Totally Unauthorized

I talked so much about food and Lady Gaga yesterday I forgot to mention bridge.  Probably because the bridge was so forgettable.

Mike and I played the compact KO with Don and Linda Mamula.  We squeaked through the first match, nosing out a good team by 1 imp, then had a big win in the second match against another tough team.

After our luxurious dinner at the deli, we lost to a pair of teams I thought were not as good as the first two.  I don’t understand these things.

Today, I played the Silver Ribbon Pairs with Tom Jacobsen.  Just why the league feels the need to have a national championship limited to the 93 or so per cent of us who are over 55 is a mystery on a par with why pants are a “pair”. Nonetheless, this is our third year in this event, and we made the cut the first two.

But not today.  We were about half a board below average in the first session, and a tiny fraction above in the second, but it wasn’t enough.  We even got a tiny gift when the pair we were to start against in the second session showed up 10 minutes late and we got an average plus for the second board.  You would think that if you came all the way to Kentucky to play in a national event you could get back from dinner on time, but these guys weren’t up to the task.  They also got a 1/4 board penalty.

On the subject of penalties, the Galt is a non-smoking hotel, and the league threatens to throw anyone caught sneaking a butt anywhere on the property out of the event–but then 50 smokers head for the stairwell after every round, and the directing staff just ignores them.  Am I the only one who thinks unenforced laws are worse than no laws at all?

So  you will want to know about dinner.  We went to Saffron, a Persian restaurant on Market street, 4 blocks from the playing site.  Had a 6pm reservation, but they were having a problem–one of the servers got sick and went home, leaving only two people for the entire place.  Although they were working like cocaine crazed rats, there were simply swamped and could not keep up.

We got to a table, then sat there for 10 minutes until someone could come over.  There is a fairly standard Persian (which is sort of code for Iranian, but nobody wants to admit to being Iranian in the US) menu, but then they mention the specials–which they have every day, but like to call specials for some reason.  There are two: lamb and duck.  The lamb is described as “eight pieces of lamb, with rice and vegetables.  $32.  The duck is duck with orange sauce and rice, $27.  Micky, Linda and Tom each had the lamb and I had the duck.

They brought us a plate of feta cheese and greens, that you wrap in pita and enjoy as an appetizer, then I had some spinach dish, Linda had some eggplant dish (which I tried and didn’t die from, but I still don’t like eggplant).  Tom and Mike had the Greek Salad (why Greek in a Persian restaurant?  who knows, this is Kentucky).  Then, quickly enough given the lack of staff, the entrees arrived.

The lamb specialty--an incredible plate of food.

The “eight pieces” of lamb turned out to be an entire rack! When we have guests for dinner, one rack serves two and sometimes three people, and here it was on a dinner plate for one, with rice and vegetables, too.  This meal would easily feed two people, and it was good, too.

Duck a l'orange, Persian style

My dish was half a duck, in orange sauce, with rice and some non-specific brown soupy matter, plus vegetables.  I liked the duck, mixed the rice with the brown soupy matter and smacked it down.  One doesn’t think of duck a l’orange as a Persian dish, but there you have it.

It took a while, but Mike got his glass of wine.  The fresh hot bread they promised never appeared.  Nobody even thought about dessert after all that food, and we walked back to the hotel for a desultory evening of bridge.

Assuming that the sick server shows up tomorrow, this restaurant is a good choice–take the lamb special, split it with a friend, get a salad and you’ve got a feast for a reasonable price.