The Big Country

A Good Paddlin'

Caution: Feature creep! I’m not a fan of the new Kayak interface. Kayak’s been good to me over the last year, and remains one of my favorite search engine for airfares, despite with the introduction of sexy newcomers like Yapta and Vayama. Besides, those both sound like a parasite you’d pick up in South America.

Sadly, it’s harder to prune down choices with the new interface—filter touting be damned--and harder still to tweak searches by more than a few days at a time, as you’d do when you’re more focused on where you want to go than when.

Kayak has superior sorting tools to Vayama, unless you consider Vayama’s map to be an essential part of the search process. I myself hope to have a good sense of where places are before I pull the trigger on tickets. However, the economy of the interface was a big selling point for me; now, it’s gone from being intuitive to a bit like using the dreadful OS 9 or iDrive on a BMW, both of which cause my brain to leap from my skull in terror. Combine that with the fact that Kayak seems to be missing a lot of the lowest fares of late, and it feels like the storm clouds are starting to gather. Better get a life vest--it's under the seat.

One Sentence Review: Ramen Setagaya

Ramen Setagaya: I wasn't bowled over.

Egg Rolls Downhill

Let me begin thusly: I like Chinese food, but I will always love the Shun Lee Palace.

The NY Sun ran an article yesterday noting that white-tablecloth Chinese restaurants here in New York are dying a slow death. Only a small handful of them remain, Shun Lee Palace among them.

Shun Lee, of course, has long been one of my favorite places in New York. It’s not scene-y now, and to be honest, it probably wasn’t scene-y when I ate there as a kid. Even I don’t eat there often, so it’s hardly a surprise that it’s “full of old people” these days.

One quote in the article, from a real estate broker, is telling:

"Chinese food is out of vogue," he said. "It contains a lot of sugar, and more and more health-minded and calorie-conscious New Yorkers are looking to alternative dining."

I doubt the issue is health. For people with too much money on their hands (of which there are quite a few in New York), there’s no wow factor in a Chinese restaurant, even a nice one like Shun Lee. Besides, Shun Lee can hardly charge $25 a pop for dumplings or sesame noodles, no matter how delicately they are prepared.

Meanwhile, Nobu, or Masa, or any other sushi temple that’s opened of late, can charge astronomical sums for omakase menus, all while spinning yarns about how the fish is flown in from the moon or that their sea urchin is so rare that it can only be caught by blind Shinto monks twice a year. The best way for these Chinese places is they figure out how to bilk Wall Street types just like these Japanese. I, for one, would approve such an endeavor.

One Sentence Review: Choice

Choice: Kitchen and Cocktails: Given the option, pick the cocktails.

John Kennedy Tools

Fantastic article in USA Today this week about JFK airport, highlighting what’s gone wrong. (Short answer: a whole lot) JFK is the epicenter of the well-documented delays this summer, a change from previous years when the blame fell to Newark or LGA.  Increased air traffic in the metro area and the huge bump in flights by Delta and JetBlue, which didn’t even exist ten years ago, are the main culprits, but internecine squabbles between the FAA and the Port Authority aren’t helping matters. Imagine a line at the DMV that’s one million planes long to get an idea of how efficiently things are handled.

I had first hand experience with the, ahem, “duster-shuck” that is JFK airport on Sunday, when it took three hours from the moment my plane touched down at JFK to get to my apartment—and that doesn’t even include an hour delay just waiting for a traffic-based ground hold to end so I could depart. And the problems I had are representative: upon arrival, there are no open gates, forcing planes to park at shuttle passengers to the terminal. Subsequently, bags take ages to arrive--of course, there are more checked bags than ever thanks to the TSA liquids nonsense--and, well, I’m not sure if I can blame the Port Authority for an hour-long wait at a taxi rank, but I’ll try. There is not enough infrastructure to support the volume of planes and passengers. Essentially, the whole experience is just like trying to get to the airport on the Van Wyck.

JetBlue is taking an interesting approach to the delays, pushing for fewer flights out of the airport at peak times. They were also very savvy about how to handle the mess when I arrived, trying to get passengers to connecting flights first before deplaning everyone, which, thanks to a lack of gates, required a stair car and a Heathrow-esque bus ride to the terminal. Still, many of the problems are out of their hands, which must cause endless agita at corporate HQ. In the meantime, you can find me somewhere around 20th in line for takeoff. 

Making Waves

Does anyone listen to the radio when they travel anymore? The ubiquitous iPod is great, of course, but you lose so much without local radio and local radio ads. I blame Clear Channel and satellite radio for this state of affairs too, but either way, there’s no quicker way to get a sense of local flavor than a good indie radio station.

Without it, how would you figure out that turbofolk is the scourge of the Balkans? (It is. Trust me). Or that "making it rain" is something you'll need to do soon? Don’t even get me started on how music on satellite radio is often divided by decade, which drives me nuts. It’s not the way God (or Marconi) intended it.

I'll put this way: Is there any station but WDST in Woodstock where you’ll hear ads for grow lamps that let you “grow your favorite plants any time of year”? I thought not.

I'm Your Pusherman

Yes, I'm "dealing" for Travel + Leisure these days. Peep the July Deals page here.