July 17, 2019 Lunch – Vietnam 2000 Dinner – Zinc

July 17, 2019 Lunch – Vietnam 2000  Dinner – Zinc

I ate a bowl of fruit salad, yogurt, and granola for breakfast at 9:45.

After Joe came and fixed the toilet, I went to the bank and the post office and then back around 11:15

I received a call from from George and Sylvia a bit before 12:00 and we agreed to meet at Vietnam 2000 for lunch.  When they arrived I was thrilled that they liked Vietnamese food and knew their way around its imposing menu.  They asked for substitutions and put together two interesting dishes to meet their preference for vegetarian ingredients.  George ordered the fancy bun bowl with stir fried vegetables and fried tofu.  Sylvia ordered a bun bowl with fried vegetarian egg rolls and fried tofu and I ordered a flour sheet plate with shrimp paste and fried pork egg rolls.

Here are the photos:

Besides ice water George and I also ordered iced Vietnamese drip chicory flavored coffees with condensed milk.  As we were eating a fly or two buzzed us and I commented, “I feel just like I am in Saigon.”

Sylvia and George wanted to go see the National Museum of Nuclear History and Science after lunch.  Since I had not been to it in fifteen years we decided to all go.  I am happy I did.  It has increased the breath of the exhibits over the years and tells three or four stories in great detail.  The evolution of science leading to the discovery of atomic fission, the history of the Manhattan Project
with emphasis on Fermi’s experiments in Soldier Field in Chicago creating the first fission reaction and Los Alamos, the evolution of  the air power needed to deliver nuclear weapons, and in a field behind the museum some of the planes and guns and a submarine conning tower that were the actual delivery vehicles.

 

George and Sylvia in front of the museum 

Mei in front of a large cannon 

  I was particularly happy to see the actual casings of the two bombs dropped and a model of the gadget that was used at the Trinity site to create the first nuclear detonation.

Wikipedia states, “The bomb dropped on Hiroshima from the Enola Gay was known as "Little Boy". The bomb dropped on Nagasaki three days later was significantly larger and was known as "Fat Boy". The Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium implosion device as exploded in New Mexico at the Trinity site in July 1945.”

When we left the museum I felt like I had seen a museum of nuclear history worthy of the name and left with a new appreciation and understanding of the history of nuclear science and warfare.

I then went home at 4:00 and rested until I received a call from George at 6:30.  They came by the
house and picked me up.  I gave them a bit of history, a commemorative cocktail glass made for those
who attended the 509 Composite Group’s 50th anniversary reunion in 1995. Now George and Sylvia can hold a bit of history in their hands and remember the Nuclear Museum and the beginning of the nuclear era.  Here is a picture of the cocktail glass.

Here is the historical context into which the cocktail glass fits thanks to Wikipedia, “The Enola Gay (/ɪˈnoʊlə/) is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the first aircraft to drop an atomic bomb. The bomb, code-named "Little Boy", was targeted at the city of Hiroshima, Japan, and caused the near-complete destruction of the city. Enola Gay participated in the second atomic attack as the weather reconnaissance aircraft for the primary target of Kokura. Clouds and drifting smoke resulted in a secondary target, Nagasaki, being bombed instead.

In service 18 May 1945 – 24 July 1946
After the war, the Enola Gay returned to the United States, where it was operated from Roswell Army Air Field, New Mexico. In May 1946, it was flown to Kwajalein for the Operation Crossroads
nuclear tests in the Pacific, but was not chosen to make the test drop at Bikini Atoll. Later that year it
was transferred to the Smithsonian Institution, and spent many years parked at air bases exposed to the weather and souvenir hunters, before being disassembled and transported to the Smithsonian's storage facility at Suitland, Maryland, in 1961.

In the 1980s, veterans groups engaged in a call for the Smithsonian to put the aircraft on display, leading to an acrimonious debate about exhibiting the aircraft without a proper historical context. The cockpit and nose section of the aircraft were exhibited at the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in downtown Washington, D.C., for the bombing's 50th anniversary in 1995, amid controversy. Since 2003, the entire restored B-29 has been on display at NASM's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. The last survivor of its crew, Theodore Van Kirk, died on 28 July 2014 at the age of 93.

We drove to Gruet Winery but arrived after 7:00 and it was closed, so we drove to Zinc after admiring the small vineyard outside the winery.

At Zinc we had a great waiter, animated, and knowledgeable about the food and the wine list. After studying the menu, the wine list, and the prix fixe menu we finally made our decisions.  Sylvia ordered a smoked trout on a potato pancake on a puddle of black truffle oil. I ordered the duck confit egg rolls with two small shallow ramekins, one with a sweet Chile sauce and the other with creamy curry sauce.  The duck egg rolls are a specialty of the restaurant and I love them.  The smoked trout on a potato pancake was the second best thing we ate mainly due to the elegantly simple truffle oil sauce drizzled around the pancake.

The smoked trout on a potato pancake

The duck egg rolls

Sylvia and George ordered grilled ruby trout garnished with a green chile tomatillo cream romesco sauce served on a bed of sour cream red potatoes with chorizo with sautéed vegetables.  I ordered lamb tenderloin with sautéed fresh fava beans, leek. Pancetta, and polenta gnocchi served on a puddle of Demi glacé sauce.  I asked for and was brought another ramekin of Demi-glacé sauce so I was able to dip each small bite of lamb into it.  The lamb was also served with a slice of  asparagus strudel with Parmesan cheese sprinkles baked into the top.

My lamb tenderloin 

The ruby trout

Then unexpectedly the highlight of dinner occurred when dessert was served a rhubarb-lemon cobbler with candied orange zest and earl grey ice cream.  The Earl Grey ice cream was the hit of the dinner as far as I was concerned.  It reminded me of similarly lovely creamy ice creams with amazing flavors I have eaten in France.

We had trouble choosing the wine.  After trying a rose and a White Sauvignon Blanc that seemed to have a slightly bitter finish our waiter brought us a blind taste of a white that tasted of Sauvignon Blanc but richer and slightly sweet.  We liked it and I ordered a bottle and discovered it was a blend of Sauvignon Blanc and semillon grapes produced by Chateau Pilet.  Here are some wine notes I found on this bottle.
“Chateau Pilet is located on the "Right Bank" in Entre-Deux-Mers and this is their Appellation Controllee Bordeaux Blanc. It is comprised of the classic blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc and 40% Semillon that has been fermented and aged in temperature control stainless steel tanks. It is crisp and slightly herbaceous with citrus tones and hints of grapefruits. The wine has more body due to the Semillon and a rich finish that lingers on the palate.”

I am as impressed with Zinc as any restaurant in Albuquerque and everything we ate tonight reconfirmed that impression.

Bon Appetit