Friday Five

The Week

<voice style=”Larry King”>Houston, Hello.</voice>

Yeah, back in Houston, again... But visiting here in April isn’t that big of a problem weather wise at least. No snow, and it’s not 90 degrees and humid. And on the plus side I managed to get in dinner with a friend. But, still, it’s Houston.

The Travel Note

As luck would have it, Drew Brees was on my flight – 2 seats away from me actually (I was in 2F, he was in 1B). Turns out he drinks cranberry & vodka, and is willing to sign every autograph and take every picture.

And, no, I didn’t ask for an autograph or even say anything to him. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just trying to live his life, trying to fly home. He doesn’t need me bugging him (much in the same way I don’t like being bothered with computer questions by random strangers). I do appreciate the fact that he’s friendly enough to put up with it. I will add, though, that I thought the flight attendants asking for pictures was rather unprofessional on their part.

The Restaurant

Ever since we've moved to San Diego, we've had many people tell us we need to do dinner at Busalacchi's. According to rumor, it was a favorite Tommy Lasorda who used to visit every trip to San Diego. But despite living in San Diego for 11 years now we'd never made the trip, similar to how you never take advantage of the museums and other tourist attractions in the town you live in. When we heard they were closing to move to a new location, we finally decided to give the place a visit.

The first thing that indicated to me it was going to be closing soon was that we were able to call on Wednesday and get a reservation for Friday - and call on Friday and push that reservation back 30 minutes without a problem. Upon arriving at the restaurant we saw why it was so easy - the place was empty, like tumbleweeds rolling through the restaurant empty (although I suppose that should be tumbleweeds made out of dried spaghetti to fit the location...) We sat outside on the patio, where there was one other couple who left about 20 minutes after we arrived giving us the patio to ourselves.
We started out with drinks - my usual manhattan (which was very good) and a white wine for the lady. We were informed of the specials, and settled on a lobster crepe with a cream sauce. Despite the cream sauce it was still remarkably light and very tasty.

For dinner I went with the lamb chop special, which was just dynamite. The veggies it was served with were cooked well - a nice al dente. My wife had a seafood pasta dish with scallops and shrimp. She enjoyed it, but thought the shrimp and scallops were a bit overcooked (although she is picky about that).

I was fine going without dessert, but when the dessert tray arrived my wife had to have their apple tart. This was the first time the experience fell flat on its face. Dessert was *terrible*! How do you screw up dessert? It's by far the easiest thing. The dessert tasted like it had been microwaved - the crust had no flakiness, no crisp - it was just terrible.

The service was very attentive, with just one faux pas at the end - the waiter gave us our check before we were actually done eating. Beyond that, he was very friendly and took great care of us.

It will be sad to see this place close down. If you haven't been here already, I'd definitely recommend a visit. But skip the dessert.

The Five

As I mentioned above, Karin and I really don’t take advantage of the city we live in, which is really pretty typical for most people I believe. Here are five things we either need to do or need to do more often.

1. Visit the beach. It’s less than 10 miles away, yet we make it there about once a year (tops).
2. Do more on the water. Sort of related going to be the beach, but different. I think I’ve been out on the water about twice in our 11 years.
3. Spend a day in Balboa Park. There’s There ARE many, many museums and sites there that we’ve never visited.
4. Roam the shops in La Jolla. Not that we could afford anything there, but it’s a great way to spend a day.
5. Hike up one of the mountains. Not once have I done that.