the other side

We realized that we should have gone to the restaurant on the other side of the hotel yesterday. It's so much better! I had an amazing cobb salad with grilled shrimp.

For dinner, we went to Benihana's and got a bit of a table show, which is to say, they cook your dinner in a fancy way right in front of you. The chefs seemed bored though. Maybe it does get mundane flipping knives and throwing food into people's mouths all evening.

There is an odd dichotomy in this town. Parts of it look shabby and dilapidated, while other parts look as though they've had a makeover with townhouses and cute shops and whatnot. the business district feels like a different place entirely.

pilot program

And so, we are in Harrisburg, PA. The first hotel room I was given smelled strongly of stale cigarette smoke. I always ask for a non-smoking room, so I had to be fussy for once and ask for a different room. And then there was no snack bar in any of the rooms. It's almost a ritual for me to unpack, grab a granola bar or M&Ms and some juice from the snack bar and see if, for once, I might have a decent view from my window. It almost upsets the balance not to have this ritual.

We had a horrible lunch at one of the hotel restaurants. Somehow, they even managed to ruin the stir-fried rice.

protect your potato

I've decided not to give out the name of the restaurant we were at tonight for Dad's birthday. It's enough to say that when a waitress squeeze open your baked sweet potato herself, without even asking you if that's all right, it's time to eat elsewhere. Potatoes are personal things - baked potatoes, doubly so. It's like someone freely dipping their fingers into your bowl of soup. And who said I wanted my potato squeezed open anyway?

I ate the steamed shrimp, and I ended up taking the green beans and the potato home. I don't know if I can bring myself to eat the abused potato now.