BGG.CON 2018

Since 2013 we have gone to BGG (Board Game Geek) Convention 5 times (2013/14/16/17/18), but for some reason I decided now was finally the time to make a post about it. Caiqian and I have really enjoyed going to meet our board game friends, Corey, Jenny, Michael, Alison, Shalin, Bhavin, Dan, and Carlo as well as others who have come and gone over the years. Caiqian was sick the whole time, but she just napped extra between games.

Caiqian and I in the main gaming hall

The beating heart of BGG Con is the BGG library, a massive collection of old and new games that are free to check out, with the only rules being you can only check out one game at a time and it must be returned within 4 or 8 hours (depending if the game is "hot" or not).

The BGG Library

This year I did my homework and had a big list of games I wanted to play, which really facilitated always having something to do. By going through that list, trying games friends wanted to play, and by just picking up stuff that looked neat, we learned 29 games and played 25 new board games over 4 days!

Those games are organized below in a series of lists.

Bryan's Likes

Setting up Patchwork Express, with Bunny Kingdom off to the side.

1. Azul: Stained Glass Sintra - Very nice, same tile pulling mechanic as Azul but with a whole new scoring system. This was the game I played the most of all games. Solid sequel.
2. Downforce - Best racing game, actually fast unlike other racing games.
3. Realm of Sand  - A nice blend of Patchwork and Splendor. I really liked this game, might even buy when it becomes available. You build and score designs on a grid.
4. Lords of Waterdeep with The Scoundrels of Skullport Expansion- The granddaddy of worker placement games, you place workers in limited spaces, get resources, and try and score an ever-changing deck of goals.
5. Magic Maze - Liked, don't need to buy. Gets people smiling. Instead of controlling heroes you control all heroes going left, while someone controls all heroes going north. Very fast and tricky since you can't talk to each other.
6. Drop It - A cute and casual dexterity game with only minimal strategy - a fun waiting room game. 
7. Decrypto - One of our friends referred to this as the "Crosstalk killer", but we think while it's also a word game, it doesn't replace Crosstalk - just a different teams-based word game. Cluegiver gives multiple words while guessers try and guess order of words.
8. Patchwork Express - a more streamlined version of Patchwork.

Caiqian's Likes

A game about  managing nurses taking care of a dying man in the hospital

1. Master of the Galaxy - I really liked the bag-building (color composition) aspect of Master of the Galaxy. Additional cards add variety. It's definitely worth playing again!
2. The Mind - This is a surprisingly fun game to play with the right people, at least a couple of times. The premise is so simple it seems silly - players have to play cards in ascending order but without talking or gesturing. It makes for hilarious attempts at mindreading!
3. Holding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr - This was an interestingly themed game that progresses through a story. I'm curious to try Scenario 2. 
4. First Contact - I enjoyed the theme of this game, though the exact mechanism was breakable so I eagerly await another game themed around deciphering alien ruins but with a more functional game mechanic.

Bryan's "Meh" list

Look how Big Thunderstone Quest is! Left is a box with all our online sales,  right is just Thunderstone Quest!

1. Thunderstone Quest - Good, Caiqian and I actually played twice. But it's too expensive and big.  Needs more end game control.
2. Scythe - My second favorite game I played with Carlo's friends. A complex game where you upgrade yourself and everyone plays with cool minis on a marsh battlefield.
3. Greedy Kingdoms - A two player resource-based game that also involves bluffing each other with cards. It was fun, but not too much depth to warrant replay.
4. Altiplano - A game where you "bag build" instead of "deck build." Novel, but not fun for me.
5. The Legend of the Cherry Tree that Blossoms Every Ten Years - A cute short push-your luck type of game with a tiny bit of strategy.
6. Clank! In! Space! Apocalypse!  - They utilize the previously simple black cubes to make the game harder. I didn't like the original Clank! In! Space! game, and this was a good expansion but not good enough for me to have fun.
7. Concordia Venus - Weak expansion - might was well play the original game. Adds one new type of card.
8. Samurai Jack: Back to the Past - The worst game. Played to satisfy a friends curiosity. Like candyland but with card collecting. 

Caiqian's "Meh" list

Caiqian playing "Horizons" in the back, while Carlo and friends in front setup "Concordia Venus"  to play with me

1. Bunny Kingdom - This reminded me of Queen Domino but with card drafting. It's a liiiittle bit prone to luck, but may be worth another go.
2. Itchy Monkeys - I'm not sold on the game mechanics - it seems really dependent on other players' decisions, and one weak player could upset the balance and decide the winner.
3. Micropolis - Maybe I just played too many area-based-scoring games, but it was kinda meh. I did play the game assuming the tunnels were the walls, and the walls were the tunnels, so that could also be it.
4. Horizons - I'm not sure what was up with this game - the species having different abilities was kind of neat, but they didn't all seem beneficial.
5. Magic: The Gathering – Heroes of Dominaria - For such an attractive title, this was unfortunately a little too luck-based for me for serious play.

Games Where We Read the Rulebook but Didn't Play the game

"Marvio" from "Super Plumber Bros" and "James Bomb" from "006 Plus One"  packs. Part of Millennium Blades.

1. Near and Far - Just read rulebook. Very wholesome adventure game - not my style
2. Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective - Just looked at the rulebook, not a good fit for me. Lots of reading and time and notetaking.
3. Gem Rush - The rules and illustrations made this seem like a casual dungeon-building as you go kind of game. I grabbed it because some folks at the library seemed really enthusiastic about it, but funnily our friend Corey seemed to not recommend it at all.
4. Millennium Blades - Loved the components (see above pic), not the playtime (4 hours). It's a game about being a collective card trader (a game within a game).

Games we looked for but didn't find in the BGG Library

1. Cockroach Poker
2. Fugitive
3. Lifeboats
4. Summoner Wars: Alliances

Want to Try Next Year

1. Planet
2. Realm of Sand (Caiqian didn't get to play this one, and the game has not yet been released to the public)
3. Expancity
4. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game 

Texas Hold'em Poker Tournament
After reading about Texas Hold'em in a book about productivity recently, Caiqian wanted to try her hand at poker. What better place to try poker than the free poker tournament at BGG.con? Everyone starts with 800 chips, and the winners end up with a stack of board games. Unfortunately Caiqian did not last too long. Our friends Alison and Jenny both made it to the final table, though!

Puzzle Hunt
Every year the convention organizes a big puzzle game made up of many different puzzles. Even though none of us are very good at puzzles, it is fun to use that part of our brain once a year to try to make sense of nonsense words and diagrams.

BGG Bazaar and Virtual Flea Market

BGG Bazaar

Virtual Flea Market  (pre-arrange sales online): Sold $125 worth of games

BGG Bazaar (putting games on tables and having it be a free market): Sold $155 worth of games
BGG Bazaar: Bought 4 games we wanted to play for $22
After commissions, total BGG profit of $252, hooray!

Another successful money-savings tactic was cup noodles! Literally! Just kidding, we also brought deli meats for sandwiches, chicken salad, fruits, cherry tomatoes, nuts, seaweed snacks, lunchables, eggs - a veritable feast! We spent a total of $0 on food during our 4-night stay at the hotel (we didn't leave once). Eating at the hotel buffet would have cost $30/meal and the food there isn't even any good (from our previous 4 years of experience).

Nissin Raoh Ramen with Ramen Egg (delish!)

Post-BGG.Con Parting Lunch: Babe's Chicken Dinner House

After four days of hanging out with friends, we were sad to see each other go. There's something magical about waking up in a hotel room and just taking the elevator down to a mass of people who are having fun, knowing somewhere in the 3000 people are your board game friends. So this year we ended with a nice meal at Babe's, where you get fried chicken and unlimited sides (including biscuits).

One funny thing at the restaurant was we were exposed to one final puzzle for our big brains to solve. Funny enough, we couldn't crack it until a waitress explained it to us. Can you solve the code?

Can you decode?

Anyways, that was BGG con. It was a very, nice and relaxing vacation. We will certainly go next year!

NYC 2018

After our experience in Tarrytown, we decided to see family in nearby New York. I've been here multiple times, but I still was able to find a bucket-list activity to cross off, namely riding a camel in the Bronx Zoo!

Tiger Mountain  at the  Bronx Zoo did not disappoint

Our visit at the zoo began with a very active tiger.

After the badass tiger we then walked to some comical bears.

Silly Old Bears

What is this bear doing with its nose??

It wasn't long before I managed to get atop a camel, one more bucket list item checked off. There I also learned that Egyptian camels usually have only one hump, while two-hump camels some from China/central asia.

Riding a camel, check.

We saw lots of cool animals.

Cool

One highlight for Caiqian in particular was the well-named Mouse House.

Maybe we'll get a chinchilla someday

In the mouse house I found the only animal in the zoo I couldn't immediately identify.

What is this mammal? Highlight the white text to the right to see ->It is a  type of Mongoose.

There were also very noisy sea dogs seals.

The Bronx Zoo was a surprising success and was much better than just a place to check off a bucket list item. It is easily the best zoo I've ever been to, and one of the only zoos I would recommend a stranger to go to (I'm not a zoo person).

NYC Food (Highlights Only)

After the disappointing Blue Hill Experience Caiqian and I got better meals at much lower prices in many great restaurants around the city.

Uni Creme Udon (top) and Raindrop Cake (bottom) at Tsurutontan Udon Noodle Brasserie

Although Blue Hill made us weary of Chef's Table recommendations, we really enjoyed Ivan Ramen (from another Chef's table episode). Ivan is famous for being pretty much the only white guy to open a successful Ramen Shop in Japan. One contribution he gave to the Japanese Ramen scene is adding rye flour to the noodles and introducing sun roasted tomato, which was a hit (seen in pic below).

Tokyo Shio Ramen (top) and  Cold Sesame Noodles (bottom) at Ivan Ramen

Att Dominique Ansel I had a breakfast yogurt whip that served in a container that was satisfying to use.

Our "nice restaurant" experience in NYC was at Sushi Yasuda. The restaurant had a striking wooden interior that was immaculately clean.

Sushi Yasuda

Not only was the decor impressive, but I was pleased to see they had sushi I've never seen at any of the dozens of other sushi places I've been to, such as white saltwater eel (sawani) and dark saltwater eel (anago) which did taste different from unagi (standard freshwater eel).

Great sushi (top) and at bottom two types of sea eel (NOT unagi which is freshwater eel)

One fun joint was Handies by Bou, which served sushi handrolls and also left us with a cute sake cup.

Good Sake from Handies by Bou

Another Chef's Table recommendation was the Crack Pie from Christina Tosi, founder of Milk.

Crack Pie at Milk

Lastly Caiqian and I went to Chinatown to check out a street mural, which was somewhat faded. However on the way we really enjoyed the Chinatown environment. In the main park we listened to an old man playing the Chinese flute, and Caiqian mused on whether that's an instrument she would like to play when she's older.

Chinatown Sights

As a cute conclusion to this post, we enjoyed some drinks from Sweet Moment in Chinatown, which had some unique drinks as well as a talented artist drawing on them.

Black Sesame Milk Tea from Sweet Moment

Watch the before-and after pictures from when I drank the headband off of the cute purple bear (?) below.

Taro Cremeart

We also saw cousin Adam, Aunt April, Uncle Eric, Aunt Sherrill, Uncle Lloyd, and some relatives of Grummy's I've never met before. Seeing the family was a pleasure and it looks like everyone is doing well in their lives right now. 

Well that's it for vacation posts right now. Although I still need to burn some vacation days accrued from my long night stint, I wonder if I'll be taking another interesting vacation this year...

Tarrytown, New York - Blue Hill at Stone Barns

After two months of working 13 hour shifts at work, it was finally time to get back to business at usual, which means vacation! One activity Caiqian and I were really into was watching a show called Chef's Table on Netflix, and one episode that really stuck with us was the episode on Blue Hill Restaurant at Stone Barns, which is outside of Tarrytown, New York.

So we took a trip to see Blue Hill restaurant, which began with a self-guided tour during the day (although our reservation wasn't until 10:00 pm that night).

At the entrance of Blue Hill

Blue Hill is supposed to be the ultimate farm-to-table experience, with many unique produce as a result of genetic selectivity. We enjoyed seeing the fields, animals, and the barn itself.

Caiqian in a Retired Grain Silo

We had the fortune of having a beautiful, if not slightly warm day to walk around and see the farm operate.

Sitting on the farm

Just walking around was very delightful, seeing plants I've never seen before and going into rooms that had very strong, herbal scents.

Interesting Vegetation, and a distinct smelling room

One interesting facet of the farm were the greenhouses, whose roofs open during hotter days, just like the day we were walking around. I've never seen a greenhouse with an open roof before.

Visiting the greenhouse

And it was nice to see that they were willing to let us see how the animals were treated. No horrifying factory farms for this restaurant.

Animal Farm

Although the restaurant had ludicrous pricing ($300 pp) there is a Blue Hill cafe with reasonable prices for (what I would call) "good" wholesome hippie food.

Meal at Blue Hill Cafe

Just walking outside and seeing what it would be like to be surrounded by farmland was an educational experience. On one hand it was beautiful and wholesome, on the other I don't think Caiqian and I are (currently) cut out to raise a farm of our own. Looks like a lot of work!

Just enjoying the outdoors (and didn't get stung)

After a full day walking around the farm, Caiqian and I got dressed to see the other, much more formal side of Blue Hill. We dressed "casually elegant" as the Blue Hill website requested, and showed up where a waiter greeted us by name and offered us a turmeric spritzer, which was cute since it was colored like eggs since it was framed by the white serving plate.

Pre-meal turmeric spritzer

We were then seated together, ready to have the ultimate farm-to-table experience.

Casual Elegance

I don't know if they were going for shock factor, or just celebrating their farm-tool culture, but we were given an array of cutlery for our multi-multi-course meal to come.

Tools of the feast

The first plate to come out was one of our favorites. A board with nails sticking up with fresh picked vegetables of the day impaled, ready for us to devour. Lettuce, tomatoes, and bell peppers were fun but the last sweet tomatillo was especially nice.

Picks from the garden (really good tomatillo)

The next course had dried plums which weren't particularly mind-blowing but I did enjoy the fried zucchini flowers which were both delicious, crunchy, and something I've never eaten before.

Fried Zucchini Flowers and dried plum

Afterward I started noticing that tables were getting different dishes than us (there was no ordering of food, just leaving it to waitstaff) and I was less and less satisfied with the subsequent dishes, but was hopeful that what others were eating would come to us eventually. The baby corn stuck in aged Sake Kasu (a leftover rice product created during sake production) was a neat concept but not impressive.

Baby Corn in Sake Kasu

The squash that pretended to be an avocado was a neat visual but otherwise tasted like a salsa made with squash.

Squash that pretended to be an avocado

Then what followed were waves and waves of vegetable dishes.

Tomato on flatbread

After the tomato on flatbread was tomato gazpacho.

Green Garden Gazpacho

Gazpacho was followed by a Blue Hill specialty, Badger Flame Beets, which were genetically bred to have a lower content of the standard beet chemical which give beets an earthy, dirty flavor.

Badger Flame Beet two ways

Time to take a break from our heavy beet dish with a light cucumber dish.

Cucumbers and dill yogurt

Followed by a dish of four different types of tomatoes. At least they had some cheese on the top plate.

tomatoes {tomimaru muchoo, sunrise bumble bee} 

Afterwords the waitstaff pulled us aside and welcomes us to a different room with nobody else, and were told that this room was historically where the farm animal excrement was kept. It has since been repurposed but in general farm vegetation grows better the closer it is to the "manure house."

Posing at the Manure House

In the candle-lit room we had an egg and some chicken grains.

Egg with "what the chicken ate"

After our egg we were escorted back to the main room where we experienced the first filling course. a loaf of bread with "one udder butter" i.e. butter and buttermilk from one cow. They described how the butter changes flavor over the seasons but honestly, I prefer Kerrygold butter.

One Udder Butter

They also taught us about chipper potatoes, which is why you can't make Lays-like potato chips at home. Chipper potatoes do not go soft or mash when cooked. We got chips and a thinly sliced boiled chipper potato (sorry no photo), which was much firmer than a regular potato.

Chipping Potato Chips

Corn pie.

Good

They ended us with fruit and honey, at which point I realized that although our neighbors got the famous red-pepper eggs, we didn't. I asked the waitress if we could get a red-pepper egg (which have a red yolk because the chickens are fed only red peppers), but she said that it was too late and the kitchen was cleaning up (it was about 1:00 am and we were one of the last folks there). I then asked if we could take a couple eggs home...

She went to the kitchen, and came back, and said they had to think about it since they had never done that before.

Fruit and Honey

But on our way out guess what they surprised us with! That's right, not just one, but two red pepper eggs. We decided this would be a great gift to share with grummy down in New York City.

A dozen farm eggs and two Red Pepper Eggs

Grummy and us then made perhaps the world's first fried egg with a side of red-pepper egg.

Grummy Cooking and Plating the eggs

Although the egg yolk was a brilliant red I'm disappointed to say it tasted the exact same. Overall our experience at Blue Hill restaurant was disappointing for the price and we are now confident in saying that vegetables are no substitute for animal products and meats.

For the second half of our vacation we spent quality time in NYC. That post up next!