Interview Travelling (Seattle WA, Madison WI, San Jose CA)

This semester was crazy because I was interviewing for a job, which involved quite some travelling. In this haze, I somehow managed to visit a whole handful of airports and hotels. The places documented here include Seattle, Madison, and the Bay Area.

Seattle!
I had a nice breakfast at the hotel. I know that it's not the fanciest but it beats most of the breakfasts and lunches I've had all semester (wow, I sure have been neglecting my ... life). I mean, hot food! More than one item in my sandwich!

I went to downtown Seattle after my interview and got some pumpkin and coconut gelato at Gelatiamo. I didn't particularly enjoy the pumpkin one because it felt too heavy. I got to sample the rice gelato, which was delicious (but I wasn't in the mood for it). They had all these beautiful baked desserts but I really wasn't in the mood. I languidly walked around downtown chomping on gelato, checking out people going to dress-up/Halloween parties. 

 

I went to dinner at The Crab Pot with a friend I hadn't seen in almost exactly 7 years.  The Crab Pot is famous for, well, the crab pot.

The bread was really dense and hard to chew (or I was just tired) and the entire place was happy and rowdy. We were given mallets and cutting boards! Bibs! I did not wear the bib because it just felt over the top. The food arrived in a giant bucket and was poured onto the table. Cleanup was therefore very easy. What a feast! I really enjoyed the corn, mussels, clams, and sausage. There was a lot of overcooked shrimp, but the crab was good. Everyone was super nice and I found the place unique. I would definitely go there every time I visit Seattle in the future.

The SeaTac airport has the best restaurant ever - Anthony's Fish Bar!! This place made me so happy! I got delicious clam chowder and mediocre Alaskan rockfish taco with mango (awkwardly sweet and fishy, while also savoury).

 Cold rockfish taco on the plane, while attempting to study.

An airport store had quite the selection of candy (blurry due to my phone camera).

I had a layover in Minnesota, where I bought some candy corn gummies (which tasted like generic gummies) and a "Montana bar", which was actually just a oaty bar covered with chocolate and coconut.

Madison, Wisconsin
At the layover in Cincinnati, I got a turkey club from the Wolfgang Puck restaurant/bar. I find it humourous that Wolfgang Puck's name is being used in restaurants at airports, since I associate airport restaurants with... well, solely Burger King or restaurants along those lines.
The sandwich was ok.

I had a super fancy breakfast at the Concourse Hotel on the morning of the interview, but I was too nervous to enjoy it. I had an amazing meal during my interview!

Bay Area
My first flight got delayed so I had some time to check out the crochet cakes in display cases at the Philadelphia Airport. They are really nice and I think I would make some when I have time.

In N Out Burgers!! Whoo! Our cab driver was really nice and we made a pit stop here (latent dream come true!) and I wanted to buy everything. I got a chocolate shake that I had to chug down because I forgot that I wasn't allowed to take this through airport security (I had made the same mistake in Seattle where I bought some coffee right before entering security).

The burger, fries, and In N Out sauce packets did make it through security! Huzzah! I got to eat them both cold while waiting for my flight. At that point, I wasn't even hungry. The burger was fantastic.

 The animal fries were not that good. They were really soggy, possibly due to it sitting in a paper bag for half an hour, but I was not impressed.

I had a layover in Phoenix, where I found the presence of "Icelandic water" quite funny. The airport was completely packed with people, even though it was one in the morning. I was tempted to get a pumpkin shake but at that point I just felt exhausted and thirsty. Deflated would be a good word, and the only thing I wanted was to  sleep horizontally, undisturbed for 15 hours.

Joe's American Bar & Grill

Such an iconic name. I wonder how filled-to-capacity this chain restaurant was, during the 2008 elections?

We went to the Braintree Mall on Wednesday the 21st, after visiting schools in Cambridge, and I honestly think that I shouldn't've ordered. In a family of 6 [for now], we should always order 4 items in an American restaurant. We have never finished 5 items, let alone six. Usually, I'm the one who doesn't order, simply because there is no main dish that I can eat due to the animal pieces. Also, though, I usually am the one who likes side dishes anyway [think salad, the bread, mashed potato... you know].

That day, my dad didn't order but I did, just to "change it up a little", though in all honesty, neither of us should've ordered. I got the spinach and artichoke dip, which is basically ubiquitous in any American grill style restaurant. In fact, if it wasn't for the seafoods section of the menu, one'd think that he/she had just walked into Applebees with different decor. Or Chili's with different decor. Or TGI with different decor. That's the problem I have with American restaurants. Sure, they offer a sense of "homeliness", but they also use the same cookie cutter. Except, Joe's American apparently makes all their food from scratch, whereas TGI reheats it.

My brother got chicken fajitas. I wish I could have a corn tortilla for once in my life instead of flour tortillas...

These are the best oyster crackers. Ever. Someone needs to send me a box of these. NO, NOT THE "Premium" brand oyster crackers [those have PHO]. It HAS to be this brand!!!!

My grandpa doesn't like coleslaw. This coleslaw wasn't as oily as the one from Clark's but I don't think I'm a huge fan of not-sour-enough-and-too-fatty coleslaw.

My brother's clam chowder. Okay, I tried some of the soup part. It was okay. Creamy. I like corn chowder more.

Spinach and artichoke dip with fatty cheese. Funny how we turn two vegetables into heart attacks, right? It was really creamy and definitely tasted more real than the kind from Applebee's. I'm serious. There were actual chunks of artichoke that LOOKED like chunks of artichoke! The pita chips were too salty, though. I liked how they gave us some celery with it, because at least that's a little different from the other stores out there, which probably don't even stock fresh celery.

My mum got this fish thingy with a corn and cucumber salad, which was quite amazing since I never imagined that the two could get moshed together so yummily.

My sister got a cheese pizza, with thin crust. It was amazing crust - look at the grill marks on the back! The topping wasn't that interesting though, and it was drenched in lipids.

Joe's American Bar & Grill, 250 Granite St. Braintree Mall, Braintree MA.

CANDY STORE OUTSIDE!

Clark's

I'm just gonna randomly blog about each day on the day trip we had. Actually, when riffling through the photos from the past year, I found a bunch of stuff in April that I never got around to blogging about since there were AP exams...[did you notice that there is no April archive? That's because I had too much to study] but I'll save those for when the time is appropriate. Anyway.

Apparently, New Haven is famous for its "apizza", which is basically some thin crust pizza with clams on it, and/or other stuff. Actually, anything clammy or with seafood is considered a New Haven or CT delicacy.

While my family was sitting in the Yale info session/tour, I walked around downtown New Haven. The first store I see? Starbucks. I walk around more. I see a zillion restaurants. Some advertised "NY style" pizza and other Italian food. Another was named "College Wine". There was a vegetarian restaurant called "Claire's", which seemed mildly interesting. There was even a "Hunan"-esque shop with bad English, and a Cheese Shop [named "Cheese Shop"].

There were no little shops selling seafood, let alone apizza.

So, that was quite upsetting. I ended up walking into Clark's because the front window advertised "fried clams", which would mean that PERHAPS there was apizza, right?

Wrong. The first waitress had no idea what apizza was... and said that they didn't have anything with clams OR seafood in the restaurant. I asked another waitress, and she said that, no, the nearest apizza was a few blocks away [Later, we drove by on the way to the highway, and we literally jumped out of the car on the one way street and ran over to Sally's Apizza to buy some apizza... but it turned out that Sally's isn't open until 5pm. It was around 4pm at the time.]

However, she DID say that they had fried clams [oh! the sign was right!], and they were actually "clam strips" and not legit whole clams. Either way, I bought them... with fries and coleslaw [it was this package thing] for around $11. This is truly quality over quantity. If you think about the amount of stuff you can get at a gross monopolistical putrid place like McD. for $11, it's probably seven times more than what we got. This is why cuisine is disappearing. People want the cheap stuff since it "tastes basically the same". However, the processes and labours involved are sharply distinct, you could cut a piece of rough celery with it! I actually interacted with the waitresses, whereas at McD it's just... placing your order of reheated rainforest and coal. Sigh.

Both waitresses were really nice, and there seemed to be a huge selection of ice cream and bakery stuff there, too. I didn't take too many pictures.

I ate some fries and the coleslaw with a piece of warm bread [which my mum brought, so it had been in the car for six hours, which explains the high average kinetic energy of the molecules in the bread]. I also ventured to try some batter from the clam since I don't eat clams. I tried the super small pieces, because those are the ones that are basically batter pieces. It was good batter!

My brother actually fell in love with fried seafood. As in, he got fried scallops at Faneuil Hall, and MORE fried clam strips on the way back when we passed by CT again on the way home.

Also, I like tartar sauce.