C[omp]ute

From: "andrew cooke" <andrew@...>

Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 21:46:19 -0300 (CLST)

Friday we went out for a meal at the Centre Catala -
http://www.centrocatalan.cl/es_restaurante.php - just before I left for
the States.  It was good, but pricier than we normally spend.  We started
with pisco sour + vaina, then two main courses, a glass of wine and a
desert - total was around 25.000 including tip, if I remember right.

I had lamb with scallop potatoes.  I guess it was a leg cut - bone with a
doughnut of meat.  Cooked so that the outside was caramelised (crunchy in
parts), and the inside flakey-tender.  Very tasty.  Perhaps slightly too
salty.

Pauli had stuffed squid in ink - apparently excellent (and rather
complicated).  The pudding and wine were OK; the service and environment
great (serious, but laid back).  We won't be eating here often, but I'm
sure we'll be going back.

Then Saturday off to USA; arrived Sunday morning and wandered round New
York near the Port Authority bus terminal looking for a late breakfast. 
Down a sidestreet I stumbled across a very-not-sketchy deli -
http://www.bensdeli.net/ - that was just about to open.  Turned out they
didn't have much for breakfasts, but I eventually ended up with a coffee
and a bowl of (delicious) mushroom and barley soup.

As I was eating, other customers started to drift in.  They were generally
older, middle class.  Presumably - given the emphasis on Kosher and
culture that was slowly dawning on me - Jewish (in the main) and
considerably better dressed than me (with my rucsac behind me, dressed in
old travelling clothes).  I finished, asked for the bill, and was riffling
through a roll of dollars, trying to find the right amount to cover meal
and tip without change, when a lady in a nearby booth stood up, stepped
towards me, and whispered that she could pay for my meal if I needed the
money!

I hope I was gracious enough in declining - I was a bit surprised.

Above all, I think this is touching.  It was very decent of her to make
the offer.  There's also the interesting issues about whether the context
- an implicit, smaller community - makes this kind of action more likely.

As I type this I've been watching the Obama 30min commercial.  One of the
implicit aims of that was, I think, to construct a sense of community. 
Maybe I'm making too much of a stretch.

Andrew