Fiddlesticks
We played yesterday in the Mixed Pairs, and qualified to be in the compact KO’s today. Our friends Nancy Ferguson and David Bryant are in the same boat, so that’s our team.
First thing I noticed–the put the selling desk right by the front door, creating an enormous bottleneck just to get into the room. It’s not like these guys have never run a tournament before, why don’t they give some thought to the traffic pattern?
First round of the compact, we’re in a round robin. We win one match and tie the other; the team we tied also beat the third team so we advance to the second round.
Second round, things fall apart. Nancy opens 1C, there is a re-opening double, everybody passes and she manages to take 2 tricks, down 1400. I told them at the start not to bring back any -1100s, and they didn’t. We just qualified for the loser Swiss tonight.
Here’s your education for the day. When I said “fiddlesticks” (or something like it), it made me wonder where that word came from. So I looked it up on Wikipedia
Fiddlesticks are traditional instruments used to add percussion to old-time and Cajun fiddle music, allowing two persons to play the fiddle at the same time. While the fiddler plays in normal fashion, a second person uses a pair of straws, sticks, or knitting needles to tap out a rhythm on the strings over the upper fingerboard (between the bow and the fiddler’s fingering hand).
You would think the fiddle was tough enough to play without some bozo beating on the side of the thing, but at least now I know the derivation of the word.
Good Food in Saint Louis
Nothing is easy, everything is an adventure.
The plan tonight was to eat at Mango, a Peruvian restaurant not that far from our hotel, but farther than Gail cares to walk.
No problem, this is a big city, we’re in a luxury hotel, get a cab. Hah.
The cabs don’t line up outside the Embassy Suites, so I asked the bellman to get us one for 5:55. He said no problem, and when we got down from the room a cab did indeed appear in a 2 or 3 minutes.
We gave him the name and address of the restaurant, and I wasn’t thrilled to see him instantly call his dispatcher to get directions, in Farsi.
Mango is at 1101 Lucas street, and our driver, talking all the way in Farsi, drove us straight to 1101 Locust street, and the restaurant Rooster. Yes, he had a GPS in his car, no he wasn’t using it. I used the one in my phone and directed him the 4 blocks to the right place–this whole trip, wrong address and all was less than 10 blocks. Competency is not a requirement to be a cabbie in Saint Loo. Big tips aren’t required, either.
Now we’re at Mango. I go in, introduce myself, tell them I have a reservation. They say the table isn’t quite ready, and show us to the bar. 20 minutes later we get to the table. I think that’s the first time that’s happened in the dozens and dozens of times I’ve made Opentable reservations.
The good news is that Gail asked the bartender for a South American white that wasn’t sweet, and got some kind of wine she really liked. Of course, she’ll never have it again because we don’t have the name, but there are a lot of wines in the world and she won’t go thirsty. I ordered a caipirinha, a Brazilian rum drink you usually cannot find because it takes a special kind of Brazilian rum. Another winner for the bar at Mango. (I wanted to try to find the wine Gail had online, but for some reason most restaurants put their menus on their website but not their wine lists. I wonder why? Wouldn’t that be a selling point to the wine snobs?)
After about 20 minutes, a table appeared. This is the only time in the dozens and dozens of occasions I’ve used Opentable that they have made me wait–we almost always go right in to our seats.
Mango is a lovely facility, lots of woodwork, brick walls, tablecloths, linen napkins and good, heavy silverware. We got a seat by the window and enjoyed the evening light.
They brought chips and salsa to the table, but not like any chips and salsa you’ve ever had:
Banana chips and salsa verde
The little chips don’t really taste of banana but they have a richness and creaminess that corn chips don’t. The salsa verde was incredibly good–Gail ended up using it all on her stew later on.
We started with a tamalita, a small tamale. It was completely spectacular. The pickled onions it came with were a perfect accompaniment for the rich spicy masa.
One of the great tamales in existence
The salad was just so-so. We ordered the avocado and tomatoes: liked the avocado, liked the cheese, liked the tomatoes. Had little use for the chopped up bits of lettuce.
Liked everything about the salad except the lettuce.
My entree was the Lomo Saltado, described as:
Sirloin steak strips stir-fried with sweet onions, tomatoes, garlic & Peruvian peppers; served with white rice & garnished with steak fries.
which turns out to be the Peruvian version of Mongolian Beef, but a damn sight better than Yan’s China Garden makes. Big chunks of tender beef, onions and some magical Peruvian spicing brought this dish to a new world of flavor.
Gail had the Seco de Carne, which is more of a beef stew.
Cilantro infused flank steak strips, garlic & onions, simmered in its own juices; served with rice and beans.
What she didn’t finish, I did. Another excellent dish.
No dessert, we didn’t have time after the long wait for a table and didn’t need it anyway.
Overall, the service wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great. Just a couple of little things–the waiter asked if I wanted lemon in my iced tea, I said I preferred lime, he brought it with lemon. The bus boy promised more chips, never delivered. And of course, the wait for the table, whether that was really a lack of tables or the old ploy to get us to spend time/money at the bar you never know.
We really like Mango, would clearly be willing to go back and easily recommend it. Try not to overeat on the chips, but it will be hard.
Interview with the umpire
Okay, he says he isn’t the umpire, he’s the commissioner, but that doesn’t make a cute title.
I’m talking about Big Don Mamula, president of the ACBL this year and an old friend of mine.
Don surrounded by admirers–Nancy Ferguson and Gail
The questions today centered on the incredibly slow start to the Mixed Pairs. In our room, the players at the seeded tables didn’t get there until 1:30, for a game that was to start at 1 pm. Gail talked about them coming in like it was a wedding and they were the wedding party.
Don pointed to a big problem: the seeding just takes too long. As more and more players get high numbers on points and think they are entitled to prestigious seeded tables, the process takes longer. The solution, he thinks, is to stop selling seeded entries 15 minutes prior to game time. If you can’t get there early, you can sit with the hoi polloi. He says the directors he has talked to like this idea, as do most of the better players. It makes sense to me, and I hope he can get it through the board and working.
The second issue is more complex. Apparently, there was severe weather in Atlanta this morning, and some other airline hubs, and a number of players didn’t make it to Saint Louis–but their partners didn’t know it, and bought entries. This left sudden holes in the movements, and players had to be moved around.
Then, there is a new directive that the directors should sell only 13 table sections in National events, and the one remaining section will be worked out with a web movement. But when there are holes, the sections can’t just be compressed because they were only 13 tables to begin with. It’s a structural impossibility, and very difficult to deal with. This led to the catastrophe this afternoon, and there is no easy fix, you just have to deal with problems when they arise.
Okay, you’re bored, this subject is arcane and I’m the only one who really cares. Thanks for reading this far, I’ll get back to restaurants in the next post.
This isn’t going well
It is 1:45, and they have just called the move for the second round in the opening session of the mixed pairs. Why Is it going so slowly? I think because the seeding has become a major bottleneck.
Two of the most important people on the seeding committee have passed away recently. Nadine Wood and Jim Kirkham were the backbone of seeding for many years.
Tonight, I’ll talk to League president Don Mamula about what’s happening with this situation. There is simply no excuse for the seeded players to get to the table 30 minutes late. It is disrespectful to the entire field to start the game this late, and have the movement out of sync the rest of the day.
Missouri dining
Since I write so much about restaurants, I guess it’s time to talk about the food here in St. Louis. So far, not exciting.
Mike is staying at the Hampton Inn, which has an arrangement with the Metropolitan Athletic club across the street, which is normally closed to the public. The building is one of those rich dark places with lots of local history, but the food was pretty mediocre. The bread basket also included a dish with two warm sticky buns, all maple and walnut-y. Odd but tasty.
Winter salad–pear, pomegranate, walnuts and more
The salad was great–adding the pomegranate seeds (I guess that’s what you call those little red bursts of goodness) is a great idea.
The pork chops I ordered made a lovely presentation:
double cut pork chop, maple glazed with apple chutney.
My entree looked great, and if the chops hadn’t been as hard as a rock I probably would have loved them. Eating shouldn’t be this much work.
Some kind of fish, with veggies and twice baked potato.
Mike had the fish, which was undistinguished, and the twice baked potato, which was very good.
Dinner over, we asked for the check. They brought it complete–added up, tip added in and already faxed over to Mike’s hotel. Private clubs don’t take cash, I guess.
One odd thing we saw:
Haven’t seen one of these in a long time.
The club has a bar, which you walk through to the dining room. Here in Missouri, you can smoke in a bar, and the odor hits you in the face like a wet mackerel.
The next night we went to 400 Olive, which is the restaurant in the lobby of the Hilton. I liked my crab and corn soup, thought the pasta had way too much sauce and wished the bread pudding didn’t have the raspberry coulis. We were the only people there (eating too early on Saturday night) and still the waiter couldn’t get the order right–he didn’t figure out that Mike wanted to eat dinner, too. There was nothing to impress me here.
Last night, we went to Mike Shannon’s, supposedly one of the premier dining establishments. I remember eating here 6 years ago, and liking it.
This is the mid-west, it seemed right to have the beef. That and the fact that there was no really interesting fish on the menu.
Nothing like a rare prime rib.
The good–this was a really tasty piece of beef. The bad–it had more strange, unidentifiable, inedible parts than any prime I’ve ever had. The presentation was odd–the meat was almost floating in “au jus”, which tasted strongly of Worcestershire sauce and left me thirsty for the rest of the evening.
The creamed spinach Micky and I shared was more cream than spinach, gloppy, gluey and glutinous. There was no bread at the table. The waiter put my soup down in front of me, and it looked just like a caesar salad, because it was–another order writing failure. The whole experience was distinctly non-thrilling.
Except for the cab ride back to the playing site–we walked there, but now it was pouring rain. The house called a cab for us, and there were a bunch of other bridge players waiting for a ride. A gypsy limo pulled up (the driver has an in with Mike Shannon’s) and all eight of us piled in for a very raucous and rowdy ride back to the playing site.
Finally, I found some really good food here–the after game refreshment on St. Patrick’s Day:
Spinach tortilla wrap with corned beef and cabbage
Q, Q, beautiful Q
That’s right–Micky and I got the big Q tonight. That perseverance stuff pays off, we just kept plugging. Not so good this afternoon, 46.6%. This evening, played better and got a few gifts. 57%. They’re qualifying half the field, and we’re more than 2/3 of a board over average.
Tonight’s recap sheet. I had to add the Q in photoshop because the directors didn’t print the sheet correctly.
The 1.45 platinum points are just icing on the cake, the important part is that we get to play tomorrow in the finals.
This made me feel so good I gave $5 to a bum in the street on the way home. If you have to be begging in the rain in 37° weather, God love you. I guess I can share some of my good fortune.
Finals are tomorrow. Stay tuned.
Sunday night update
SR wants an update. It’s raining, hard. It’s cold, real real real cold.
The weather is better than the bridge I have been playing.
The bridge has been better than the restaurants.
Gail arrives tomorrow. Things are looking up.
Saint Louis Blues
This guy got on the train as I was writing in from the airport. He’s going to the hockey gam–the local team is called The Blues. Little did I know that he would be an omen for the way the bridge has gone here.
Thursday night we played the Educational Foundation pairs and were just average. Today, we started play in the in IMP pairs and thought it was going alright. We were 3.60 imps above in the first session, then ran into a bulldozer. Our evening session started slow, went downhill, hit rock bottom, and then started digging. It was easily the worst game Mike and I have had in over two decades of playing together.
The good thing about playing with Mike is his even temperament. Although we had disaster after disaster after catastrophe and calamity, we both managed to stay calm, moderately cheerful, and pleasant. Losing is no fun, but you don’t have to make yourself miserable about it. Some of the things that happened were our fault, some of them were brilliancies by the opponents, some were just bad luck.
Last year, we also did not qualify in this event, although not as dramatically. Then we went on to win the A/x pairs the next day. Keeping your cool and soldiering on is the only way to have success in the long term.
Wendy Sullivan, convention planner extraordinaire, put on an excellent opening reception last night. There was music, dancing and food, and the players turned out in throngs. I came here with my dancing shoes and my “Born to Dance” suspenders, so you know I enjoyed myself. Now, every muscle in my legs is sore from all the fun I had. If you can’t play bridge, at least you can dance.
Always something new
One of the best days of the year, I’m off to the nationals today. The usual silly routing, I had to go from San Francisco to Seattle to get to St. Louis.
However everything is an adventure. With my two and a half hour layover in Seattle I’m in the Admirals Club and what do I see but a pancake machine.
You just press the button, and a few seconds later a hot fresh pancake drops out the end. No chef required. My mother would have loved this when we were kids.
Mike and I will play the charity pairs tonight then start the IMP pairs in the morning. Silver ribbon pairs on Sunday, then Gail arrives for the mixed pairs. Home next Thursday with my big boy bridge addiction sated for a while.
Stay tuned, it’s always a great ride.
Oyama Sushi
First impressions are important, and Oyama Sushi in Lafayette, near Trader Joe’s, did not make a good one tonight.
Mike and Linda told us about this place and how beautifully the food was presented. Sushi is supposed to be “edible art”, so we were expecting everything to be looking great. When we walked in the door, the first thing I saw was tables covered in dirty plates on two tables and three seats at the counter. It was only because of the good recommendation that we even stayed.
A waitress appeared and said they would have a table cleared in a minute or two. A bus boy very slowly made his way out of the back and slowly and poorly cleaned a table. Then they deigned to seat us, at one of the tables that wasn’t dirty in the first place.
Folks, this is not a good first impression.
Then we ordered, and found that the food, at least, is indeed beautiful.
Rainbow roll–crab inside, then rice, then various cuts of fish.
I’m a big fan of the rainbow roll. It’s your basic California roll topped with slices of a variety of fish. This one had salmon, albacore, yellowfin and one more.
Godzilla roll–deep fried fish and special sauce.
Gail prefers her sushi cooked, so here is a Godzilla. It was just OK, and perhaps a bit overcooked.
Then the star of the evening:
Raider Roll
The Raider Roll is
Deep fried salmon, cream cheese, asparagus roll topped with spicy crab salad and tobiko
It’s good. Really good. Good enough to make up for bad bus boy work, mostly. The plate is stunning, and so is the taste. No matter what else you order, order this first.
And that’s the end of the story. Prices are about the same as any other sushi bar around. The wine list is slightly more than “white, red, rosé”. Service is adequate but not spectacular. The only reason to pick this place over the place you usually go to is the Raider Roll. But that might just be enough.
Totally Unauthorized 