O Giacomo, mia innamorata!

Yesterday Heather and Ben came into town. As I like to do with all visitors to the Hub, I took them to my favorite restaurant in the North End - Giacomo's. They both loved it (you can't get good Italian food in D.C., evidently). I have a newfound love for Giac's after last night though. I tried a special that they always seem to have (can it really be a special then?): homemade fusilli pasta with bits big, juicy, tender, delectable chunks of lobster meat and shrimp in Giacomo's house sauce. Madonn'! Just unbelievable. The English language, with all its thousands upon thousands of adjectives, fails to do justice to the meal I had last night.

And due to Giac's huge portions, today I have the most delicious lunch of all possible lunches.

A Taste of the [adopted] Old Country

For the last three years I've lived directly above Piccolo Nido, located on the corner of North & Lewis Streets in Boston's North End. Last night was the first time I tried it. This visit was spurred in part because I met the owner, Pino Irano, last Friday evening. The building management for my office are good friends with Pino, and they were hanging out on North Street on Friday evening as I returned to my apt. I was introduced and they implored me to come in. For a long time they've been giving me the business about how I hadn't gone yet, they always rave about how good the food is, how great Pino is, and the celebs who pass through the doors of the place (unbenownst to me until recently, such glitterati as Doc Rivers, the Red Sox owners, Dave Matthews, Tim Russert, and many others). I've been sleeping on this place for far too long!

Excellent food. I tried the crespelle ai funghi - crepes stuffed with wild mushrooms served in a flavorful Medeira sauce - for an appetizer and the vitello valdostana - escalope of veal with prosciutto and fontina cheese served with an incredible demi-glace sauce. I had the crème brûlée for dessert.

Very tasty, nice atmosphere - away from the hustle and bustle of Hanover Street. A limited wine list was really my only complaint. Pino's an excellent host. No celebs last night but I'll be keeping my eyes open.

Salud!

A Couple Awesome Things: Giacomo's and Beirut.

A bunch of people that I hang out with for some reason and I are having dinner at Giac's tonight. Should be good. Then we are going to break in the schtonky new beirut table that 45 sent me for my birthday. Hopefully we'll get some good pics for the interwebs.

Although I haven't heard from a single one of these so-called "friends" today...

On Obama

Obama backs Obama.

CNN calls Wisconsin early for Obama! Cheers.

(Not about Obama, but if you're interested in shockingly cheap, barely palatable wine, the Goose is hocking Crane Lake at 2 for $10. That's almost free in North End dollars!)

Wine Selection

On Wednesday evening I went to my favorite North End restaurant, Giacomo's, with a good friend. If you love seafood and don't feel like paying upwards of $20 an entrée, Giacomo's is the place to go.

I had a ton of leftover calamari and mussels over linguine in their house sauce (a lobster-based red with a touch of cream) - enough for dinner last night. On my way home from work I stopped at the Golden Goose and was poking around in the wine aisle for a fitting companion to my dish.

There was a woman there who - I think - is one of the distributors who comes into the Goose on a weekly basis.

Wine woman: "Can I help you?"
MRhé: "Um, yes, actually. I'm looking for...well...I have some Giacomo's."
WW: "Giacomo's?"
M: "Yes, it's a restaurant..." (I went on to explain the leftovers I had.)
WW: "Oh I have just the thing!"

She asked me my price range and handed me a decent $10 bottle of Italian wine with an unpronounceable label. I will check on it when I get home. It went with the Giacomo's perfectly. The wine was good - drinkable but not transcendent.

Ed: It was a dry red wine - Montepulciano D'Abruzzo, by Umani Ronchi.

Verizon: A Study in the Art of Sucking

The saga ain't over quite yet.

• Phone lines being transferred to the new office tomorrow. Originally scheduled between 8:30-12:00. As of today, it's an "all-day job" between 8:00-5:00.
• Originally I was going to have any inbound calls to our office line forwarded to my cell phone. The customer service representative I spoke with assured me that this forwarding service would cover any down time during the line switching process. As of today I discovered that this forwarding "doesn't always work." How quaint! This forced us to send an apologetic warning in advance to our clients and a few partners and vendors, making what ideally should be a smooth process bumpy and uncomfortable, like that one shave where you realize you really need to buy a new set of Mach 3 razors for an exorbitant sum.
  
• Verizon shut off our DSL prematurely on 12/20. Despite all their claims of escalation, expediting, et cetera, their last communiqué said that they would be able to get our DSL back up this Friday. January 4th. More than two weeks after they shut it off! Simply incredible, made all the more so by the fact that we are moving into our new office this Saturday. Useless. But, the kicker:
• I received an email this afternoon from Verizon saying that they would be able to install DSL at our old office this Monday, 01/07. Something tells me we will be canceling that work order.

On a related note, I am not looking forward to finishing packing and the whole moving/unpacking process on Saturday morning. Ugh. But I am looking forward to:

• A beautiful, new, completely refurbished office.
• My own office complete with circa 1980 glass "ice" blocks,
  aka "the Igloo."
  
• Lunch in the North End.
  
• An around-the-corner commute. Literally.
• "Meetings" at Billy Tse's.
  

Now if I only liked my job and made money doing it...