SFO - slightly stale report
As I have nothing to do - can't sleep as the tv at the other bed is
cranked loud enough for me to make out everything clearly through my earplugs - here's the beginning of a report about what I did after the Mega Do: I'd booked that trip to San Fran not just because it was a maximization of time with the comforts of biz, but because there are always friends in San Fran to visit, and it was time to do some visiting. As I had but two days before heading back to the salt mines, several people I had sort of wanted to catch up with fell by the wayside. I ended up spending much of my two days with my friends Pat and Mike, epicures on a moderate budget but whom I managed to coax a bit upward from their budgetiness. I was picked up at the airport by Mike's well-beaten Toyota, and we immediately cast about, as people of our ilk do, for food and drink. After a few suggestions had been tossed out, we started off at the Cliff House, where we were hoping to enjoy a couple Scotches and maybe a snack overlooking the crashing waves. This wish was dashed by the prospect of dozens of families (it was, I forgot, Saturday) and a 45- minute wait, complete with vibrating flying saucer pager. After we scanned the neighborhood, we decided that was not to our liking, so we trekked over to the Presidio and its famous Liverpool Lil's (actually just outside the bounds) - one or two or three of us were looking forward to one of the famous burgers and at least I was looking forward to one of the famous beers. Lil's is, how you say, an upscale bar with aspirations to be a dive bar. The lighting is crummy and the atmosphere ever so slightly raffish. But the burgers are said to be among the best in the universe, as they might as well be at $13 or 14. We had Anchor Steams and a glass or two of red plonk and split two sandwiches among the three of us (remember, I had leaden Germanic quiche in my stomach still), one with cheese, and one, in deference to me, without. The burgers are very good. There are better, but not every day. Next stop, 16th and Moraga, to climb the mosaic staircase. I was skeptical at first, but it really is a thing of inspiration and beauty. Apparently, some community activists decided that something had to be done to lighten the hearts of the people who had to climb this mighty stair every day; the solution: get local residents to assemble mosaic panels that would constitute the risers, the cumulative effect a fanciful and bright-colored seascape-to-skyscape slice of the world. I hate to say it, I was thrilled. Well. Bearing in mind that I'd just flown in from Europe, and it was coming on midnight in the time zone that I had so recently futilely tried to assimilate to, so I was taken to my hotel, the Hilton Financial District, where I've stayed before, and which despite its noisy location, I kind of enjoy. The noise is solved by the management providing earplugs in the rooms! I said goodbye to P & M and went up to my fairly nice room on the someteenth floor for a shower, an hour of work, and an hour of snooze. Then a quick walk to Gitane, where I rejoined them. The reason for this choice: they're fond of Cafe Claude, which is right across Claude Alley, and it was time to check out this newer restaurant, which is under the same ownership or management or something and has a younger and more Mediterranean vibe than the original. And heaven knows, we have to take every opportunity to recapture our youth and Mediterranean vibe. I got there a little early and felt just a little out of place having my drink at the bar, which was buzzing with fashionable young singles. My glass of Daron Calvados was as unfashionable as my bright blue L.L. Bean jacket (bought for me by my brother-in-law many years ago so I could be seen when I wandered off myopically by myself in the Italian countryside), but it was warming and served well as a cough suppressant - I'd ordered a Metaxa for this purpose (an old girlfriend taught me this worthy use), but they didn't have any. In a few minutes I felt a poke in the back; it was Pat or Mike, being subtle, saying we were ready to go upstairs to dinner. It's a smallish noisyish dining area, pleasant enough, but certainly designed to augment one's sense of excitement via increased decibels. Our conversation was perforce at a higher volume if not intellectual level than we are accustomed to. |
vibrating flying saucer pager Nice report. |
Sorry about the Cliff House. It's perhaps one of my favorite places here.
Next time drop us a line if you'll be in town. |
We split the bastilla as an appie; this came as three
phyllo triangles filled with a mixture of meats and poultry and chickpeas and sweet spices. Not the sugar-and-cinnamon- topped layered thing I am accustomed to, but tasty and well constructed for finger food and/or sharing. For my main, I had what was listed on the menu as "cordero: pan roasted domestic lamb noisette rolled and stuffed with mushroom mousseline, organic kuri squash, king trumpets." It came medium-rare as ordered but was slightly different from what I'd expected. It was a roulade, the exterior being a layer of whatever you call the top part of a shoulder chop - fat on the outside, a somewhat gristly middle layer, and rather chewy meat inside; the interior was half tenderloin and half an odd mixture of minced mushrooms and onions mixed with fatty ground lamb and egg. This was all well and good, but at medium-rare, the chopped stuff hadn't had time to bind together, so its texture was ... interesting. The exterior fat was also not browned, with the surprising result that I left most of it behind. The mushrooms were thin-sliced cutlets from what must have been a giant fungus; the squash was okay but not so okay that I ate much of it. I tasted the other main courses: a chicken tagine was pretty authentic in flavor, and the filet medium-rare came tender and as ordered. Simple food for simple people, I guess. Pic St. Loup Clos Marie Metairies du Clos vieilles vignes 05 cost twice what it should have, but it was quite attractive in a Rhonish sort of way, with spices, dark fruit, and coffee flavors but quite smooth. It made the filet sing and the lamb, well, hum. Back to the Hilton to sleep it off. One oddity about the hotel. In addition to the usual mess of toiletries, there is a big bottle of "TruShea body wash" (the spa downstairs, which they're pushing, is called Tru); there is a note on this bottle that, should the guest choose to open it, there will be an $18 charge added to the room. This bottle, with its wrinkled old label, obvious has been there for some time and has been handled wonderingly by generations of would-be bathers. The room itself was nice, the bed pleasant, the view okay, and the stay in general quite acceptable. Nonetheless, I wanted a Starwood night and its 4 pm checkout, so I had only one night here, trundling my stuff out at noon and girding my loins for the half mile to the Westin. |
I called Mike at 11 to see what lunch plans were. The word:
Pat wanted lunch NOW; and as their apartment is in Noe Valley several miles away, and I was still unshaven, unclad, and unwashed, the heck with that. We agreed to meet at the museum in the afternoon. The Garden Restaurant is next to the Hilton and probably has survived all these years as a cheap alternative to a hotel breakfast; it also serves homestyle Chinese food. I looked at the menu, and the roast duck and rice plate looked good; so in I went and sat down. A bit late I remembered that the last time I'd been here the duck was dry, and there wasn't so much of it, so for a couple more bucks I got the chicken and sausage clay pot (listed under something like homestyle casseroles) instead. It was a nearly impossible amount of food, especially with the $1.50 rice upsell that I was cunningly offered. A sliced Chinese sausage, the meat of about three chicken thighs, a diced onion, and 7 big doong gwoo mushrooms, in an all-purpose broth that had more than a touch of shrimp in it, thickened with cornstarch and flavored with soy, then dumped in a hot hot oven for maybe 10 minutes. Not genius cuisine, but hearty and satisfying. Halfway through my giant meal, an older Chinese guy came in with his niece or something. I pricked up my ears to hear what he in his obvious wisdom would order. He got bacon with scrambled eggs and wheat toast; she had some kind of congee. Even after struggling with this amount of food and walking as slowly as possible to the Westin, I was a couple hours early for checkin. I smiled at the desk clerk and said, is it too early to check in? and she said, well, your room isn't ready, but I'll give you a better one. There is something to be said for smiling. It was on the 34th floor with a spectacular bay view. P & M shortly met me in the lobby and we walked the arduous one block to SFMOMA, where a Richard Avedon retrospective was on display. There were some shenanigans with two member tickets and one nonmember one, but Mike had already seen it, so with a discreet switch I got in with Pat without paying the extra fiver. Heck, I'd seen most of them anyway, probably as I used to collect photography books (not that kind, you nasty thing - I was always more Stieglitz than Saudek) in my day. Exceptions being the wall of Warhol lovers, a fascinating set of portraits of ordinary hard- scrabble midwestern folks, and the hall of self-important politicians. Also on display: contemporary Asian and postwar Japanese photography (two separate but associated exhibits); new acquisitions, including those of a modern German artist whose work draws from the social commentary of Beckmann and Grosz but whose metaphor is the loom and how its warp and weft both connect and entrap people from all walks of life and another whose conceit is depicting stylized neural networks (similar metaphors; too bad I can't remember the name of either artist). A rather self-indulgent and silly one as well: some conceptual artists took a cross-country journey in three homemade minitrailers, chronicling their travels in video and photographs; then they seem to have convinced the museum to buy one of the trailers and put it on display. I don't understand the appeal of this "look at me, how clever am I" stuff. The permanent collection is worthwhile: from Matisse and Picasso on to Jim Dine, Frank Stella, Diebenkorn, Warhol, Rauschenberg, and other homegrown artists with foreign names. And beyond. Other interesting things: a henge of 400-something stuffed animals, doll baby in the middle; a plastic house that inflates and deflates according to its own schedule of malfunctions; a double urinal (? an early homoerotic manifesto); a lumpy wall that, though it looks like nothing in particular, exerts this amazing pull to make people fondle it, so there's a guard posted there to prevent you from doing just that. I had fun, but it was time, as my friends' names are Pat and Mike, for the business of the day. We started at the St. Francis, where I had a lovely, smoky Bowmore 18; Pat had a Caipirinha; and Mike, perhaps interested in sweaters, had a house concoction called the Autumn Sweater, which was deemed interesting but not something to go out of one's way for. Our next stop was Maxfield's for Sierra Nevadas and the respectable Ch. Montelena 05 Cabernet, which was available at not an extortionate price. It was cedary and plummy and better (i.e., a lot less green) than the last I'd had, some five years ago. The waiter was pleasant but abstracted. Perhaps he belongs at the MOMA. We considered getting steaks or burgers here, but I convinced them to make a small splurge at Ame, just a few blocks away, at the St. Regis. A quick check of OpenTable, and we were in for a latish reservation, so first there was time for drinks at Ducca, the bar at my hotel. The Casamatta (Bibi Graetz) 05 looked to be a goodish deal, so we had that. It's a fruity Sangiovese, a little cherry-tartly for my taste, but excellently made, and Pat thought it the equal of the Montelena (at a significantly lower price). |
A quick one block to the restaurant.
Many of my friends are meat and potatoes folks (perhaps I choose them with this trait in mind!), and when with them I joyfully indulge my fleshy desires. So this is what we had at Ame, the bulk of whose Michelin-kudoed reputation rests on new worldly fishy and sushiesque delights. New York strip over spinach, with fried sweetbreads and chanterelles on the side - a very nice piece of meat in a lovely mushroomy sauce. The sweetbreads were crisp and wonderful, but some went by the wayside with the shrooms, unfavored by comparison with the lovely pink flesh. Duck breast came with "foie gras stuffing," equal size blocks of bread cubes and foie gras, and a blueberry red wine sauce. Essence of duck. Also delicious. My big Kurobuta pork chop with black pudding and potato puree turned out to be the richest thing there, the pork marbled nicely and the fat not cooked out. I'd asked if it would have been brined, and after an emphatic no from the waiter, I smilingly ordered it (watching the old sodium, y'know). It was delightful, the very spicy blood pudding providing a piquant contrast. A chunk of this along with the steak detritus provided a luxurious breakfast next day. All these dishes had been ordered and served medium-rare, partially because medium-rare is good in itself and partially to facilitate sharing. My friends tend to share tastes. It's almost a prerequisite. As I figured we were ready for something a little lighter in the wine department, the Schramsberg blanc de blancs looked appealing, and it was, in its gently festive way. For dessert I had a Royal Tokaji 5 puttonyos, year forgotten but a bit too young. I guess I'd wanted something richer than the airplane Tokaji to cleanse my memory banks. This was pretty unctuous, with apricot and almond notes, raisins and other dried fruit on the palate and finish. Pretty nice. I am unclear on whether anyone else had anything. A quick toddle back to the hotel, where I showed off my room and shooed off my friends and collapsed. Got up in time to finish my assignment, which had been percolating throughout the MegaDO trip, and send it off. Then back to bed. Service was unobtrusively first-rate. |
Late checkout is a great luxury, and all I had to do was
roll out of bed and get the BART to dinner with travelkhatt. We'd planned to meet at Fook Yuen, but when I walked out of Millbrae station and turned right on Camino Real, I was greeted with unfamiliar sights. I.e., no Fook Yuen. The joint is apparently under new management and renovations at the same time. I gave her a shout and told her that plan B was La Petite Camille - a pleasant, slightly uninspired, no-frills joint across the street. I got there a bit ahead and had a Singha. I might have gone for the rather forlorn and empty Szechwan place nearby, out of sympathy for my near-compatriots, but tk doesn't go for spicy food. The room is square and lit brightly; the tables and appointments rather spare - not particularly appealing, but then you get to focus on the food and company rather than extraneous features. tk showed up breathlessly a bit late; she had imagined that taking a cab would be quicker than riding Caltrain to Burlingame and finding her way from there. She was wrong; apparently there was a run on cabs that dinnertime. A vast expense, unnecessary. She's chipper and looking none the worse for wear, interested in the same things, but not with the same foci or perhaps competitive intensity as when she had been an FTer. Life and work appear to be going well. We started with Vietnamese hedgehogs (they call them pot stickers, and I forget the real name) - a stuffing of pork and carrots in a rice shell rolled in crushed rice pasta and fried. Tasty and generous, though I'd have preferred 8 tiny balls to 4 giant ones (in fact, 4 tiny ones would have been fine). The "special house sauce," a sweetened bean paste with a large dose of chile, went well with. tk had the pho, which was cheap, good, and abundant enough for me to sample a small bowl and her to take home a big one for lunch next day. There was a lot of beef tendon in this version, which bothered us not at all. My choice was bo loc lac, beef in a caramelized brown sauce with an incredible amount of garlic. It was pretty good but oligodimensional. We ordered a bowl of rice which didn't come. Much talk about hotel points, with both of us bemoaning the fact that we don't know anything about them, and travels, of which I have had more than she of late. At length it was time to part: she had a train south, and I had to run the security gauntlet, which took a huge long time, despite my being shunted into the premium line. UA 198 SFO IAD 2230 0631 763 2A Ch9:td: A somewhat bumpy flight that landed on time or a bit early. No Channel 9, and if there had been, I wouldn't have been able to understand it for the horrendous static and hum on the system. I usually hate the seats on the 763. This day I was tired enough so I didn't mind and slept well. UA 860 IAD BOS 0830 1006 752 2A Ch9^ Empower:td: Met FBKSan at the C17 club, and we had a good chat before going on our connections. It's good for the up-and-coming and the down-and-going to meet up once in a while. I really had to be in Washington next day, but I had a date in Boston so didn't ditch this flight. It was an okay ride, packed to the gills, as most are these days, but, what the hey, I was in F. |
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