Phoenix Restaurant

I went to Phoenix Restaurant in Chicago's Chinatown today for dim sum. Bottom line: HIGHLY DISAPPOINTING.

I've been there for dinner before. The food was wonderful, and so was the service. I've never done dim sum there before, and at this point, I never will. It is just not worth it.

First of all, we probably arrived at the wrong time. Got there around 11:30 am, and there's a long wait. Typically, this means that it is good. We certainly had high expectation because the place was recommended by someone. So we didn't mind waiting. After all, it was Sunday, and it is around Noon. A restaurant in Chinatown that isn't packed at that time isn't worth going to. So we got our number, and was told it will be about 40 minutes. Fine. We went walking around Chinatown a bit to pass the time.

When our number was called, we were all excited (and hungry). The restaurant is on the 2nd floor, so we walked up. Guess what? There's ANOTHER waiting area! This makes no sense. If they have called us, shouldn't they have made sure a table is ready? But no, this is like a Disney attraction. There's another waiting/holding area, which is in an even less convenient location than the one downstairs. We, and everyone else in this area felt like we are always in the way of everyone else, especially the staff, that have to go though this area. OK, so far it sucks. But still, if it is this busy, the place must be good, right?

We waiting another 15 minutes before our number was called again and we finally get to sit at our table. This is when things really become disappointing.

The food was SCARCE! There were very few dim sum carts going around! Some of them even missed us because the persons pushing the carts were busy either yapping away or simply didn't look at our table, and we were next to an aisle! But the disappointing part is the very, VERY limited selection of dumplings and offerings. The chicken feet cart came by at least 3 times, but where were the shumai? The shrimp dumplings? I'd be surprised if we saw more than 15 different offerings.

I've been to many dim sums before. The one I like the most is on Broadway near the New Chinatown near Argyle street - Furama. Now THAT'S a place to have dim sum. Again, it is crowded, and sometime you get the cart pusher that can't speak English. But that's never a problem. The selection of dumplings is always plentiful.

What was disappointing about Phoenix was that, I expected more. One would think that with the large crowd and long wait, there's something remarkable about it. Not only did not it fill that expectation, it also produced significantly LESS than what I expected to be the norm for a dim sum place.

I will not go back there for dim sum. It has also soured me a little bit on going back there for regular dinners, even though I had good food and service there last time. The whole experience simply made me want to go back to Furama next week for good dim sum.

Zz.

Stinky Passenger Kicked Off Flight

A passenger on Jazz Air was kicked off the plane for having a really bad body odor.

A man on Jazz Air, a regional airline in Canada that also serves U.S. cities, was reportedly kicked off a plane earlier this month because of his strong body odor.

"People were just mumbling and staring at him," said a woman who sat near the man, according to The Guardian, a newspaper in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, where the flight originated on February 6. It was a very uncomfortable situation, she added.

Another passenger described the smell as "brutal."

Just imagine if you have to sit right next to him!

One really has to smell really, really, BAD to get kicked off a plane. I'm surprised he didn't get stopped while going through security! What? We don't have odor detectors? What do you call those damn police dogs? Oh, I get it, those dogs ran the other way when this guy walked through security.

Smart dogs!

Zz.

Smoke Level At California's Indian Casinos

An undercover investigation and research from Stanford.

Synopsis: Smoke levels at California's Indian casinos can exceed health benchmark levels during peak attendance hours and many non-smoking areas offer incomplete protection, a Stanford study finds.



And you thought only TV news do undercover investigation! :)

Zz.

Woman Falls And Rips Picasso Painting

A woman, attending an art class, ".. lost her balance .. " and fell into Picasso's "The Actor" painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

DOH!!!

The unusually large canvas, measuring 77.25 by 45.38 inches (196 by 115 centimeters), sustained a vertical tear of about six inches (15 centimeters) in the lower right-hand corner in the accident on Friday.

The museum, located on the eastern edge of New York's Central Park, did not elaborate on why the woman fell.

Take it to the Antique Road Show. I want to know how much the value of it has come down due to this tear/repair. :)

Zz.

Terrorists Accidentally Blew Themselves Up!

Oh, there is justice after all in this world! These bunch of moron accidentally blew themselves up in a bus that they rigged with explosives.

Fourteen suspected terrorists died Tuesday night when the bus they rigged with explosives blew up prematurely, police said.

The explosion occurred as the suspects were riding the bus in the province of Kunduz, said police chief Abdul Raziq Yaqobi.

Now THAT is a amusing story!

Zz.

US Postal Service SUCKS!

... and they wonder why they keep losing money.

Here's a friendly advice for anyone who's about to file a change of address: DO NOT DO THIS ON THE USPS WEBSITE! You might as well not file a change of address - it is that ineffective.

I moved to a new house and decided to file a change of address on the USPS website. I got all the confirmation number, and even got a letter from the USPS with coupons that I've checked.

Guess what? 2 weeks on and I had received NO forwarding mail at all! A check with our former landlord indicated that the mail person had been returning all of our mail back to sender since there were no forwarding address on record! We made a phone call to the USPS customer service, and she couldn't find ANY record of a change of address request, even when we cited our confirmation number! It's as if we never filed anything, and everything we entered on the web just went POOF!

Note that this happened for BOTH of us, and we did this on separate days too. I have no idea what mail we missed that never got forwarded. We refiled our change of address with the customer service person on the phone, but hey, who knows if THAT would get through as well!

This is a joke! And I'm not taking this lying down. I have all the documents printed out that indicated that we did file for a change of address online, and that they screwed up big time. I'm going to write a complaint to the Postmaster General and ask for my $1 back! They charged $1 on a credit card to verify your identity online. And yes, I want my damn $1 back because it did NOTHING and I'm royally pissed!

I've had mail being delivered 2 weeks late, and other poor services that I'm willing to overlook. But this is just plain stupid. You promised a service, and even with all the technology, you have morons running it. I'm not sure how many people have been taken in with their website, but I certainly will make sure enough people know about this. It may not do much to change their stupidity, but I certainly won't just sit here and take this. They lied, and did not provide the service that they promised!


Zz.

Stupid Black Friday Failure

So I was out at Coral Ridge Mall in Coralville, Iowa, this morning along with throngs of people shopping their heads of for the early morning Black Friday sale. The big stores at the mall such as Yonkers, Sears, JC Penney opened at 4:00 am, while Best Buy and Target opened at 5:00 am.

Now, the inside-mall entrance to Target is next to the food court. There was already a long line of shoppers way before the doors opened for both Target and Best Buy, which is next to Target. Now, one would think that you got this long lines of people waiting to get in, and with the big stores in the mall already open, you have this large number of potential customers who haven't had their breakfast and their coffee that morning. If I were a proprietor of one of these eating establishment at the food court, it is a no-brainer that I would open my store to serve breakfast. Guess what? Only ONE counter serving breakfast/coffee was open early in the morning, and even they had very limited menu (no breakfast burito). Other establishments, especially Panera Bread, didn't open till 6:00 am, waaaaay after the lines getting into Target was long gone.

One doesn't need an MBA degree to realize that there was a missing opportunity here to make money. In this tough economic times, you'd think that someone would do a little bit of thinking on how to take advantage of such a window of opportunity to make money. Even considering the salary they have to pay to get people to come in early that morning, I'd think they'd make enough to cover those within the first 15 minutes of opening. It boggled my mind that in all of that mall, only ONE place was open by around 5:00 am to serve coffee/breakfast. Even with a limited breakfast service, that counter service was having non-stop lines servicing bad coffee and mediocre rolls and bagels. Imagine a Panera Bread opening at the same time. It'll clean up big time simply from all those people standing in line to get into Best Buy and Target, not to mention, the shoppers coming in from Yonkers, JC Penny, etc.

Have people lost the instinct to recognize a golden opportunity here?

Zz.