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got a chance to try the fried chicken from coast cafe. located on river street in cambridgeport, it's the kind of place you'd miss if you weren't looking for it. i got there before lunchtime hoping to beat the crowd but the place was already busy with a lot of phone orders. there's a small counter but it's pretty much a takeout restaurant. i was hoping to get a box of fried chicken but the closest thing they had was the fried chicken plate, featuring two pieces of chicken, 2 sides, and a corn bread - all for $10.50, which is kind of expensive, but worth trying out to taste what some food critics say is the best fried chicken in the greater boston area.

their fried chicken is made fresh, so i ended up waiting 20 minutes before i got my order. i had to put my lunch into my bag vertically because i didn't have any space. by the time i got to my parents' cafe, all my food had shifted inside the styrofoam container.

what can i say? excellent fried chicken. i tried the sides first. the corn was nothing to write home about (best corn side i've ever had? blue ribbon barbecue) but the sweet potato was heavenly. unbelievably sweet, made with dark brown sugar, i've never tasted anything like it, i don't think i can ever eat regular sweet potato again. the corn bread wasn't anything special either. i finally got to the chicken. it wasn't soggy, crispy and delicate skin, and because it was made fresh, it was steaming hot all the way through. it was so good i had to close my eyes to savor the flavor. i kept on trying to get my parents and sister to sample the sweet potato and chicken.

my aunt liwen dropped by the cafe with her two kids. there weren't enough seats so i gave up my spot and ate my lunch standing up in the back of the kitchen. i don't even think she noticed, that's the sort of person she is. my parents never look forward to her visits because she eats everything and then leaves, never once paying because she thinks she's getting the family discount, even though the only time we ever see her is when she drops by the cafe for a free meal.

what a difference working on a full stomach can make! i started my paint work at 1:00 and felt like i could go for at least 8 hours. i ended up just doing 4 hours. honestly, when i saw the bedroom with just the primer coat, it really did look good enough. no point putting in all this effort when the walls are in such bad shape already and no amount of skillful painting can disguise that fact. but since i was already there, i figured i'd go ahead and do a 2nd coat. i started with the roller, painting the walls and the insides of the 2 recessed windows. that in itself took 2 hours. then i started edging, below the crown molding first, moving the ladder around the room. then i did the vertical corners, followed by the edges above the baseboards. by then it was almost 5:00, and i hadn't even started with the semi-gloss coat on the molding, baseboards, and window frames yet. my mother dropped by at that point and said i'd done enough, so i ended up leaving it as is, with 2 coats on the walls and just a single primer coat on everything else. i don't think whoever ends up living there will even notice (not unless he's a professional painter).

got some good news when i got home, the wii mod chip company received my defective wasabi zero and will be sending me a replacement next week. i finally took down the air conditioner, don't think we're going to be getting anymore heatwaves this year.

my roommate came back briefly in the evening to grab his bag for his weekend trip to acadia national park. he's spending the night first in andover with his advisor and then tomorrow morning they're driving up to maine. by the time he returns late sunday, it'll only be a matter of hours before i drive him to the airport for his trip back home to china.