A highly rated (3.8 on Yelp out of 220 reviews, 4.3 out of 191 on Google Maps) Chinese restaurant Helen Huang’s Mandarin House used rotten green bell pepper and unapologetic, told me they used freshest ingredients.
Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) wrote this based on Victor Huge’s 1830Hernani. The opera was premiered in 1844 in Venice.
The drama is set in 16th-century Spain, a tragic love story between the titular character, a former noble who became a bandit after being banished, and a young woman named Donna Sol de Silva, who has two other suitors, namely her uncle Don Ruy Gomez and Don Carlos …
This mediterranean restaurant has outdoor tables, covered with white table cloth. Indoor tables, however, are bare – interesting.
Service is good. Servers have an accent – making them more authentic and believable? [I’ll never get ride of my accent -:)] And their small plates are delicious:
Garlic shrimp
Spicy falafel
Grilled lamb chops
Shishito peppers & mushrooms
We couldn’t finish them all – guess not too small after all.
Their house wine Proverb Cab Sauv 2021 is good, served in a Riedel glass.
The 10′ ceiling again causes problem: 84″ is the norm height but I need 96″. Again looking high and low for a while – a couple of artisans make the doors to order at exuberant cost (would have been in five figures after shipping, hardware and labor), I finally settled on one through Home Depot, at a reasonable price.
We paid $40 measurement fee to HD that can be used toward purchase on November 22, 2022 and in full on December 15 to order the doors. They are installed on March 15, 2023.
It could be a week earlier but when the installer went to HD to pick up my stuff, he realized that the hardware wasn’t there. A HD staff called, to apologize that by mistaken, one of her associate returned it when she didn’t find link between my doors and the hardware. I just laughed. The hardware arrived shortly after ordering, which was 2022. I got two calls from separate staff on two separate dates to pick it up. I asked if I could leave it with them since my house was still in the state of chaos of a sort. They said it’s fine. In hindsight, I should have picked it up because HD is always in a much larger state of chaos -:).
HD immediately ordered the hardware and offered me $50 discount eagerly, while I was still trying to comprehend the situation – I’m not that slow but kind of surprised that such thing could happen. Another lesson learned.
The installing subcontractor is pretty nice. Offered to deliver the doors for free since I had asked if I could stain it ahead of the hanging. Normally is no unless we pay: either $99 HD to deliver or rent their UHaul for an hour at $20 to take them home.
Matt is the installer. When he delivered the doors, he was very kind, giving me some much needed pointers – a few things to buy that are not included in the hardware:
door handles
floor guides ($)
It has been a while, I don’t remember what are included in our order. As it turns out, handles and guides are in the bundle.
Looking at hardware on Amazon, HD seems to charge an arm and a leg -:). $18.98 for handle: 5 star from 7,727 ratings; and $14.42 guide: 4.5 star from 4,612 ratings.
We stain it with Varathane polyurethane 聚氨酯 $26.99 on Amazon and $25.68 at HD. This is when I saw many chips and cracks. One can (1 qt / 32 fl oz / 946 ml) is barely enough for two doors, one layer.
There are few types: paneled, flush, or glass. I prefer simple, so flush is it. Again, there are many nuances to consider:
shape of the door
material of the door – wood, glass, etc.
type of wood
style of the door
paint or stain, and the color
The doors are installed on March 17. Matt came with a big garbage can -:) even there won’t be much garbage but some dust. He spent 3:30 to install.
Home Depot’s subcontractor
By watching Matt to install, I learned a lot. To align two hanging doors isn’t a cake walk. Over all, I’m very happy with this HD’s subcontractor’s responsiveness and consideration (office). However, the actual workmanship is so so.
Unsatisfied with HD or the door maker: it’s too short. Matt did say that they don’t make any door taller than this. But HD charges a fee to come to measure – how does this work, or what’s the point of this??
Cancer
What’s this cancer claim? The paint causes cancel and the dust of wood may too? With the claim upfront, so the producers / manufacturers won’t get sued?
An average chain restaurant, dated decor; high divides for the booths with pretty delicious food. Service is good.
My portabella wrap is fresh and pretty yummy, so is the Turkey club sandwich – which should come wiith chips but they ran out on that day. The server offered us home fries, onion rings etc. We picked homefries and they charged it at $3.99 – NOT a big deal at all but I thought it’s sneaky. Their GM Mike said it was a mistake to charge us. So that settles it.
Looking at the bill, did I realize that they charge you for the sides. The salad isn’t good nor necessary. So lesson is learned.
It’s the destination for college kids to spend spring break there, for its nightlife scene, especially in the South Beach on the barrier island of Miami Beach.
Google translates Miami to 迈阿密 but I think 迈亚密 is more appropriated. One of the meanings of 亚 is second and Miami is second coming of LA and New York. Will she soon surpass these two bigger and better known cities? It’s hard to say but not impossible.
Miami is on the east coast, 1,276 miles south of New York
Constructions are everywhere, cranes dot the skies.
Miami is in the so called Gold Coast with Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton and Hollywood, on the east shore of Florida, on the Atlantic Ocean. Long Island has a Gold Coast too, on the north shore of the island.
The Treasure Coast has … is named after the Spanish Treasure Fleet lost in 1715 hurricane. It includes Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties.
Pablo Escobar (1949-93) who died of a gunshot wound to the head, was what Al Capon of Chicago, and John Gotti of NY.
Miami in the late ’70s was awash in drug-related violence. In fact, it got so bad that in 1979, there was an AP story syndicated across the U.S. where officials from the city actually compared Miami to Chicago in the ’20s, calling these drug wars the work of the so-called cocaine cowboys – the warring drug cartels, mostly from Colombia, who vied for control of the city’s cocaine trade. So they transposed this gangster film to present-day Miami. And they hired Oliver Stone to write the picture.
A police bulletin we found among the files in the basement of the Atlanta Legal Aid Society said 40,000 Mariel Cubans had some criminal background. And in the first weeks of the boatlift, an INS official told People magazine that 85% of the refugees were convicts – 85%.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: And there was a continuing concern that Fidel Castro is emptying his jails and forcing boat captains to take undesirables to the United States.
Clean decor with calm ambiance. Seating space at booth is tight tho.
Adequate service
Delicious food. The hot dinner rolls are yummy. oil in a neat ceramic container.
They display many wines but don’t offer us a simply wine menu. It seems only one kind wine is offered by the glass – Portas da Herdade which is ok: dry and thin.
Itzhak Perlman plays movie music, for a change. It’s not common and I feel this kind of music doesn’t showoff his skills. But might be he’s having fun with it, a break from classical.
Again, as with Nancy Chang, a lot of talk before hand. A chairwoman of some sort, said, it’s their 55th year celebration … and again, proudly proclaimed that they now have 71 full time musicians – which never occurred to me that there are part timers. Couple of sponsors even went on the stage, Mike Mahaffey and the newly appointed man at PNC bank. Gosh, it was just plain petty and never ending.
The fee of their ticket sale is inexpensive than TicketMaster: $5 per ticket.
Perlman showed up after a few tones. The cinematic music doesn’t show off his skill – they were written to showcase a violin. He was pretty witty: pointing his bow to the upper level and said, “this is for you all up there” when he played Far and Away by John Williams.
Seeing him is great – I had ticket to his performance in New York in 2020 but it was cancelled due to covid-19 pandemic. At his age, and mine, many things are geared into countdown stage -:). Wish him the best of all and hope to see him again, soon.
A stone throw away is the Dali Museum; have dinner at Fado, a Portuguese restaurant.
Alfred Newman
Twentieth-century Fox Fanfare
Erich Korngold
Captain Blood Overture ♫
Pietro Mascagni
Intermezzo Sinfonico from Cavalleria rusticana
