Home?

Hi all,

We've made it to San Mateo and have been living in our apartment for the last three nights. The bulk of our belongings won't arrive until late next week, so we're 'roughing it' on the floor, and cooking with only 1 pan.

The last three days have been a spending bonanza, as we stock our pantry, buy needed furniture, and pay all the registration fees necessary to become a California resident.

Our last night on the road was spent in Reno, NV. This city is a pure gamblers town - devoid of the hoopla that is Las Vegas. The culinary experience there was eating at an old 'Basque' restaurant. Served family style on a table of 10, the meal covered 3 starters, 2 sides, a main course, dessert, and red wine for 22.50.

To start, we had a vegetable soup, tossed salad and braised oxtail. The vegetable soup and oxtail were again, a little too salty for my taste. However, once you get over the saltiness, the oxtail was superbly done. Braised like a beef stew, with carrots, celery, tomatoes and herbs, the tail meat was tender, and the collagen/connective tissue had a butter like consistency. Given that oxtail costs at least 3.99 a lb, this was a treat. Our dining companion didn't eat his portion, so I had double the amount of tail!

I chose a 10oz sirloin as my main, and Sandra chose roasted lamb. I only ate 1/3 of my sirloin because I preferred the oxtail. Sandra's lamb was well seasoned and pleasantly garlicy.

All of this food was served next to a large plate of fries, a tub of beans and bread.

The red wine was not worth mentioning.

At the beginning of the meal we introduced ourselves to a gentleman who was dining by himself. A Vietnam Navy Vet and Massachusetts North Shore native, we obviously connected by talking about the Red Sox. Unfortunately, over the course of dinner, it became more and more apparent that he was completely there. He insisted that he was still on 24 hour notice with the Navy, and that he was going home Labor Day weekend to have Thanksgiving dinner. Later on, as I described my interaction with him to friends in the medical industry, they suspected that he had dementia. I hope his family will catch on and help him when he does return to MA. It's so bizarre because he could remember the scores of every playoff game during the 2004 playoff run and players on the roster, but did not remember that Thanksgiving and Labor Day are different holidays.

That's it for tonight.

I will continue this blog as I have a number of entries running through my head that I want to write down. This blog will eventually evolve into documenting our experiences as new San Mateo/ Bay Area residents.

Aloha

Almost There

Four more hours, and we'll be in San Mateo.

We won't have internet hooked up for a day or two, so no posts until Thursday.

Flashbacks

So I got lazy the past two days and failed to blog. As such, I'll try to recount them with the most detail I can muster.

Cheyenne, WY (Saturday):
There really wasn't much to do in this dry, dusty, cowboy town, whose "downtown" area's main attraction was a large visitor's center (closed by the time we got there at 6 pm). At least dinner was good. We happened upon Guadalajara Family Mexican Restaurant, which was located on a long street of chain restaurants, gas stations, Walmart, Target, and a few other big box stores. Even though we arrived at 5:30 (the earliest dinner we'd had in a very long time), there were already a number of people there, and only a few of them were senior citizens. The menu offered many options, but I ended up getting a huge plate with some carne asada, a chicken enchilada smothered with black mole, refried beans, salad, and tortillas. I wolfed it all down. And had a glass of horchata, too.

Afterwards, we walked around the aforementioned downtown. Apparently, we just missed "Cheyenne Frontier Days," a festival of some sort that took place in July. Here are some pictures of the most interesting things we saw: big boots painted by various artists (same idea as the "Cows on Parade" in Chicago)and a huge Wrangler store (with a humongous selection of cowboy boots inside).


Salt Lake City, Utah:
Like Ivan has already said, dinner in SLC was fantastic. Chanon Thai is somewhat hidden in the middle of a residential area, one of four storefronts in a tiny strip mall. While the pad thai and pork really hit the spot, my favorite parts of the meal were the appetizer and dessert. The starter: a crunchy green papaya salad with perfectly balanced sweet, salty, spicy flavors. The sweet ending: a homemade coconut ice cream whose slightly icy texture and rich, intensely coconut-y flavor made me think it was made with little more than coconut milk and sugar. Even better, it was served with two crisply fried banana-filled egg rolls. Who knew great Thai food could be found in Salt Lake City!

The drive away from the city this morning was picturesque in an eerie way. On first glance, the landscape seemed like it could've made for a great winter postcard, what with the blanket of white stretching along for miles on the ground. Except that, if you looked closer, the mountains were covered in brown rather than white and the "snow" was actually salt. At a quick stop at the gas station next to the Bonneville Speedway, we saw quite a few salt(and rust)-encrusted salt buggies. Seems like it would be fun to drive one of those, but also pretty dirty. The gas station (a pretty small one) had a shower and laundry machines inside. Pretty efficient, if you ask me!

Now we're in Reno and it's nearly time for dinner. More on that, later.

Day 7 Recap

Location: Salt Lake, Utah

MAP OF PROGRESS

Our internet was down last night so we couldn't get in the proper food blogs.

The drive yesterday was a lot more interesting. We passed through hilly and mountainous regions heading into Utah.

Lunch was sad again. We didn't find anything promising no the road, so we opted for Subway.

Dinner, however, was a different story. We went to Chanon Thai in Salt Lake City. Boy did that hit the spot! Green papaya salad, Pad Thai, and a marinated pork dish that was amazingly tender (again, a bit too salty for my tastes though).

Salt Lake City is not as Morman as I expected it to be, but the church does have some very large buildings in the middle of downtown. And, all the streets are named relative to the distance away from the Temple.

Keeping this short as we need to hit the road.

Next stop: Reno, NV.

Ivan

Day 6 Recap

Location: Cheyenne Wyoming.

It was a tough drive yesterday. Over the course of 6.5 hours, we covered 500 miles of the flat forgettable farmland that is Nebraska.

Aside from the truck/rest stop areas every 50 miles or so, there was nothing to see or do. We unfortunately were forced to stop at one of the big chain fast food joints along the way for lunch. I had never eaten at Wendy's, so we decided that was as good as any reason to make our choice.

My double was so greasy I had throw away the bottom bun. It was a grease sponge! The patty was ok for a fast food burger but way too salty.

We arrived in Cheyenne at about 5pm local time and were quite famished. I didn't actually finish my burger for lunch. I couldn't get myself to finish lettuce that had capillaries full of grease, let alone the patty itself.

Starved for some rice and 'asian' flavor. We actually decided to go to a Korean restaurant listed in the visitors guide. Korean in Cheyenne you ask? Yes, we were that desperate. Unfortunately, the restaurant was CLOSED on the weekends. I think that about sums up the city of Cheyenne. I don't know what you would do here if you weren't a farmer or rancher.

We ended up at a Mexican restaurant that was not too bad. The beef was very tasty, but way over salted. I noticed that things are really 'flavorful' out here in the middle of the country. Flavorful in the base sense. Salty and sweet. The Yoplait yogurt was sweeter than the ones I usually had for breakfast in Boston, the Wendy's burger was super salty just like the evenings beef.

Sandra took a picture of her food so, she'll post it up later.

After dinner we stopped by a Super Walmart. Boy was it super. If anything, this Walmart demonstrates how powerful and far reaching this global economy really is. Navel oranges from Australia? Stone fruit in the middle of cattle country? Amazing how all of this ships in to the middle of no where, still fresh and ready to eat.

This Walmart also demonstrates the true excess in which Americans live in. This place was as big as a football field. 200 feet, 5 shelf high aisles of just snack cookies and crackers? I saw a 3 foot long sandwich for 5 dollars! How do they do that??


Next stop: Salt Lake City.

Omaha

I wish I'd known about Julius Meinl when I still lived in Chicago. There are only two locations in the world: Austria and Chicago. Luckily, the Chicago one was only a 10 minute walk from Marsha's place, so we were able to stop by during our morning walk with Gus. The interior is what I imagine a Viennese cafe to look like inside: cute, airy, and well decorated. Unlike some of what I'd been having on this trip, the iced coffee that I got wasn't bitter and over roasted. I could actually taste the flavor of the beans. As for the apple strudel, the filling was delicious: tart granny smith slices that weren't too mushy, large golden raisins, and small pieces of almonds. Too bad the pastry tasted lean and slightly raw, as if someone skimped on the butter and didn't bake it quite long enough. Gus was pretty happy with the free milk bone he got from their cookie jar (located next to the milk and sugar station), which he held in his mouth during the entire 6+ blocks back until he could enjoy it in the car.

The stop in Iowa City was a nice break. We tried going to Motley Cow for lunch, but realized it was only open for dinner, so we went to The Hamburg Inn instead. The 97-degree weather would have made sitting on the bench outside of the restaurant nearly unbearable, were it not for the shade from the awning above us. In the attempt to be healthy (what a joke) we shared a deluxe grilled tenderloin sandwich rather than a breaded and fried one--"deluxe" meaning it came with a few pieces of iceberg lettuce and a couple of slices of tomato. Eh, overrated. Tasted like a really dry, overcooked piece of pork in a hamburger bun. The crinkle-cut fries that came with it were comforting in an odd way--reminded me of the slightly bendable fries that came with my elementary school lunches. The real reason we went to this restaurant, however, was for their famous "pie shakes." (Thanks for the suggestion, Katherine.) The first time I heard about such a thing, I couldn't imagine liking it: it's a slice of pie blended with ice cream. I like having pie a la mode, but ice cream with pie bits suspended in it? I wasn't so sure. We opted for peach pie, and it was surprisingly good (though the extremely hot weather probably helped). The peaches were fairly well integrated into the vanilla ice cream, while the pieces of pie crust could still be fished out in small chunks. In an effort to be healthy (ha!) we ate only 3/4 of the shake.

Once in Omaha, we walked around the Old Market area, which seemed to be a pretty happening place, what with its approximately 3x3-block square of restaurants and funky shops. For dinner, we took it easy, eating at La Buvette, a Euro-style wine bar/cafe/shop with bottles upon bottles of wine and spirits lining the painted brick walls. Since we were in supposedly one of the best cities for beef, we felt compelled to order some. Ivan got the "surf and turf" (steak and monkfish on top of mashed potatoes) and a salad, while I, ever the nonconformist, opted for gazpacho with goat cheese and a salad with fava beans and feta. These items were all prepared rather simply (no sauce on the steak, little if any cream in the mashed potatoes, basic vinaigrette on the salad), allowing their inherent flavors to really came through. We agreed that the beef did indeed tasted, for lack of a better word, "beefier" than normal. What made the meal even more impressive was the fact that there was just one chef preparing everything in the center of the store/restaurant with nothing more than two portable burners and two electric toasters. Not an easy feat. Despite having had the pie shake earlier in the day, I still wanted some ice cream. We stopped by Ted & Wally's to get some coconut coffee and pistachio almond ice cream, which turned out to be slightly melty (I prefer ice cream that is so hard it can be eaten with a fork) and tasted only faintly of what it was supposed to taste like. The pistachio flavor had odd dark green striations throughout (poorly integrated paste food coloring, perhaps?). I think living in Boston for the past three years has turned me into an ice cream snob. Oh, how I miss Christina's. And JP Lick's. And Toscanini's. And Richardson's. And Lizzy's...

Day 5

Location: Omaha Nebraska

Since Sandra is doing such a good job with the food descriptions, I'm just going to let her continue. I want our readers to know that Sandra takes this blog very seriously and works on it with the same fervor as if it had a real publishing deadline. Last night she stayed up until 1:30 am, when we were waking up at 5:30 am to hit the road, just to finish her entry.

We spent a full day in Chicago. Much thanks to Marsha for letting us stay at her place for two nights.

I was able to meet up with my cousin for lunch, and spent the afternoon with Brandon. Dinner was at Cafe Iberico. Fabulous food at affordable prices.

Before dinner, I walked about 16 blocks round trip to buy some Garrets popcorn. Garrets is a Chicago institution that specializes in flavored popcorn. The most notable being the 'Mini Mix' consisting of cheddar cheese corn and carmel corn mixed together. After buying it and eating a few, I realized how bad it is for you. We ended up throwing away most of it this afternoon to prevent us from eating any more of it.

Ok, I'm tired. Sandras turn.

Today, we drove to Iowa City and had an interesting concoction: a pie shake. Sandra will upload more info. But, it's vanilla ice cream, blended with a slice of pie of your choice. Ridiculous for sure.