Chapter 4: Jet Setting
Last Monday, left to my own devices in New York, I headed down to Chinatown to meet up with my old boss Yung for lunch and a brief tour of his old neighborhood. Apparently, eating in Chinatown is an all day event. Lunch was Dim Sum style with monolingual Cantonese waitresses smothering our small table with piles of steamed muscles, dumplings, pork rolls and a couple weird jelly-like concoctions the color of dirty dishwater. This was followed by dessert at a candy shop, where we sampled spicy monkfish chips, fried squid, fish and sesame sticks, and a wide assortment of dried/salted/candied fruits and vegetables. A few minutes later and we're in a Chinese bakery and Danny is ordering two of everything in a perverse culinary Noah's ark progression to our table. I have never before fought the urge to sneeze, vomit and defecate simultaneously.
So, there I was, stuffed from sinus to sphincter- crushing four Stellas at the bar in JFK, fully expecting a long day of travel, no cigarettes and very expensive booze. Now, I don't like to endorse any particular brand or product here (unless they start sending me lots of free stuff), so I'll just say that the British know how to make transatlantic travel fun! As long as you ignore that whole "Titanic"-incident. Zombie walking to my seat, I found my own personal TV screen with on-demand movies, television and music.
To top it off, no more than a half-hour into the flight, a flight attendant asks me if I want a drink... a real drink. Looking around, I don't see anyone else paying for anything. I take a chance and ask for a gin-and-tonic. What followed next was a great moment in the history of mile-high boozing:
"Here you are, sir. Now, would you like a red or white wine with dinner? We're having chicken in a tarragon sauce,"
Television. Free drinks. Chicken. The only thing that could have made this trip better would be Nigella Lawson cooking me my meal in the nude while I went into the cockpit to do some smack with Tony Blair...
Stewardess!
So, there I was, stuffed from sinus to sphincter- crushing four Stellas at the bar in JFK, fully expecting a long day of travel, no cigarettes and very expensive booze. Now, I don't like to endorse any particular brand or product here (unless they start sending me lots of free stuff), so I'll just say that the British know how to make transatlantic travel fun! As long as you ignore that whole "Titanic"-incident. Zombie walking to my seat, I found my own personal TV screen with on-demand movies, television and music.
To top it off, no more than a half-hour into the flight, a flight attendant asks me if I want a drink... a real drink. Looking around, I don't see anyone else paying for anything. I take a chance and ask for a gin-and-tonic. What followed next was a great moment in the history of mile-high boozing:
"Here you are, sir. Now, would you like a red or white wine with dinner? We're having chicken in a tarragon sauce,"
Television. Free drinks. Chicken. The only thing that could have made this trip better would be Nigella Lawson cooking me my meal in the nude while I went into the cockpit to do some smack with Tony Blair...
Stewardess!
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