Tell me about a great restaurant experience you once had.

Baltimore? Sure, Jan.

I celebrated my 21st birthday at The Melting Pot. It was a great dining experience because I was finally able to drink. I had about a half dozen disgusting martinis. A s'mores martini, a mango one, one with a gummi peach ring in it etc.

You type more like a 12-year old than a 21-year old.

gummi peach ring? Is that a type of cock ring?

Just cuz you can't afford it, R1.

Sounds lovely, OP.

I loved it when the international Clefs D’Or association published on their website the names of concierges in their organisation and the names of the hotels they worked at. I always booked at those locations, even if it were a chain like Holiday Inn or an Marriott over a fancier and more luxurious hotel without a Clefs D’Or concierge, because the service made all the difference.

They no longer publish the names; I gather the members were being bombarded with emails.

R6, I am no longer a Concierge, but I had a fantastic run and would like to write a book.

Only about the good though. I don’t dwell on the negative, though once I hung up on a broad from Notyj Jersey I couldn’t listen to insult me anymore.

Also, Australians and Scotts are the friendliest travelers.

My error, North Jersey. But she sounded like that misspelling haha.

R5 yes—we NYers can’t fathom those Baltimore dinner tabs. The crab bills are too damn high.

Concierges are the real estate agents of the hospitality world.

I got a motel room on my birthday once at the Snooty Fox in Los Angeles. A guy online tricked me and all these DL basement dweller types kept knocking on my door. After a few hours I fled and went to Krispy Kreme and then the Carvel a few doors down. Tom Carvel signed my cookie puss.

r10 Creative writing isn't your thing.

If you are at the Baltimore airport with an hour to kill, Miss Shirley’s cafe is a great place for a nosh.

But why would one want to be there?

I was just talking to my dad about this so it’s top of mind:

I lived in Dublin in 1993 and he came for a visit. We took the train to Galway and back and on the way back, our train allegedly hit a barrel of Guinness on the track so we were delayed by an hour. It wasn’t terrible because our fellow passengers were hilarious and it ended up being fun.

Anyway, we made it back to Dublin very late, like around 10 PM and were walking around the city center, starving so we went into this restaurant called Tosca. They gave us so much free food and took such good care of us, I still remember it fondly to this day. I believe I the restaurant was owned by Bono’s brother and if so, he did a solid job with his staff.

Secondly, and also in Baltimore, the American Visionary Art Museum had a terrific restaurant called Joy America Cafe’. For my birthday one year, my husband asked the chef to put together a vegan meal for me and it was so scrumptious.

Not an actual restaurant. It was my 19th birthday. I was tired in a bad mood and I was cold miserable and soaked from a four day pouring rain and I was eating unheated the dreaded and often avoided ham and motherfuckers.

The neighborhood I was in was so dangerous I was carrying two guns.

If I had one birthday to relive mine would be an easy choice

I nearly wept after trying Mango Pomelo Sago in Hong Kong at the waitresses suggestion of a dessert.

I’d never eaten anything like it and was obsessed.