We landed about half an hour early (this tends to happen
when I have time to burn), and I hoofed it the 0.8 mile
to the Star Lounge at TBIT, which has food and showers
and where I was welcomed like Nebuchadnezzar.

The food was mostly blah, the booze somewhat better, the
shower suites nice (I didn't need a shower though).

Lemon herb hummus was not too lemony, not too salty,
actually quite excellent though thin. There was also a
basil hummus that I didn't bother to try. These were
accompanied by pita, multicolor corn, and kettle chips.

Lots of salads; the one that might have tempted me was the
Mexican corn salad, but it was shot full of cilantro,
which I thought looked too much.

Beef stew - tasted okay, but I gave myself a cup of it,
and there was actually NO BEEF.

Pork chile verde had lots of pork but no fat, plus it
tasted as though someone had dropped a whole bottle of
Realime in it.

Penne in tomato with sauce with vegetarian sausage - the
most convincing vegetable sausage I've ever encountered.
Half a thumb up.

A noodle bar - wheat or rice linguini, bunches of toppings,
and your choice of tomato, Vietnames beef, chicken, and
some kind of vegetable stock, I forget. I tried the beef,
whose main ingredient seemed to be MSG. I also tried a couple
of the additives, not notable except for the krab, which
tasted actually quite shellfishy and had a decent texture that
sadly went to total flabby mush on the application of heat.

BLTs with ranch dressing were intriguingly weird and on
tasting just weird. Bacon bits with chopped tomato and
lettuce on rolls soggized with ranch dressing. There was
also chicken salad on King's Hawaiian - I passed.

Brownies were exactly the same as at the United club.

Parfaits of German chocolate and carrot cake - I tried
the former, mashed up brown cake crumbs mixed with lots
of golden raisins and a few walnut bits, glued together
with I think whipped cream. Odd.

Angeline Merlot tasted suspiciously like Pinot Noir, okay
but dishonest; I'd noticed Mumm Napa fizz so went back
for that; by this time it had been replaced by Cupcake
prosecco, and I said why not: it proved to be 100x better
than the United Airlines prosecco.

Later on they put out Meiomi Pinot Noir, which was very
oaky but okay by comparison, and the Mumm Napa, ditto
but not as oaky.

After a half dozen more drinks the almost mile through
the bowels of LAX seemed all that much longer.

UA5725 LAX SAN 1915 2013 E75 2A

One of the shortest flights in the system; actual flying
time was 20 smooth minutes, and we got in before 8.
--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5
* Origin: Fido Since 1991 | QWK by Web | BBS.FIDOSYSOP.ORG (1:123/140)