other and said, "Remind me why we live in New England?" To which I replied, quite seriously, "For the ice cream!" They both looked at each other, and then at me, and said, "Well, yeah." And we continued on. :-)