I am lazy

man, as I get older, I feel I am getting lazier. I don't mean I am lazy like I don't do my dishes, or don't clean my apartment and that kind of shit. I mean I just don't have the energy or wanting to make the effort to deal with some people's bullshit. I try to listen to what other people have to say, but there are times my laziness sets in and I just want them to shut the fuck up and get out of my fucking face. I am not sure what I should do about this.

christmas at the tropps

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Another long and boring blog entry involving me stuffing
my face and getting wasted.

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my friend jim and his wife helen was nice enough to invite me to their house for christmas dinner on the 24th, despite the fact that they actually have known me for a while. Having attending the labor day BBQ couple of years ago at their house, and through numerous conversation with jim at work, I know these guys don't fuck around when it comes to food and wine.

We started with champagne that had a splash of armanagac liqueur in it, and exchange greetings and all that crap (eight of us, all really nice people with the exception of me, of course). Once we sat down, the meal started with a mixed green salad. What impressed me about the salad was not the fact that it had edible flowers or italian ham in it, it was that the greens was perfectly dressed, right amount of dressing, each leaf nicely coated, and balanced amount of oil and acidity (I did see chez pains cook book on a shelf). Too often, in restaurants or home kitchens, you see perfectly nice lettuce drowning in god knows what. We had a bottle of pleasant Muscat with the salad.

Next was haddock filets poached in a shell fish broth with shrimps and crab meat. The flavor of the dish was really clean, everything in it tasted fresh. It was a good example of when you have nice ingredient, you just don't need or want to fuck with it too much. With this, we had a 87 chablis (Raveneau, I think) chaplet that was pretty incredible. I thought the mineral quality was not excessive, and the wine was quite aromatic behind the nutty smell on the nose. The wine was delicately balanced, and I appreciate it more as I think about it more. It was unforgettable.

Jim had wanted to serve squab, but the dude he thought he would get it from ran out of it. So he roasted new zealand rack of lamb with bacon, served it with french beans and potato gratin (the gratin was textbook, I have attempted to do this at home several times in the past, always fucked it up in varying degree). With the lamb, we had a what jim called 'parallel' tasting of st. julien. It was 94 Leoville-las cases, and 94 Leoville Barton. Both wines were quite elegant yet intense, still with noticeable but fine tannin, both were also still extremely dark purple. The Barton tasted more savory, while the las cases had lots more dark fruit character, I can probably on and on, but I know most people don't really care what I have to say about these wines (they can just read parker, or better yet, drink it and taste for themselves), but I really enjoyed every bit of it.

Before the cheeses were served, we finished both of the 94's. So jim opened a bottle of 82 La Lagune. After tasting it, he said this is probably the first 82 he has tasted that is ready, and he was right, the tannin has faded, and yet the currant-black berry flavor still huge. This wine was more fruit forward than the 94's, more ripe and powerful in comparison. It was a wonderful wine to enjoy with the stilton, asiago, buchron (a creamy goat, it may not have been the right name) and a vermont white cheddar we had.

I don't usually eat sweets, but helen's home made profiteroles were pretty great, we also had some store bought hazelnut tart or something like that that someone brought to the party.

Thanks again to jim and helen for letting me be part of their holiday celebration, and thanks for all the great food, wines and good times.

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my good friend from college, lopez, was in town a while ago. It has been probably at least a year and half since I saw this cuban motherfucker last in LA. We had an awesome meal at the Ame restaurant in the St. Regis hotel. Like the other premier hotel dinning establishment downtown (ritz dinning room, michael mina at St. francis hotel), this place was really fucking expensive. I think all the appetizers were at least $15, all the entrees were at least $35 (we didn't do the tasting menu, it was sort of a late dinner). We had kumomoto oysters three ways, foie gras terrine with eel salad (talking about some rich shit), and smoked sturgeon with wasabi custard and a bottle of pretty weird (in a good way) rose sparkling from oregon (really the only champagne I can afford on the list).

The risotto I had with braised pork and chantrelle mushroom and white truffle was one of the best dish I had this year in a restaurant. The wagyu beef lopez had was not bad. The bottle of kosta browne pinot we had was delicious. But this extremely ripe and fruit focused pinot really doesn't taste like pinot anymore, it reminded me of a good syrah from washington.

What impressed me the most was the service. it was easily the best restaurant service I have had in the last two years, any where. It was very relaxed, non hotel dinning room like, yet extremely professional and not casual. They easily picked up the fact that we had a lot of shit talking to do and set the pace accordingly. Other than questions on food and wine, we never had to asked for anything, since everything we wanted and needed was right there and then. In a supposedly food crazed town, service of this caliber should be more common place, but that is certainly not the case. Joel (general manager, a real bad ass) had done his job well.

This meal cost me more than a quarter of my paycheck (I think), but spending time with lopez and considering the quality of everything we had, it was a restaurant meal that was actually almost worth the money.

merry fucking christmas

I have nothing against christmas or any other religion related holidays, especially those involving tons of drinking and eating. But why the fuck are people so obsessed with birthdays of people who have been dead for a long time? Why do people celebrate birthday for anyone, dead or alive, anyway? People are born everyday, it is really not that special. I just don't get it.

sunday sunday sunday

I usually take it pretty easy on sundays, watching really fat and big people in tights trying to kill each other chasing around a thing made with pig skin, and eat tons of food. But this past sunday, a disaster crew of people consist of the columbian, curly hair and nate, drag me out into the dark. One of the stop was this dive bar in chinatown called 'bow bow'. We had an unbelievable time there. How can you go wrong with screaming chinese dudes drinking shots of Remy, un-limited peanuts, homeless people dressed way nicer than we do, and karaoke.

Here is nate, at least twice as tall anyone else in the bar but us, singing country western tunes, while we just laughing our asses off. It doesn't get better than this on a sunday.