Dining Out
- Sunday: Korean
- Monday: Japanese
- Tuesday: Mexican
- Wednesday: Frou Frou
- Thursday (tentative): Vegetarian
- Friday (tentative): McDonalds
One thing about traveling for the government, one eats well. I am on a per diem of $44.00, and since breakfast (albeit spare) and lunch (gourmet) are being provided by Cornell, I have plenty of money left to spend on dinner.
I have already described my meal of Korean Sesame Chicken on Sunday. Monday, I found the Japanese restaurant open, so I had Asian for a second time. I was not impressed.
The meal was expensive, the portions miniscule. I have also come to the conclusion that if I am not brave enough to try sushi now, I probably won’t ever try it. I ordered teriyaki chicken instead.
Five tiny strips of chicken were served on something that looked like a school lunch tray, along with two jumbo fried shrimp and a broccoli sprig, also deep fried, two squares of fried tofu, and two little rolls of (I think) fish and sticky rice wrapped in seaweed.
Out of sheer hunger, I ate everything except the tofu, including the seaweed-wrapped fish and rice. I tasted the tofu; it was every bit as disgusting as the last time I ventured to try it. The chicken was good, I just wish there had been more of it. With only water to drink, the cost was $24.31.
Tuesday night, I stopped at a restaurant called Viva Cantina! My experience with Mexican food was much better, mainly because I got gloriously drunk by mixing liquor. I started with Metropolitans and moved on to beer, thus creating my own kind of confused Boilermaker. Believe me, I was even more confused by the time it was all over. But at least I am a happy drunk.
I think I ate a taco and chicken enchilada with black beans and rice, nothing spectacularly extravagant. Cost: $28.63.
Tonight, I found myself tagging along with a group of my co-workshop participants. Eight of us went to the Lost Dog cafe. I mentioned in my previous blog posts about how expensive the restaurants are here in Ithaca; Lost Dog, which reputes to be a student hangout and coffee shop, proved to be the most expensive in which I have dined so far.
If I had drank as much as I did the previous night, I would have totally blown my budget. I ordered the small Rigatoni á la Vodka ($11.95) with chicken (an extra $3.00) and a side salad ($3.50). I only had a beer to drink, and of course one never knows the price of liquor until the bill comes. Why is that?
Anyway, I still don’t know how much my beer cost, because no one told the server that we needed eight separate checks. I hate–absolutely hate–getting caught in that kind of trap. The total bill for the eight of us was $174 and some change.
I call it a trap because I never know if I’ve paid what I owe, or if I’ve paid too much or too little. It really irks me when this happens, and it has happened to me twice in my life. Each time, I’ve felt ripped off.
Although I did get to see the total bill, I can’t do math on paper, let alone in my head, and so I haven’t the foggiest clue how much I owed. I put twenty five dollars on the table and decided I’ll eat alone tomorrow night.
Thinking back on my own college experience, I don’t remember Morgantown and its restaurants being this expensive and élitist. The atmosphere is artsy and pretentious; and even the food is pretentious. The Korean Sesame chicken I had the first night was the only food I would describe as delicious.
And you can’t even get a Bud Light in any of the restaurants in which I’ve eaten; Yuengling is the only domestic beer on tap. I like Yuengling, but it’s odd that you can’t get Budweiser as well. There must be student hangouts somewhere in this college town where a man can buy a cheap draft beer.
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You won’t want to hear this, but it sounds like you have already had sushi: your “two little rolls of (I think) fish and sticky rice wrapped in seaweed” sounds like sushi to me. The question is did you eat it correctly? You are supposed to dip it in soy sauce and in that really hot green stuff whose name slips my mind.
Comment by Todd — Friday, 21 July 2006 @ 11:08 am
“wasabi” is that green hot stuff I mentioned previously.
Comment by Todd — Friday, 21 July 2006 @ 12:21 pm
I’m sure the people who eat at the Lost Dog were probably the ones on trust funds or who had daddy’s credit cards.
Comment by Heather — Saturday, 22 July 2006 @ 2:44 am
I didn’t eat it correctly. It was so small, I just popped it in my mouth. The fish did not look raw, so I don’t know if it was sushi or not. I didn’t ask for sushi, and I don’t recall it being on the menu as part of the meal…but I really don’t know the name for anything I ate. And I still can’t get over how small the portions were! Anyway, I am never going to have a craving for Japanese food. It is vastly overrated and expensive.
I had no idea about this, but Cornell is apparently an Ivy league school. Someone informed me of that on my last day, and I was surprised. Actually, I shouldn’t have been surprised…all week I felt like a total hick compared to all the people I met and saw. So you’re probably right, Heather–these restaurants have a much richer clientele as patrons.
Comment by Matthew — Saturday, 22 July 2006 @ 10:14 pm
Given your description of the tray the (very good sounding) food was served on, sounds like you had a bento box (which is, indeed, very much like a school lunch tray, and I recall reading that Japanese moms feel some inferiority keeping their kids’ bento as good as other kids’)–not a lot of any particular thing, but a little bit of a lot of things. I’m usually torn betweeen udon and bento when I go for Japanese food. Surprised you didn’t get any tempura fried vegetables or shrimp with it, though. Unless your broccoli sprig was tempura-fried. I envy your eating out so much, though. Best part of travel (especially travel on somebody else’s budget) is the food.
Comment by Dawn — Sunday, 23 July 2006 @ 2:34 am
The shrimp and brocolli was tempura fried; I could not think of the name of it. There was so little of it, I hardly felt like I even tasted it. Really, five small pieces of chicken, such as you might cut up for a chicken salad, two small pieces of rice-wrapped fish, two shrimps and a broccoli sprig, is not a meal worth the price I paid.
Comment by Matthew — Sunday, 23 July 2006 @ 9:13 am
Mmm, tofu. The problem with tofu is you have not had it prepared in a way that might be palatable to someone otherwise inclined to hate it. If it’s rubbery and raw, I can see why you wouldn’t like it (though I like it myself.) If it’s fried, it’s very tasty. But there is also an art to getting tofu to have more texture; if you freeze it and unthaw it, it’s supposed to get the consistency of chicken. And you can also purchase baked tofu, which also has a harder texture and is quite yummy.
Japanese food can be intimidating, too. I always have to ask what everything is, and am often still not pleased by the result. I much prefer being a coward and getting something like California rolls. And asking for silverware. Japanese is not my favorite food, but I can eat it.
Comment by Mel B. — Sunday, 23 July 2006 @ 1:57 pm
I “think” sushi does not have to be raw fish. It can include cooked fish, but, again, it is never simply “fish.” Normally, you eat it with something. If you ever eat sushi again, ask for a caterpillar roll. It’s eight or nine pieces of sushi shaped like a caterpillar with avocado and asparagus. Right now, I have to admit that my favorite cuisine, the cuisine that gets my mouth watering the most, is japanese. Unfortunately, we were only just getting a taste for this stuff when we left Lansing. Not much around here of the Asian sort, unless you count Chinese Buffet.
Comment by Todd — Sunday, 23 July 2006 @ 10:24 pm