Sunday, October 16, 2011.
Ricky's Thai Thai Has Sushi. Walk Ons.
The Marys crossed the lake to watch the Saints game at the new Walk On's. That's a Baton Rouge sports bar that took over and spent a few million renovating the former Smith and Wollensky. The girls like the place, but they weren't keen on the other customers. Particularly one large group of boors who kept trying to make the Marys leave their table so they could annex it. Mary Ann easily stands up to anybody who gets in her face, and did. But the creeps kept on creeping, backing their chairs up to the Marys' table as if to force their way in. When that didn't work, they started dancing in the spaces between their table and the girls'. Mary Ann took the matter up with the manager, who was equally miffed and began ejecting these players for their personal fouls. But what did they expect from rabid football fans? Why is the restaurant business encouraging them with these enormous new eateries? Mary Ann's answer is that I don't get it. I hope she's right.
I intended that my midday (and only) meal would be at Captain D's, the place the Marys pre-empted yesterday. I stood at the counter at Captain D's for ten minutes or so, trying to summon someone to take my order. Nobody ever appeared. Not a good sign.
While trying to think of another uncomplicated restaurant, I passed Thai Thai. Asian wasn't what my appetite was up for, but I saw a sign in front that said Ricky was now serving sushi. Hmm. Better check this out, I thought.
Well, whoever is doing the sushi for Ricky is not very good at it. The options were few, and when Ricky told me to try the California rolls I knew I was in trouble. He brought out three kinds of rolls, all of them beset with the same too-dry, too-hard rice.
But this is a Thai restaurant, and that part of the meal was its usual good self. A bowl of tom yum goong--the clear, spicy broth with galangal, lemongrass, and shrimp. Then glass noodles with chicken and vegetables--always a favorite of mine. Curried glass noodles not only taste good, but they don't pack as much in the way of carbohydrates into their strands.
Way too much food here kept me working the rest of the day without hunger pangs. I stopped only for a walk in the woods. Everything was high and dry along the trail. The ground cover in Fern Clearing is getting sparse, as it always does this time of year. But a second, smaller crop of the distinctive ferns came up, and is making the little meadow greener than normal.
And then I came upon an enormous pine tree that had come down across the trail, pinning down many other trees and bushes and blocking the way. I had to straddle the trunk, rotate 180 degrees, and duck underneath a few pinned-down yaupon bushes to get through. It's by far the biggest tree ever to fall across my trail since I cut it six years ago.
Back on the road I saw the problem. Somebody--probably the power company--had cut this tree down and let it just fall into the woods. I counted the rings: seventy-two years old. It looked healthy, but I couldn't get close to its growing top. The tree was at least eighty feet tall. It will be hard either to get around it or to cut a gap through it.
Thai Thai. Covington: 1536 US 190. 985-809-8905.
Walk-On's. CBD: 1009 Poydras St. 504-309-6530.
