On Saturday and on Wednesday I ate at the Blue Iguana Restaurant in Salt Lake City (175 S. West Temple, in the alley back behind the parking plaza at 165 S. West Temple). Saturday I TRIED to get my out-of-state friend Chris to try one of their moles, but he got a very loudly sizzling fajita platter instead. On Wednesday I made a discovery that I simply MUST share:

You can get a sampler saucer with a dollop of each of their six mole sauces for FREE.

I LOVE THAT. Now anytime I eat there with someone unfamiliar with the cuisine, they don’t need to take any huge risks.

I plowed through the saucer with whatever the spanish word is for “aplomb.” The coloradito and poblano were sweet, with the coloradito being just a touch sweeter. The negro (the one with the most chocolate in it) was less sweet, because cocoa is naturally bitter. The amarillo was less sweet still, and fiery thanks to the habaneros. The verde and the one whose name I’ve forgotten (Voldemole? Moledemort?) were about as tasty as a light gravy, and were therefore crossed off of my list of possible ordering options.

I got the poblano. It had a touch of the chocolate that makes the negro so tasty, but wasn’t noticably bitter.

We ALSO got the stuffed jalapenos. These were NOT the “TGI Friday deep-fried appetizer” thingies. These were more like chiles relleno, only done with jalapenos, and with all the seeds left inside them. Holy wow… they were gently spicy (but I’ve been doing hot food lately, so I’d say they’re probably going to burn a hole in the roof of the average Norteamericano’s mouth) and smothered in a cheesy red sauce.

The only shortcoming… the dessert menu. The fried ice-cream is very ordinary, and the flan was blah. That’s okay. If you do the jalapenos and a good mole, you’ll not need to top off the tummy with sweets.

So… if you go to the Blue Iguana (and if you live in the Salt Lake area, or are visiting it, I suggest that you DO) be absofreakinlutely sure to get that saucer of mole samples. And bear in mind that if you like ’em, they can put that sauce on ANYTHING on the menu. An amarillo-smothered carne asada burrito is a thing to behold.

–Howard

Pizzahut.com lets me order pizza with all the specific detail I can use over the phone, and then some. Right down to “half with pepperoni and sausage, half with ham and pineapple.” It lets me edit my order and see the price. For instance, I just found out that “stuffed crust” costs nothing extra, while “extra cheese” does. I can set a delivery or carryout time… I can SCHEDULE dinner, rather than just calling 45 minutes ahead (or 15 minutes ahead, for carryout).

Oh, and a very kind Schlocker (who shall remain nameless even though I named a 31st-century munitions company after him) provided me with a Pizza Hut Gift Card.

I’ll post again after I’ve eaten. I’m all about letting you people know how I like to Do Food.

–Howard

Wednesday morning at BrainShare I decided to experiment with the markers. Rather than beginning with pencil and ink, and then coloring line-art, I decided to just dive in with the markers.

Since I was coloring “freehand,” with no reference and no guidelines, I decided to do something that wouldn’t look ‘wrong’ if I screwed it up. That ruled out any of my characters, which was a good thing — I wanted to push myself OUT of the comfort zone. So I drew a dragon.

It came out okay…

The Toffa guys at BrainShare gave away a Sony PSP today at 4pm. I was there for the give-away, and had I been eligible, I would have walked away with the device.

The device, by the way, is really, really nifty. The graphics in the driving game I played for 5 minutes or so were amazing — this is NOT what handheld gaming has been for the last few years — not by a longshot. It seemed to me to be at least as realistic as Playstation graphics.

The Toffa guys imported the device from Japan, followed somebody’s instructions on getting it to display interface in English, and then gave it away here in the U.S… and the winner had only to answer a pretty simple tech-trivia question before anybody else did. The answer, by the way, was “SyncML,” and there was time enough before the answer was shouted out for me to turn to Chris and say “Okay, I know this one. Are you SURE I’m not eligible for the device?”

So yeah, I held, played, and helped* give away a Sony PSP today. Does any of that device’s inherent coolness transfer onto me?

–Howard

(*Note: by “helped” I mean “failed to interfere with.”)