RANTING AND RAVING
“The waist is a terrible thing to mind.” - Ziggy
July began and predictably, the city was held hostage by a scorching heat wave. The relentless humidity caused starched collars to wrinkle in the blink of an eye. Exhausted dogs panted in the shade, old ladies held umbrellas skyward to deflect the sun’s searing rays and the profanity overheard on the sweltering streets was an accurate barometer of the rising temperature.
But below ground it was even worse. The air in the subway was like a winter broth but its fetid odor was reminiscent of nothing quite so good.
He mopped his brow for the thousandth time and considered his options. His favorite restaurant was only four steps away and by 8 pm a window table would be easy to come by. A chilled bottle sauvignon Blanc and a dozen fresh oysters seemed like the perfect way to end his day and begin his evening. He smiled as he realized that there really weren’t any other options.
This subliminal message was brought to you by Angus McIndoe restaurant, 212-221-9222 www.angusmcindoe.com 258 West 44th Street, NYC.
How’s that for a magazine ad grabber? Published August 1st in Nation’s Restaurant News, I thought this was probably the classiest, funniest ad ever.
BUT THAT’S AS GOOD AS IT GETS. I’m in a foul mood. Y’all know that old expression, “Some days you get the bear, some days the bear gets you.” Well, the bear and I have been doing lotsa tangling and I’m coming in a distant second.
On Bowling. G and I “retired” from the sport of bowling some 20+ years ago. I’ll be damned if I can figure out why we started again. It was the food. I’ve written previously about the great grub at Lucky Strike Bowling Alley (415 S. Teller St, 303/935-5793; www.bowlluckystrike.com). G and I have been going to a movie at the Belmar Century Theatre just about every Sunday late afternoon for the past three months. The, we mosey across the street and dine at LSBA. The buggers are big, hand-packed, cooked to order and served on a great roll. The skewers are terrific, we luv the filet mignon. Service is efficient and friendly. The ambiance is like no other sports facility anywhere.
About three weeks ago we (G and no one) decided to try bowling again. We took our 11-yr old Nephew Ole and all of us…let’s just say that if my bowling score and my golf score were reverse, I’d be The Champ. The King. G walked around and gloated for days. I admit she wupped me bad. And I usta carry a 220 average. The only good thing to come out of that first “incident” was that Ole won a bunch of free bowling for the family. So last week G decided we should take our two granddaughters bowling. It was embarrassing to say the least. Emma is 4 ¾ and Harper just turned three. I beat Emma by five pins and Harper by three! Yeah, ok, they had those cheater guards up and couldn’t throw a gutter ball if they tried, whereas I managed to be the family dodo and live in the gutter. It was really bad. But all was not lost; we did have some great grub. They have these macaroni and cheese balls that are terrific. And I hate macaroni and cheese. But the best is the house made chocolate chip cookies. Yo!
On Moving. Nothing to do with dining, but this is my column and I can write whatever I want…as long as Jody publishes it. OK, I’ll have a segue in here somewhere.
Last November my landlord finally agreed to replace the 1970’s (1960’s?) burnt orange carpet in my office. We had to move everything out and back in so the carpet folks could do their thing. The stuff only had to go about 100 yards to a vacant office in the complex where I had my office. Still, it was torturous. The movers moved the big stuff – writing that check was torturous in and of itself – and my nephews and niece helped with moving the hundreds of books as well as trash cans, file folders, desk accessories, pictures and just plain STUFF. Office downtime – three full days.
This spring, for a variety of reasons, I decided to share offices with several other CPAs that I’ve known for some time. That meant MOVING again. Hired a moving company to move all the big stuff, but there were boxes and boxes and boxes of STUFF. We tried to minimize the effort by discarding lots of stuff that Daughter Camille (mother of the Bowling Baddies – c above) decided I didn’t need. No matter, the move was excruciating. I had been in the former building 17 years and had accumulated lots of STUFF. Office downtime – about four weeks.
Of course when I got into the new offices, we found that between my practice and the other practice, not only did we have lots of duplicate STUFF (staplers, scratch pads, pens and pencils, envelopes, accounting pads, etc) that we didn’t need two loads of, but we decided that we were both pack rats and had to change our ways. So we shredded and shredded and almost got most of the STUFF put away when disaster struck.
Last Sunday morning a water line broke and flooded the office carpeting. Fortunately there was no damage to any client records or our records, but all the STUFF had to be…moved…again. So sad. Too bad. Me mad. It’s bad. Not glad. I’ve just about had…it. Sure hope it’s an…are you ready for this baddy…a fad.
Of course the lovely kitchen we had is not habitable, so we now have the opportunity to eat lunch out. There’s a Bennigan’s next door, but the smoking will gag you, so we rarely go there. There’s a Hoffbrau Bar & Grill a few blocks away, but you have to go thru the smoking section to get to the non-smoking section. Yeah, there is an outside entrance to the non-smoking section, but guess where the johns are. Clear thru to the front of the restaurant where you get to gag your way thru the entire smoking section. There’s a Chez Denoire across the street, next to an Old Chicago. Pass on both. My favoritist sub shop is a few miles south, Little King, where they have the best sangies in town, and you never know what the price is gonna be. Sometimes they charge $.50 for double meat, some times a dollar, and sometimes two dollars. Depends on who’s working that day. Sometimes they put two scoops of tuna on a 12-inch sangie; sometimes they put three scoops on. All depends. I go for the mystery. Little King (8500 W. Crestline Ave, 303/948-3802; www.littlekinginc.com). Usually we eat out front.
WHAT’S WITH THE PALM? Is the one in other cities as screwed up as the one here? I do luv the place but still. The food is as unpredictable as the Colorado Rockies. Now read my words. I didn’t say that the Rockies were unpredictable, did I? No, I sed the food at the Palm was “as predictable as the Rockies”: about 90% of the time it’s gonna be bad. At the Palm your steak will come charred or not, depending on the cook. The hash browns will come either buttery or burnt, depending. The buggers will come gray or perfect or overdone or underdone. And on it goes. There are two dishes that are always perfect. The first, Joey’s Backyard chili, is no longer on the menu. The other is the maaavelous luncheon NY strip salad. The luncheon steaks are as thin as my dreams, so you can’t eat them. Way too expensive for crap. But I still go there cuz I luv the ambiance and the service. Both first rate. And I luv the steak salad. It don’t matter who the manager is; you’ll never see him unless your name is Steve Farber or Mayor someoneorother.
And that’s another fine day of ranting and raving. Thanks for joining me today.
NMMNG Jay Fox’s column can be viewed at his web site, www.jayfoxcpa.com, along with the past two plus year’s of dining columns. You will also find all kinds of good tax planning advice, financial calculators and the latest in tax news. In his real life Jay is a CPA. He just writes this column for the money.