RANT - Cafe Jacqueline, North Beach, San Francisco

First of all, this dinner would have been a complete disaster if it wasn't for Cheri and Gareth, who joined us for 3.5 hours in this horrible restaurant. Also, to stave off any "grumpy old man" aspersions, I wasn't feeling 100% when I went into the place. And so ...

Anyone peeking in through the window of this North Beach tiddler would think I've gone off the rails. True, first appearances are of the quaint living room of an elderly French maid. However, once inside, this wolf in sheep's clothing reveals its teeth.

After being seated by a gruff waiter (American, not French), my heart sank when I realized that everything on the menu was a freaking souffle. This place has no website, so there's no way in advance to learn of the total lack of variety. Now, I know that souffles are somewhat of a culinary art form, but I don't count Asparagus Souffle, Cauliflower Souffle, Spinach Souffle, Cheese Souffle, ad nauseum (literally), as any kind of entree choice. And each souffle had to be shared by two guests, so that cut the table choices down even further.

I could go on, but I'll summarize a few things that made this place such a wash-up.

1. It was over ONE HOUR from being seated to getting our first course - soup!

2. It was TWO HOURS before we got our entree!

3. And it was THREE HOURS by the time we got dessert! My Writer's Guild aspirations prevent me from having more than one exclamation mark after each of those zingers.

4. They only had one white wine chilled - and it wasn't the one we wanted. It wasn't much of a hardship to drink a Crozes Hermitage (red) while we waited for the white to chill, but it was strange that the tardy onion soup was scaldingly hot while they couldn't serve a sufficiently cold white wine.

5. You know how it is when you've been driving for several hours, and you arrive at home, park and switch off the engine, and you sigh. Deep. At that point you realize how negative the droning, incessant noise of the road, the engine, the traffic had been. That's exactly how it felt when Mme Jacqueline turned off her bloody Cuisinart after each souffle. The noise was constant and intrusive, adding to the already booming noise from the tables.

6. After all the web reviews about the "fabulous" souffles, they weren't. In future I'll remember to discount most of those tourist comments, and lump them in with the rest of the weak-ass "tiramisu was to die for" group.

RAVE - Stonehenge (2,000 BC), by Bernard Cornwell

Like many people I'm intrigued by how structures like Stonehenge and The Pyramids of Giza (and everyone else) were built.

Was it a virtually unlimited supply of slaves + ancient ingenuity + religious fervor?

I'm not sure how historically accurate this book is. I read with awe how the source for Stonehenge's blocks was chosen from Wales, by Druid priests presumably bored with the notion of choosing a place closer to the required site in modern day Wiltshire, about 70 miles west of London.

The story spends a lot of time fantasizing about the characters that might have been involved in the planning, selecting, retrieving, manhandling over 100 miles of hills and rivers, and finally erecting the temple. 

Hard to believe, Cornwell's story is likely closer to the truth than this folk tale from the 16th Century states: The Devil bought the stones from a woman in Ireland, wrapped them up, and brought them to Salisbury plain. One of the stones fell into the Avon, the rest were carried to the plain. The Devil then cried out, "No-one will ever find out how these stones came here!" A friar replied, "That’s what you think!," whereupon the Devil threw one of the stones at him and struck him on the heel. The stone stuck in the ground and is still there.

Of course, this was just one of the many structures built on this site since 8,000 BC. Earlier structures were made of sticks and antlers, or with fewer stones.

Nevertheless, whoever quarried the stones and brought them here, for its most recent makeover 4,000 years ago, this book is an interesting take on the project.

REVIEW - Inglourious Basterds

Notice, this is not a RAVE, just a REVIEW. The movie fell short of deserving a RAVE.

I can see why so many writers have praised Chistoph Waltz's performace as Col. Hans Landa over Brad Pitt's as Lt. Aldo Raine. Waltz is maniacally over the top at times, in a good way.

I liked the film - perhaps even loved it - yet somehow it was too typically Tarantino. Good character development, although maybe a little drawn out in places, and once you realized those repeated drawn out stretches were solely set ups for the next slice of action, the formula seemed a little artificial.

QT's work isn't reliably excellent:

Reservoir Dogs (1992) was shocking but patchy.
Pulp Fiction (1994) was perfect.
Four Rooms (1995) was again patchy (he only directed 1/4 of this film).
Jackie Brown (1997) was fabulous.
Kill Bill (2003/4) was mixed (ground-breaking but pointlessly long).
Sin City (2005) was just plain lame (The Rt. Hon. Roger Espley * points out that Mr T. only directed one scene from Sin City, so he's largely absolved of this stinker)
Grindhouse - Death Proof (2007) was shabbier than the B-movie roots it tried to emulate.

* Roger also claims Tarantino directed From Dusk Til Dawn, but he only wrote the screenplay (presumably getting drunker and drunker as he did so - have you seen it???)

Therefore, the so-so nature of Inglourious Basterds should come as no surprise.

RAVE - Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, by Jimmy McDonough

Did you know Roger Ebert is a Russ Meyer fan, and wrote the script for Beyond The Valley of The Dolls? Nor did I.

It turns out that one of America's most loved film reviewers liked hanging around with Russ Meyer, because Meyer liked hanging around with well-endowed women.

When I was younger, I had no idea what Vixen!, Supervixens and Beneath The Valley of the Ultra-vixens were about. By the time I was old enough to appreciate them, they were already old hat.

This is a funny and well-written account of the life and times of the alleged inventor of the adult movie industry, a claim I'm sure Russ Meyer put about himself.

One snippet from Wikipedia is of special interest to me:

In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Roger Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled Who Killed Bambi? According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren proved unable to pay them. (McLaren has claimed that the project actually died at the behest of main financier 20th Century Fox, under the pretext that "We are in the business of making family entertainment.") The project ultimately evolved into The Great Rock & Roll Swindle.

RAVE - 1491, New Revelations Of The Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Man

Nothing like the 1421 example above. This one reveals that not only were there well-developed civilizations here before Christophe landed (we already know about the Inca and Maya), but those "Indian" empires were preceded by several others going back as far as 15,000 years ago.

That means several things:

1) Whenever and from wherever these earliest settlers landed, most of Northern Europe was iced over, making the Americas the first or second world, not the "New World".

2) The many cities built by the earliest settlers (especially in what are now Peru, Mexico and Brazil) were way bigger than any then current European cities.

3) Lots of other interesting stuff.

RAVE - 1421, The Year China Discovered America, by Gavin Menzies

The incredible true story (or is it?) of how China discovered North and South America, Australia and Africa, long before Europeans.

Gavin Menzies is an ex Royal Navy submarine captain, and when he retired from the Royal Navy he combined his passion for history with his knowledge of winds and sea currents to retrace the steps Columbus would have followed on his path to the East Indies.

As we all know, he fetched up in what became known as the West Indies, and named the island on which he landed La Española, meaning "The Spanish Island". When d'Anghiera wrote his history of  the island in Latin, he translated the name as Hispaniola. Because Anghiera's account was translated into English and French very soon after, the name "Hispaniola" is the most frequently used name for that island. Of course, now its Eastern half is Dominica and its Western half is Cuba. 

This is nothing to do with the main story.

Briefly, Menzies surmised that other, much earlier ships discovered the island, and they might have been from China. Having retraced the prevailing tides and potential winds to China, he explores outwards from China, discovering not only that winds and tides could be used to plot ancient Chinese fleet movements up the West and East coasts of The Americas, to Africa and Australia.

The evidence he found to support his theories are stunning, and you need to read this book in order to decide whether he's gullible, or a genius.

To make matters even more intriguing, in the blue corner are a number of other "experts" who say they don't believe Menzie's theories: www.1421exposed.com

RANT - Product labels that take hours to remove

Having just spent 3 days soaking, drying, soaking, and scraping, to get 4 "Made in China" stickers off some new light fittings, I thought a potentially petty rant was in order. I know retailers don't want people switching one price label for a cheaper one while fiddling with products in a store, but why do they use cheap 'n nasty labels that require a flamethrower to remove them?

Next time I'm in a store and like the look of something, but see that it's got awkward stickers on it, I'll try to remember to say to a member of staff, "You remove these stickers while I wander around and do the rest of my shopping. I'll be about 30 minutes. If, by the time I get back, you've got those labels off, I'll buy the product".

RAVE - Roku

One of my favorite gadgets is the Roku player, initially released to allow you to play Netflix movies on your TV, but now allowing you to play Amazon.com's movies on demand, and most recently adding MLB.com. I know that Xbox and Wii now give you access to Netflix and Amazon on Demand, but the Roku interface is waaayyy better.

I've had it for over a year, but having watched so many movies over the past week, it occurred to me that I should be sharing the love. It costs $99, plugs in and works right away, and gives us handy alternatives to all the cable stuff we've already seen.

RANT - Got Juice? THIS RANT HAS BEEN INVADED AND OCCUPIED BY PAVEY PAGE.

Seeing as restaurants often let us down one way or another, it's an ideal time to summarize those let-downs, prompted by brunch this morning:

The first opinion is 100% Pavey, but she doesn't want the rest ascribed to her, as "people will think I'm just a complainer". Darling, they know that already.

1. How can so many restaurants in this allegedly health-conscious city have $4,000 coffee machines but not find it in their budget to spring for a $100 orange-squeezer, thereby requiring that guests searching for an orange burst resort to Od-bloody-wallah, or some other preservative-laden excuse for a juice? Props to Slow Club, for always having fresh oranges and knowing how to squeeze 'em.

Just to keep the lady happy, the rest are my personal rants:

2. Wait staff who tell you what THEIR favorite is on the menu. Who gives a flying wosname what rocks THEIR boat? Follow that path and one of these days you'll be lying face down in a pool of battered spider legs.

3. Real men don't "split a salad".

4. Waiters that ask "have you eaten with us before?" as a prelude to telling us they serve "family style", and suggesting that we order various dishes so we can share. Next time a condescending waiter asks me if I've eaten with them before, I'll say "No, but I've eaten several times at various restaurants. and I DO remember how to eat, so just shut up and take my order".

5. What's the point of serving iced water in a glass that's still hot out of the dishwasher? It's at the other end of the beverage scale to those fine establishments that keep their beer glasses in the freezer.

The following tips for waiters come from Mr. Clarity's excellent blog:

6. Good waiters never say “you guys.” It’s childish and trashy. In adult English, the plural of the pronoun you is you. In other words, you don’t need to say “you guys” or “you folks” or “you kids.” Just say “you.”

7. When guests have studied their menus and appear to be ready to order, don’t ask, “All set?” It makes you sound indolent and uncouth. And especially do not ask, “Have we decided?” The smarmy use of we in place of you irritates many guests because it reminds them of condescending medical doctors who talk this way. The traditional and polite question is, “May I take your order?”

8. When you are checking to see if guests are enjoying their meals, don’t ask, “How are you doing?” This wording implies that the guests are somehow responsible for the quality of the meals. The traditional, polite and logical question is “How is everything?” It keeps the responsibility where it belongs: on the chef.

9. When a guest appears to have finished eating, don’t ask, “All set?” And especially do not ask, “Are you still working on this?” The guest is a human being enjoying a nice meal, not a beaver gnawing through a tree trunk. The traditional and polite question is, “May I take this?” or “May I clear your place?”

10. When a guest has paid his check in cash, don’t ask, “Do you need change?” or “All set?” Hustling tips in this way is presumptuous and offensive. The traditional and polite response is, “I’ll bring you your change.” It’s up to the guest to say, “No, please keep the change,” or to quietly leave the tip from the change that you bring back to him (or her).

RAVE - District 9

2 words. Alright, 3, maybe 4 if you're being picky - The Fly, plus Transformers. That's if you don't want the higher-brow critics' view that this is an excellent allegory of racial tension disguised as a great action movie. However you paint it, it's a damned good film. The first 15 minutes need to be got out of the way before it settles into a story you want to follow, but settle it does, with only the grating South African excents getting in the way. Mrs. Page is convinced the closing scenes set this up for a follow-up, not least of which is the forced relocation of the aliens to District 10.

I've not given anything away. Just go see it for yourself.

RAVE - The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens - Pasadena

Visited our friends George, Cecille and Peri / Perry / Peris (all 5 of them) this past weekend, in Pasadena. We were treated to a weekend of sightseeing and culinary indulgence. We visited The Huntington, one of those glorious country homes filled with treasures available only to the fabulously rich or government-funded. Rooms choc full of Gainsboroughs, original manuscripts (Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Samuel Johnson's original Oxford Dictionary, and an original version of Audubon's Birds of America that would make my favorite ornithologist - that's YOU, Bill Eley - very happy). I bought a Johnson bio at the bookstore, but now need to buy "Samuel Johnson's Insults: A Compendium of Snubs, Sneers, Slights and Effronteries from the Eighteenth-Century Master". Sounds like my kind of read. So, dodge the paparazzi next time you're in LA, and chill out at The Huntington

REVIEW - Perbacco

If ever a restaurant deserved a "Meh", this is it.

It's just one of a dozen FiDi joints busy as hell at lunchtime (when the suits just need somewhere handy for the office), but much quieter at night (when most people opt for genuinely relaxing or romantic nosh somewhere more salubrious).

So, unless you're already downtown, this one's not worth the parking hassles.

RAVE - Jardiniere

I'm usually suspicious of places that advertise their handiness for pre- or post-theater dinner, as though the only reason you'd ever go there is because it's within a pirouette of the SF Ballet.

No doubt many people use Jardiniere, Absinthe or Paul K for that reason, but I believe Jardiniere is worth much more than that.

Overall, the atmosphere is elegant, almost glamorous. Maybe it was seeing Larry David dining with a group of no doubt less-whiny-than-he friends. Maybe it was the fancy balcony, or the sweeping staircase leading to that balcony.

It's one of those rare places in San Francisco where you feel inclined to dress up.

Curiously, I forget the specifics of the food. It's not particularly adventurous, just very well made, and rich.