A spoonful of sugar helps the cappuccino go down

A few snippets about sugar that I've collected during this trip.

I always forget to bring my sweeteners with me, but it never matters as everywhere has a selection of different types of sugar on offer, so you can pick one.

One of the vendors in Oakland wasn't have much luck in flogging his large pink balls of cotton candy (candy floss) to anybody in the crowd, as he went up and down the stairs in numerous sections. Eventually resorted to advertising it in an entirely different way:

"Bags of solid sugar!"

The lady sitting next to me quipped "oh, I'll take two, then!"

I went to the Capital Grille on 42nd Street for dinner this evening. The building was impressive, with a mainly glass exterior and lots of steel infrastructure. It sounds awful described like that, but it's actually impressive. As darkness fell, the glass reflected the inside. I thought the light was failing inside the lamp on my table, as it kept flickering, then I wondered if it was actually one of those bulbs that simulates a flame and looked inside - it was a real flame on a real candle.

I knew it would be expensive, as I've dined at this chain of restaurants before and the location of this one in the middle of the theatre district led me to believe it would be even more expensive. In fact, it was the same prices as other outlets. My server, Scott P, looked after me well, just the right amount of attentiveness and interaction, with no sense of rushing me to finish or pay and leave at the end. Including the tip, the amount came to just over $100 for a three course meal - I had the smoked salmon, the Kona-crusted sirloin steak, and chocolate cake with a cappuccino.

The cappuccino came with a spoon that was actually a wooden stirrer with sugar crystallised over it. It looked very pretty and the sugar didn't actually dissolve all at once.