Wiscon 36 Con Report - Food Edition

[julieandrews]

On the way to Wiscon, I bought a hummus sandwich at the Cosi in the airport. It has leaves of basil on it, which was odd. I would've preferred spinach. I also bought a bagel at DD. The fate of the hummus sandwich -- I ate most of it on the bus, discarded the rest eventually. The fate of the bagel -- turned hard and got thrown out, but I used the cream cheese on a later Starbucks bagel.

I got off at Memorial Union and walked down State Street with my luggage. So to reward myself, I stopped into Noodles & Co and got a pad thai with tofu and a fizzy peach drink. I thought I'd get back to Noodles & Co later, but I didn't. These got consumed in their entirety once I reached the room.

Had a fancy local root beer in the bar that night. Then went up to the Governor's Club lounge for desserts. A strawberry cupcake that was hard and dry and not very good, and a chocolate coffee trifle that was very good. (The con hotel does better with chocolate than other types of dessert.)

Breakfast was also in the Governor's Club lounge. Scrambled eggs (sometimes these seemed to have cheese, other times not), fruit that's mostly melon and pineapple, and various breakfast pastries. (They also have yogurt, cereal, bagels, english muffins, etc.)

I may forget the order of things after this point.

Restaurants

Mirch Masala(?) It's sort of around back of the hotel. I think I ate there last year, but if so, they've remodeled and might be under new management. Ate here with Kimberly, who reminded me we had the ASL dinner together last year, and with people she'd gathered. Some of them were new to Wiscon.

Decided I like (* is a wildcard):
paneer *
* korma
* pakoor (if that's the chick pea batter)
samosas are okay

They serve a buffet earlier in the day, so that might be a good option for some. Someday I will try Indian drinks, such as lassi.

The Fountain

For the gender variant dinner, we ate here. It's really close to the hotel and is probably new this year. It's a burger and sandwiches place, but it has not only one veggie burger option, but two! I had a portobello mushroom, but I could've had a black bean burger. They were a little slow. Our party was about a half a dozen, so not so terribly large. Fortunately its proximity to the hotel meant I didn't miss the start of the Tiptree Auction. Also had sweet potato fries.

Got a smoothie from the farmer's market. Pineapple. Mmm.
Had a free piece of Ian's mac and cheese pizza at the appdev meeting. So I never got into Ian's on my own and got my card punched for another year. Woe. Also, they moved across the street.
Bought a cheesecake chocolate brownie thingee from the Tiptree bakesale. Yum.
Lucked into a fresh batch of popcorn at the consuite once. Got soda and water there on other occasions.

Never had dessert again in the governor's club lounge. Did have breakfast most every day there. Had hors d'oeuvres once. Tortilla chips and black bean dip, veggies and bleu cheese dip, and veggie dumpling things that I didn't very much. Also a Shirley Temple.

Various chocolates from the reg desk or parties. Really knew better than to stick any in my pocket, but did it anyway. I had to throw my mp3 player's earbuds out (they were old anyway) and clean the player as best I could.

Looked at the pasty shop's veggie options, decided I wasn't interested. Failed to find the food cart at the farmer's market that last year had great Thai wraps.

Dessert salon, I had the chocolate mousse, because that's consistently good. Had the wrong shaped spoon for it. The pecan pie thing had a hard crust that wouldn't cut with my fork, so I just ate the topping off of it. Went back later for a chocolate decadent cake thing that gave me a good shot of sugar and caffeine. Not sure if it had coffee in it or not.

I think that was everything. Never enough opportunities to eat at all the cool places. Plus I felt I should eat in the governor's club lounge when I could, since I was paying a premium for the privilege.

Comments

[sophy.livejournal.com]

There's a gender variant dinner??

[julieandrews.livejournal.com]

There was, yup. It was mentioned on the Wiscon lj, but I think it was under a locked post. It wasn't on the official schedule. Plans to do it again next year.

[sophy.livejournal.com]

That sounds really awesome - I hope I a) hear about it next year and b) don't have anything conflicting. :)