Oh, where to begin.

Today I wanted Japanese curry; brown and rich. Comfort food at it's best. J and B wanted to come with me, so we all went to Fort St. George, a young, hip, Japanese hangout. I let J and B out at the door and then circled the block to find parking. By the time I got into the dining room, J and B were siting at the corner table, sipping water and proofing an information sheet. The people at the next table were smoking, which is yuck, but pretty Japanese. Anyway, I sat down, asked if the smoke bothered them. They said no, but then I scouted the menu for the veggie options, for J's sake. Didn't find much, so we got up and left.

I have a deeply held belief that any foodie worth his salt should be able feed people with diet restritions without batting an eye. You just have to educate yourself a little.

So anyway, we ended up at Hing Loon, and when we sat down, they started proofing the info sheet again. So when the waitress came, I smiled and ordered Buddhist Special, Szechwan Eggplant (veggie sauce) and Curried Scallops. And steamed rice.

Buddhist special (Buddha's delight, in other places) is yum; interesting mushrooms, carved veggies, triangles of fried tofu, a pile of bean thread noodles to make the whole dish taller, water chestnuts. I noticed J was going for the tofu. I throroughly enjoy this dish, although if I had my way there would probably be bbq pork in it. Sorry, Buddha.

Szechwan eggplant was delicious too, due in large part to fresh young chinese eggplant. They had been sliced and wedged into inch-long pieces and tossed into a delicious szechwan sauce that was ketchupy without being ketchup. This was definately yum.

Finally, curried scallops. Chinese curry tends to be brighter, brassier than Japanese curry. Our dish was deffinately comfort food, thick and saucy with carrots, potatoes, and scallops the size of double-stuff oreos.

Hing Loon offers a small sesame ball at the end of your meal, along with a fortune cookie. We all left with the pain of overeating, but a little thankful that I didn't order salt and pepper squid.

abrupt change of subject.

so my light bill arrived the other day and I was a little surprised that my balance was over $900, and then realized that they had my address wrong. I called to ask, and learned a couple things. 1) I had been paying my neighbors' bill 2) My neighbors had not paid their light bill in four years. The person at the company who is helping me, her name is Angel, and today I faxed her my closing papers so that she could see when I moved in. I feel bad for my neighbor; probably no one had ever told her that she had to pay for electricity.