{"id":7058,"date":"2026-05-17T23:45:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/?p=7058"},"modified":"2026-05-17T23:55:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T06:55:45","slug":"mile-high-meeting-dining","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2026\/05\/17\/mile-high-meeting-dining\/","title":{"rendered":"Mile High Meeting & Eating"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a>This year’s ARVO<\/a> was my first time staying for the entire meeting, and my first time witnessing snow there. I arrived in Denver on Sunday for the first poster session and lunch<\/a> with my ex-lab members Sook and Mini. I socialized at our department reception<\/a> afterwards, and networked with RPB<\/a> and Michigan<\/a> folks thanks to our new chair<\/a>. Day two kicked off with award lectures, lunch and meetings with Regeneron<\/a>, and an unexpected run-in with my labmate Kevin who’s now in the rejuvenation<\/a> industry. I felt underdressed, however, next to ophthalmology greats at the BrightFocus<\/a> dinner at the Denver Art Museum<\/a>. On Tuesday, I shared life advice at Breakfast with the Experts, then met with Cirrus<\/a>, RegenXBio<\/a>, Adverum<\/a>, and Genentech<\/a> teams before joining my trainees for lunch at James Beard awardee Rioja<\/a> and ice-cream<\/a> next door. My solo omakase experience at Sushi by Scratch<\/a> was somewhat disappointing, unfortunately, due to aggressive flavoring that reminded me of its Californian roots. Despite multiple sleepless nights, I stayed up practicing my talk for Thursday, which went smoothly with minimal scrutiny. I could not finish the juicy but pricey ribeye steak over lunch at Guard & Grace<\/a> with my classmate Brian, but at least stayed awake for a full afternoon of poster viewing and DFC’s lab dinner<\/a>. I moderated one of last sessions on Thursday, chowed down on Jinya<\/a> ramen, then booked it home to celebrate Mother’s Day with Korean BBQ<\/a> and our 19th Anniversary with a surprise visit to Saison<\/a> in SF. Despite losing its third Michelin star<\/a>, Richard Lee’s “fire-forward” tasting menu provided well-executed flavors complete with teapot-served broths, chopper-hunted antelope, and custom steak knives, although the unnecessary uni toast and wagyu supplements, mandatory surcharges, and adding taxes atop these fees nearly doubled the final bill. My fine dining streak extended to Fort Lauderdale, where my abbreviated presence at the Retina World Congress<\/a> was interspersed with lobster spaghetti from Del Mar<\/a>, crab fried rice from Takato<\/a>, and foie gras “nutter butter” at Maass<\/a> that tasted like a Michelin-level PB&J. I got back in time to give my talk at our department’s Napa Eye<\/a> meeting, savor escargot and onion soup from Bouchon Bistro<\/a>, and catch up with Melody and Westley about their BTS concert<\/a> in Stanford. With so many lofty expenditures this month, we’ll need to keep a closer eye on our wallet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year’s ARVO was my first time staying for the entire meeting, and my first time witnessing snow there. I arrived in Denver on Sunday for the first poster session and lunch with my ex-lab members Sook and Mini. I … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7058"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7077,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7058\/revisions\/7077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}