Dinner @ The Phoenix

Tonight Becky and I had a wonderful dinner tonight at the Phoenix restaurant on Amherst Street in Black Rock. We loved it. This was our first time having dinner there. It has been on our list for several years to try out. Should have gone there a long time ago.

The restaurant opens at 5 pm and we got there about 5:15 and were the first customers of the night. They have a very nice patio but we opted to sit in the dinning room as it was getting chilly. We had the room to ourselves for about a half hour and then it suddenly filled up. The service was very good and the food was spectacular. 

We started off with a couple of beers. Becky had an Athletic NA and I had a Niagara Lager draft pint from Woodcock Brewery, a local beer. Becky had Chicken Piccata and I had Chicken Masala. Both of our dinners had fabulous mashed potatoes and broccoli. The dinners were both traditional old school and amazing. 

Then we had dessert and Becky ordered an ice cream dish but OMG it was delicious. I couldn't believe how good it was.

On the walls of the restaurant was the artwork of our friend Sandy Ludwick whom we've known for over 40 years. She was a regular customer at the ArtTree back in the 80's and taught art in the Buffalo public schools. Later in the 90's when we moved on Crescent Ave we discovered she was a neighbor. We were at her art opening at the restaurant a couple of weeks ago and at that time we decided we really had to check out this place out. There was a very big crowd at the opening and the food that some folks were having at the tables looked good. We knew we had to come back. Next time we have to come with some friends.

MJM Electric

Last week I contacted MJM Electric, a local electrician company, to install our newly purchased kitchen light fixture and also to fix our backyard security light which stopped working last month. Joe from MJM came this morning and did the work.

He took down our old very large not working properly kitchen fixture and replaced it with the much smaller and round new fixture. It also had three different settings for

bulb brightness and color. Actually it's an LED light rather than a bulb. Now our kitchen is very bright. The kids will be happy. I also have some painting to do on the ceiling.

We were lucky it's trash day because I was able to put most of that kitchen light fixture including the four long fluorescent blubs out on the street for trash pickup which happened about then minutes later. I had already put out several large trash bags of leaves and nuts so I didn't want to put too much stuff out there on this regular trash day. So the heavy large part of the fixture I put in the shed for next week's trash.

He also took care of the security light problem which turned out to be two bad bulbs that may have burned out after the hail storm last month. The light stopped working after the storm. One bulb went completely out and the other just flickered. It really didn't look like it was an ordinary burned out bulb which I had considered. We have another security light fixture on the sunroom that worked fine when turned on and I thought about switching the bulbs with the lights on the back of the house but didn't really want to be climbing up that high on a ladder just to try it out. Called the electrician.

He went up on his ladder and took out the bad bulbs and asked if I had new bulbs. Instead I had him take the two bulbs from the other fixture and put them in the security fixture to see if they worked. They did. I then had him put the two bad bulbs in the sunroom fixture where they didn't work there either. So now at some point I will buy a couple of replacement bulbs for the light fixture in the back and I will also get a couple of new bulbs for that security light as we don't know how long those replacement bulbs will last. It was odd that both bulbs would go at the same time but the electrician said there may have been a little damage to the fixture due to the storm although there was nothing obvious and the replacement bulbs seemed to work fine. I'll be testing them out over the new few days.

The MJM Electric company will be sending us a bill for the work. It will be interesting to see how much they charge us for changing those light bulbs. The service was good and I would use them again.

The Milago Beanfield War

Last night Becky and I stayed up a little late to watch the The Milago Beanfield War on TCM. We started watching at 9 pm and sat there through the entire movie. It is a classic great film. We first saw it shortly after it came out in 1988.

It really is a wonderful comedy-drama that holds up very well after all these years. It was directed by Robert Redford and has an amazing cast that includes Ruben Blades, John Heard, Melanie Griffiths, Christopher Walken, Daniel Stern, Sonia Braga and many others. Freddy Fender too. The landscape scenes of New Mexico were stunning and a very important aspect of the movie.

The film was based on the book with the same title by John Nichols that came out i 1974. I read it in April 1987 probably when I heard about the movie coming out.

I forgot that this book was the first in a trilogy about New Mexico. I feel like I should read The Milagro Beanfield War again and then read the following two books of the trilogy. John Nichols wrote quite a few other books including a non-fiction trilogy about New Mexico. He lived in Taos, New Mexico.