Monday, July 30, 2007

Taste of India working out the kinks

I made my first trip to the new Taste of India the other night. They are still working out the kinks. First, I seem to recall the old version being open pretty much always. We were hungry as hell at 5, so we showed up then, but no go. They open at 6. We got there at 6 and it took a full 45 minutes plus to bring our order. There was only one other small table with customers. They were very apologetic and nice about it, but hopefully the kitchen is operating smoother in the future. Forty five minutes with two kids is a nightmare in a restaurant, though Alex wasn't too nuts.

I got my usual Chicken Curry, which is the best I've ever had anywhere and it was as good as always. I ordered the Fish Tikka, and there was a sauce for it that I swear tasted exactly like mouthwash. It was the worst sauce I've ever tasted, but the fish itself was ok. The old guard of friendly folks is all gone. They have relocated to the Guam location. Good for them, but their now absent good natured presence takes away from the place.
***
Cynthia won a free night at Fiesta Resort. The pool there is atrocious. Dirty and so heavily chlorinated as to be unpleasant. The kids' pool was always closed. The buffet was generous, lobster at a $20 buffet, but not especially good. I've been to their teppenyaki restaurant and have liked it.
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I ate out a lot on my trip to the states. One thing that has changed, at least in wealthy New Jersey, is that people eat out every night of the week now. It used to be just weekends. Places were packed on a Wednesday. In contrast, I went to Tijuanas here in Saipan on Saturday around 8. Not a soul in this place. That place isn't that good really, but our economy absolutely blows.
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Tomorrow is the last day of summer vacation. Yecch. I'm as uneager to return as the students right this second. The key to being a teacher is to survive the first three months with your sanity. There are hardly any holidays in that period. After that, there are a ridiculous number of days. I suppose I'll feel better once I get in the flow. Being switched from seniors to freshmen with no notice does not help.
***
I met this guy Travis while diving in Palau. He was more interested in paddling and camping than diving, but he is a cool dude and I like hanging with him. He lived on one of the rock islands, often alone, for a month -- pretty much living off the land. He wrote about it here and it is pretty interesting. He had some other good posts, but blocked them for some unknown reason. I asked him why in an email just now. Definitely worth a read.
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For more serious, adult minded movie fare, I recommend a film on DVD, strangely enough, called Little Children. It has four main characters, an emasculated man, a woman in a loveless marriage, a child molester (Kelly from Bad News Bears many moons ago, and very weird looking) and an ex-cop obsessed with making the now free child molester's life hell. The coldness and bitchiness of suburbia is well represented. It is definitely not a dopey action movie. It is probably my favorite movie since The Illusionist.

6 comments:

Brad Ruszala said...

...but how did you vote for Tina?

http://beachboyinparadise.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-poll.html

Jeff said...

I'm going to stay out of appearance critiques. You're the sexiest blogger, I'll leave it to you to weigh in on that one.

Angelo Villagomez said...

Jeff, Travis is friends with my former roommate, The Angry Sicilian. The Angry One's blog is:

tetricus.blogspot.com

He is my Minister of Propaganda

Anonymous said...

We've got some sort of Florida, Chicago, Saipan, Palau thing going here. :)

I miss hanging out with Travis.. its been nearly a year since I've seen him.

Anonymous said...

You know why he is passwording his blog?

Anonymous said...

I think its open now...