REVIEW - Frances

Having opened in 2009, it's somewhat of a marvel that this place is still packed every night of the week, and requires that one books two months out in order to get a table at a reasonable dinner hour.

It's even more of a marvel considering - as I do now that we've eaten there for the first time - it's not that good.

The food has its moments. Our first appetizers - or bouches as they're shown on the menu - were first class. We had the Applewood Smoked Bacon Beignets and the Duck Liver Mousse, both of which had us salivating for more. Our Baby Kale Salad, with Medjool Date, Roasted Baby Carrot, Almond, and Pecorino di Rocca was OK. Nothing to sing about. Our entrees were mixed, or at least our enjoyment of them was. Mrs P had the Pacific Halibut, with Toasted Fregola, Charred Garbanzo, Spinach, and Green Olive, and she pronounced it "delicious, a real treat". I fared less well, with the Five-Dot Ranch Bavette, with Spring Onion Jus, Black Chanterelle, Comté & Toasted Levain. It didn't look like a great cut of meat, and tasted just so-so.

The decor is modest. The floorboards creak too much. And the tables are jammed in a bit too tight for comfort. All in all, Frances is not a destination restaurant, and definitely not the place for an all-important date.

REVIEW - Bad Words

If this was my wife's - non-existent - blog, this movie would be rated a RAVE. She really enjoyed this, as did the bulk of the trashy audience with us.

But it isn't, and MY vote is just an average REVIEW.

Many people have said this is a crude, rollicking performance by Jason Bateman. But for me, it was just "crude" and "rollicking" compared with Bateman's otherwise tedious romantic comedies like Identity Thief and TV's Arrested Development, both of which I've avoided like the plague they are.

OK, so with biases publicly stated, I found this mildly amusing but nothing I could get my teeth into completely.

Bateman plays a 40-year old who - for a reason that only becomes apparent late in the film - decides to exploit a loophole in the competition's rules that normally preclude anyone older than 14 years' old, and go head to head with the competing kids.

General, mild merriment ensues with Bateman eschewing his usual Mr Nice Guy style to play a coarse, somewhat vindictive individual who happens to be a great speller.

As I said, it was only orrdinery.

RAVE - Petersen Automotive Museum

Strange that, having lived barely half a mile from this place on Wilshire Boulevard for a couple of years, it took a trip back to LA and the services of our hosts - George and Cecile - to allow us to visit this museum that celebrates America's devotion to the automobile.

It has around 150 vehicles on display at any one time, with another 200 or so in storage, creating an inventory that allows the museum to rotate its exhibits.

There was everything from ancient late 19th Century vehicles that were at the forefront of motorized transport, right up to bleeding edge electric cars, with a healthy dose of Packards, Deusenbergs, lowriders, hot rods and motorcycles in between.

A perfect way to spend an hour or two away from the LA traffic.

RAVE - Starry Kitchen, Los Angeles

This was the ultimate pop-up eaterie, currently occupying the space inside Chinatown's Jazz Club - which features it seems everything but Jazz - with an eclectic, Pan-Asian menu the owner said is always changing.

Starry Kitchen features Singaporean chili crab, a giant beast bathed in a complex sauce and ideal for everyone to tuck in and share.

We started with the crispy, green tofu balls and, while the others in our party of five munched on the crab, I tucked into the double-fried sweet ginger chicken wings, the Pandan chicken, and the braised sweet soy sauce ginger pork belly.

The food was sensational, and once the place filled up it made the otherwise drab interior of the Jazz Club feel like a genuine destination restaurant.

REVIEW - Baker Street Bistro

Baker Street Bistro doesn't say "we're French" in the way that Bistro St. Germain might, but the reviews on Opentable were positive so we went ahead and journeyed across the city to the Marina district and arrived at what Madame described on first sight as "a dump".  But, bearing in mind the reviews, we parked up and went inside only to find it was just as unimpressive in there too.

(I make it sound like it's a long way all "across the city", but San Francisco isn't that big a place, so it only took half an hour. Of course, those 30 minutes don't begin to describe the gulf between the hipster locales of the nearby Mission district and the poseur vibe of the Marina).

The food was okay, but not really good enough to provide the sorely needed oxygen to this place with zero atmosphere. My view was taken up by a wall of nine or ten large clocks, only half of which were working.

One of the restaurant's daily specials couldn't be made as their meat grinder was kaput, so Pavey couldn't have her Steak Tartare, and opted instead for the vegetable soup followed by roast Salmon, with Buerre Blanc a l'Orange, Puree de Carottes and Ginger, with Sauteed Spinach. She ended it all with a hmph.

I had the Salade du Sud-Ouest (smoked duck breast on a bed of greens with pine nuts and duck gizzard confit), and the Cassouet Toulousain (white bean stew with tomato, duck leg confit, bacon, and garlic sausage). That cassoulet was excellent, and kind of dragged the whole experience up to average.

So, all in all nowhere near a match for most of the French restaurants we've visited elsewhere in the area, from Bouchon or Bistro Jeanty in Napa, to L'Ardoise, Cafe Claud, Le Charm here in SF, or even Chez Papa right here on Potrero Hill.

Baker Street Bistro isn't worth Le Schlepp over to the Marina.

REVIEW - The Grand Budapest Hotel

We saw this despite, rather than because of it being directed by Wes Anderson, the culprit responsible for The Fantastic Mr Fox, The Royal Tennenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited, Rushmore, and other equally dire films.

I remember a conversation with my wife's sister, who explained that those movies are existential. Now, I know as many words as the next man, but existential seems to be like another way of saying "crap".

As I said, despite not liking anything Wes Anderson has done before, I dragged my wife's sister's sister along to see this, mainly because of the stellar cast.

Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, Tom Wilkinson, an unrecognizable Tilda Swinton, and the unrecognizable-if-it-was-up-to-me Owen Wilson.

The story, while being at the same time central to the movie, but curiously like a silent era slapstick in places, was overshadowed by the crisp, witty dialog delivered with a suitably elegant and campy style by most of the cast.

While not the masterpiece that Anderson's accolytes might have you believe, this was nevertheless fun, and a pleasant surprise.

RAVE - Bouchon

What better way to celebrate a birthday than spend the weekend at The Village Inn at Yountville, Napa, and have dinner at Bouchon? Well, aside from a weekend somewhere hot, like Bora Bora, Napa will do - and it's 18 hours closer to home.

Bouchon was a hasty rejig of our scheduled dinner at Ad Hoc, another place we've eaten at before, but at the last minute we got into Bouchon and were sipping cocktails there as I canceled Ad Hoc.

Dinner was a spectacular Ham Rillette followed by Steak Bouchon, while Mrs Page had the Rillette au Deux Saumons - fresh and smoked salmon - followed by Coquilles Saint-Jacques. The atmosphere, service and food is second to none, and really feels like you're in Paris.

The fact that it was a very short stroll across the street from our hotel was the icing on the cake.

REVIEW - Non Stop

It's hard to say too much about this latest Liam Neeson escapade without giving the story, so I'll have to be careful.

Neeson is an air marshal on a transatlantic flight when someone sends him a text saying they're going to kill one of the passengers every twenty minutes unless the airline deposits 150 million dollars into a numbered account. (I'm not sure why we always refer to those accounts where criminals stash the proceeds of their scurrilous activities as 'numbered', seeing as everyone's bank account is numbered, but hey, we can only fix so many problems during one flight).

Aside from the somewhat far-fetched shenanigans and - not that riveting - plot twists, this was your basic flight highjacking given a new coat of paint.

Not something they'll ever show on the blurry little screens on any flight, but not a complete nose-dive into the sea kind of film.

REVIEW - Stalingrad

An event as momentous as the battle of Stalingrad warranted something a little better than this - an overblown rehash of Hollywood's earlier attempts with a couple of romantic - and to my mind, pointless - diversions.

I may sound a little geriatric in saying so, but the movie was unbelievably LOUD. Part of that was because it was in San Francisco's IMAX theatre, where everything is cranked up to 11. Part of it was the subject matter. Just as you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, I guess it's hard to make a war movie without the requisite explosives.

Notwithstanding the noise and the romance - this Russian language version of the story of the Russian army versus Nazis failed to add anything to the much better Enemy At The Gates. If you haven't seen that excellent film, I suggest you rent it rather than trying to catch the latest Stalingrad.