Salad Is Slaughter

I stopped by the Blockbuster on my way home from work on Friday and picked up a couple of movies.  Janet wasn’t with me, and needless to say, she wasn’t all that thrilled with a lot of my selections. 

Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle  (B+)  Okay, technically I didn’t rent this last Friday; this is something I rented a couple of weeks ago.  Harold, the Asian nerd, and his friend Kumar who happens to be an Indian guy who’s a genius when it comes to medicine, get stoned out of their minds, get the munchies, and decide that they’ve got to have some White Castle burgers.  The movie is about their trip in search of this delicacy.  It’s one of the funniest damn things I’ve seen in a long time.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow  (C)  I liked the cinematography.  I liked the special effects.  I liked the whole movie serial feel.  I was willing to overlook the fact that the giant robots would be impossibly unstable without state of the art control systems.  I was willing to ignore the fact that the ornithopters’ wings didn’t move correctly to generate lift and forward thrust.  I was even willing to close my eyes to the laws of physics and accept that an aircraft traveling at over 200 miles per hour wouldn’t have its wings ripped off and its occupants turned to strawberry jam when it hit the water.  I really wanted to like this movie, but I didn’t.  I absolutely hated Jude Law as “Sky Captain.”  Something about him made me just want to slap him silly.  And the plot was so silly and weak, it wasn’t even up to the standards of the serials from the 30’s and 40’s.  I can understand why this movie went nowhere at the box office. 

Employee of the Month  (B+)  This was the surprise movie of the weekend.  I had never heard of it but it looked interesting sitting on the shelf.  A bank employee is fired from his job right before his benefits kick in.  The same day he loses his fiancé because she finds out that he’s been doing the maid of honor.  There are enough twists and turns, especially at the end to keep it interesting.  Steve Zahn is amazing as Matt Dillion’s best friend, Jack.  If you like movies by the Coen brothers (“Oh Brother Where Art Thou,” “Raising Arizona,” and “Ladykillers,” to name a few) you’ll like Employee of the Month.  I liked it a lot.

Vanity Fair  (C)  I had a really hard time following this movie and remembering who all the characters were and I couldn’t be certain what the story was about.  It seemed like there was something there that I should be interested in, I just couldn’t find it.  The scenery was nice and the costumes were great.  Reese Witherspoon was really good in this movie but she wasn’t enough to carry the film.  Overall, it just wasn’t that great.

Napoleon Dynamite  (D)  I turned this one off after about an hour.  I kept waiting for something to happen and it never did.  It seemed like the movie had a lot of potential, but they never did anything with it.  I guess I just don’t get it.

Shaun of the Dead  (F)  I turned this one off after about 20 minutes.  It was just plain stupid.

Technorati Tags: movies

This is the funniest thing I’ve read today:  http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/2005/02/21/937915-cp.html  A group of brainwashed religious kooks is condemning the movie Shrek 2 as having a pro-homosexual and pro-transgender theme. 

Did we watch the same movie?  They describe the Larry King character as “a male-to-female transgender in transition and who expresses a sexual desire for Prince Charming.”  Nope, try again.  Larry King’s character is Cinderella’s ugly step sister.  She’s always been female. 

They also object to Pinocchio’s wearing women’s underwear.  If anything, the movie pokes fun at cross-dressers.  I guess they don’t know the difference between a transvestite and a homosexual.

Whenever I see stories like this, I just shake my head in astonishment.  I also thank god that I’m an atheist.

Technorati Tags: movies, religion

We decided to go out for our Valentine’s Day dinner on Saturday instead of today.  I made reservations at Chez TJ; we hadn’t been there in over a year and we wanted to go back.  The reason we hadn’t been back in so long was that in the past year we had trips to Las Vegas where we ate at Picasso and at the Eiffel Tower restaurant, and Manresa had a couple of guest chef nights.  Basically, our fine dining budget got eaten up by those.  I had tried to get reservations last year on Valentine’s Day but I had called too late, and we had to settle for Le Papillon.

Chez TJ has four small dining rooms.  This time we sat in the back room near the fireplace.  They started us off with a little pastry filled with goat cheese.  It was very nice.  They also served us a small glass of chamomile tea that had tiny pieces of fruit in it.  It was a relaxing drink.

Our first course was the sashimi flight.  It had about half a dozen different kinds of fish flavored with different oils and seasonings.  The fish was really fresh and the first course was delicious.  We found out later that this was one of the chef’s favorites.

Next we had the artisan foie gras with the palate of fruits.  The foie gras could best be described as “meat butter.”  It had a rich, buttery flavor that went well with the selection of fruit pieces.  I liked it a lot, but Janet would have preferred it cooked with a nice sauce.

The waiter brought us each an eggshell that had the topped lopped off.  It looked somewhat like the egg dish we’ve had many times at Manresa – a poached egg with a frothy top – but the Manresa version is superior.  We really missed the maple syrup and chives that Manresa uses in this dish.  When the waiter came over and asked us how everything was, we mentioned the similarity in the dishes.  I got the impression that he had heard this before.

For the next course we got different items.  I was served the diver scallop with shaved fennel, coconut juice, and lime leaf oil while Janet got the lobster ravioli.  We each ate half then switched plates.  The scallops were wonderful, a very delicate flavor.  The ravioli was also very good.  We found out later that the scallops and lobsters are flown in live from the east coast, which explains their fresh flavor.

They followed the fish course with forest mushrooms, tapioca, chives, and lemongrass froth.  I’m usually not too keen on mushrooms but these were good.  They put about half a dozen different kinds of mushrooms in the bowl.  It was really interesting.

Next up was squab, caramelized salsify, chestnut, and quince.  There were two different pieces of squab:  the rare breast meat and the crispy wing.  It was really good.  My favorite was the crispy skin.

Following the squab we had veal tournedos, garden vegetables, pistachio, and olives.  The meat was very tender and cooked perfectly.  The tiny vegetables surrounding the veal went very well with the meat and the sauce. 

By this time we were stuffed, and they came out with dessert.  I don’t remember exactly what it was, but it was fruit-based and we liked it.  They ended up the meal with a little chocolate thing that had a definite cardamom flavor to it.

During the squab course the chef showed up at our table and asked how everything was.  That’s how we learned about the sashimi being his favorite dish, and how the scallops are still squirming just before they cook them.  We also noticed that we were the only table he talked to; after speaking to us he headed back to the kitchen.  We figure that there were two possibilities for his visit:

1. They waiters told him that we used to come more often but hadn’t been back for over a year.
2. They told him that we compared his egg dish unfavorably to the one at Manresa, and he wanted to see how the other stuff compared.

All in all, it was a great dinner and we really should to back to Chez TJ more often.