For Brooklyn Restaurant Week, my friend and I went to Apartment 138 on Smith Street. Check out the City Search page for it – pretty much accurate. We both ended up ordering off of the regular menu, as prices were reasonable, but the Brooklyn Restaurant Week prix fixe menu look really good. I had the grilled pressed veggie sandwich with herbed fries – quite good, I must say. Dessert – divine! An Oreo/Bailey’s/chocolate mousse (yep, all in one mousse) – fantastic all right. Thumbs up for dessert. The music was too loud; hard to have conversation. Perhaps the bar was too close by; it wasn’t like I could hear the NCAA game’s play-by-play on the tvs either. Oh well. Definitely would go again, though.
Speaking of NCAA: my bracket is now down to two of my Final Four: Florida v. UCLA, with Florida my ultimate champion. Hmm. I could go all the way here; my Powers of Prognostication even amazes me! Well, ok, let’s not jinx things for Florida now.
Actually, on Sunday, the game of the day was Georgetown v. North Carolina. I watched the last half hour – what an overtime. UNC couldn’t get a basket in until it was too little, too late. Kudos to Georgetown for being in the Final Four for the first time in some 20 odd years. They’ll face off Ohio State.
Watched “Ugly Betty” – interesting episode. It was Marc’s turn to be human – Marc, the usually irritating assistant to the fashion magazine’s creative director, got suckered into drafting Betty to be his “girlfriend” (when Amanda, his friend/usual fake girlfriend, was pissed that he no longer wanted her to be his fake girlfriend), in order to stay in the closet in dealing with his mom. Betty tries to persuade him to be honest, but he doesn’t want to be and he reveals to Betty that her boss, Daniel, the editor-in-chief, could be ousted by Alex, Daniel’s sibling (who’s being helped by Marc’s boss, Wilhemina – ah, the plot twists galore).
So, Betty brings Marc and his mom to dinner at her house. Marc’s mom is horrified by Betty’s illegal immigrant dad, single mom sister, and – umm – sweetly flamboyant nephew (amusing moment: Justin and Marc bonding over “Dreamgirls” Oscar loss while Marc’s mom looks on puzzled). While Betty’s off to save her boss’ sorry ass (as usual), Marc defends Betty’s family’s kindness to his mother – and, not to mention trying to get his mom to stop being homophobic by finally outing himself. His mom then says she doesn’t want him in her life. Heartbreaker. The actor did a nice job balancing Marc’s irritating self and revealing Marc’s human side. Actress Patti Lupone playing Marc’s mom – she did well with the nuance too – she suspects her son’s lifestyle isn’t what she wants to believe, but kept going with her own denial for as long as she could.
I like “Ugly Betty” best when they reveal how human the characters are; they’re not just over-the-top caricatures (although, there are many instances of that). Getting tired of Betty’s dad’s immigration problem storyline (kind of crazy that his US BCIS agent’s pretty much blackmailing him into dating her and now she’s using the ankle bracelet to ensure that he isn’t cheating on her with another woman – not that he would do that, because he just wants to become a legal immigrant and he doesn’t want to date the agent anyway), and too bad that Daniel still has his sibling rivalry going with his sister (well, the sister that used to be a brother; an unsual twist in itself, but really, I think most are just angry that Alex wasn’t honest about her faked death, not just the whole sex change). Interesting show, even with the weak parts.