Charlie, Charlie

Yesterday, I finally was able to join a couple of friends (who I used to work with) for lunch. We try to meet occasionally and catch up, but schedules are sometimes hard to mesh.. Finally we worked it, and were able to meet at Charlie’s Deli  (I guess they still use “Deli"). I hadn’t visited there since last August, shortly after they re-opened. At that time, I remember remarking that if you didn’t know they had been closed for the previous year or so, you wouldn’t notice any difference.

Pretty much the same could be said for this visit and my initial one. There are still table numbers under the glass on the table, bric-a-brac, ice cream bar, and menu. I think I would say that maybe the service has improved, I didn’t get the “I’m” speech although I was the third to arrive. I didn’t keep count, but there were numerous “You guys” directed at not only our table but generally throughout the dining space although many tables were mixed gender. This time I wasn’t forced to order by number, I guess by now they know that number 17 is a Reuben. Anyway, we ordered a “white board” crab cake sandwich, the “Fish and Chips”, and I went with the reliable old Tuna Melt. Mild fumbling around finding and deciding on the sides (pick only one); we had two potato salads and the chips (which in this case were actual potato chips, not fries)..

Conversation on the various flying machines we have worked on passed the time, and eventually the food came out. It was later than you might have wished, but it is fun talking. Although delivered to the table by the same server that took our order, she still had to offer each dish waiting for its owner to fess up, but she did manage to get the last one correct (think about it for a moment). Between bun, cake, lettuce, and tomato the crab cake sandwich wound up being about five inches tall, as did the fish. Thankfully, the tuna melt was encased in grilled whole wheat, with the requisite melted cheddar cheese.  However, one bite revealed there was also tomato and bacon also in there. Hey! A quick reference to the menu confirmed it was made exactly as described. Although not traditional, bacon can’t hurt anything, but I yanked the pale winter white tomato. The tuna was a little creamier than I like but wasn’t bad. The potato salad, served in a little cup was dense and fairly mustardy, with sizable chunks of potato, making it a bit tough to eat. It's hard to cut something in a cup, so I didn't finish mine.

Finally, the check hits the table with no totals, just itemized as ordered leaving it to the group to go to the cash register to sort out who owes what with another round of “I had the…”. I don’t quarrel too much with that approach as usually the lunch crowd is assemblages of individuals who pay their own way.

I suspect in the panoply of casual lunch options available locally, Charlie’s is as good as any. Just another place to go.  Convenient.
P&S

As mentioned yesterday (?) I have procured a little Canon point and shoot which I will try to keep with me to capture not only plates but “stuff” that attracts my eye. Nowadays there is no paper user manual, so I had to go on line to find a copy to educate myself about it. It about the size of your cell phone. I was astonished at the capability of the little thing. There are several “auto” functions that will do amazing things for you. For instance, get this: (and I am not making this up) you can enter “Smile Detection Mode”. After setting it up, you point the camera at a face, and when the CAMERA detects a smile, it will shoot the picture. Or, there is a “Best Image Selection” feature, which when set, will take five shots of a group of people, then the CAMERA determines which is “best” and saves only one. Wonder what would happen if I shoot a picture of a group of restaurants? And remember the “self timer” feature that is fairly common these days where you trip the shutter and run to get into the shot, (or almost into the shot which is usually my fate).? Well, you now have the option of the “wink timer”. Activate the feature, put somebody’s face in the little white “frame”, press the shutter button, leisurely join the group, have the person in the frame wink, and Poof! You get the picture. How do they do this stuff?

Anyway it will be fun to learn about the little device. Maybe it will tell me how to

DFD