Author: F C

To be thirty-something

Our friend YKC (not to be confused with YC) celebrated her third day of her 30th birthday at Tortilla Flats on Monday night, this after the aforementioned two previous days of birthday eating. There’s not much difference between being 29 and 30 in my experience, except that you’ve finally been around long enough to develop nostalgia.

There’s plenty of that at Tortilla Flats, where among the Hawaii Elvis, mariachi record covers, and Our Lady of Guadalupe portraits, is the shrine to the dean of character actors, Ernest Borgnine. Most 30somethings know him as the curmudgeonly helicopter pilot in the TV show Airwolf, but he’s been in such classics as From Here to Eternity, McHale’s Navy, the Dirty Dozen, and modern roles in Gattaca and SpongeBob SquarePants. There is also a reserved booth for him in the back, which he apparently actually uses when he is in town (one of the multitude of house rules on the menu is that all customers must yield the Booth to Mr. Borgnine if he shows up). I had the namesake dish, which was basically tacos al pastor, and P had the mole. I though my dish was excellent, and the frozen drinks were great.

The locale was picked primarily because it was “formation” bingo night, which is like traditional bingo, but you have to make the designated letter shape rather than a straight line. P messed up and didn’t exactly have the right formation when calling bingo, garnering our group a disqualification. The second game the party behind us had their own disqualification, mostly because the notable guests of honor weren’t paying attention to the rules.

Point the camera behind you! Look out!

A fun time was had by all – usually we’re the one that’s describing something that happened in the news, but this time around, the news wire describes something that we were at. How cool is that! P wants to also mention that a certain ex-boy band member that knows what “Chicken of the Sea” is joined the party when we were leaving. Not that we were trying to oogle or anything…just giving the usual facade of normal indifference only City natives can give and that celebs throughout the world flock to NYC for.

Recommended – the Ernie vibe by itself is sufficient, but it really helps that the food is good, and their drinks are great. And you never know which Navy man, NASCAR driver, or guy named Nick you might run into…

Anniversary fest

This week is birthday central, with 5 bdays to celebrate – P’s best friend and maid of honor on the 12, P and my mom on the 15th, and P’s dad, brother and other friend on the 16th.

Wednesday: Essex. Judeo-Hispanic cuisine. Sentimental favorite because that was were P and I met for brunch for the first time. Best deal: Wednesday lobster night – $16 gets you a delicious complete lobster dinner. Also, you can’t miss the potato pancakes with gravlox and salmon caviar! Recommended.

Saturday: Sammy’s Fish Box . We’ve come to this famed City Island emporium of seafood a few times before, and know about the big plates, so we decided to go for a shared plate. Little did we know that the shared plates are even more ridiculously spectacular. Monstrous portions of fish, lobster, king crab, and assorted shellfish on a bed of linguine, all sitting on a plate suitable for a flounder or a jumbo turkey. I think we have a week of leftovers. Recommended if you like seafood and don’t mind the trek.

Afterwards we had desert/birthday wishes at the Black Whale. The back garden was great. Recommended if in the area.

Sunday: East Manor for dim sum later today. The last time we were here, in episode 14, we were ushering at my friend’s 650 person wedding. Eager to see if it has changed.

New banner – the aerial photo of Brooklyn wasn’t off of Google Maps – it was taken by me out the side of an American Airlines jet. Have to work on changing the photo more often.

Have to find something extra spectacular for the Four for Triscribe anniversary… any ideas?

Yet another quiz

The Technosailor Self Importance Test

Chris Pirillo

You are most like Chris Pirillo!

You are most like Chris Pirillo. You dominate your brand and do quite well in marketing it. However, you go out of the way to place the focus on other people as much as possible as a decision on power and authority. You may have many followers, readers or fans but you rarely let this distract you from your mission and focus.

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