RAVE - Carousing in Cabo

Lawrence, Beverly, Pavey and I have just spent a wonderful Christmas week in Cabo San Lucas, and I'll now try to summarize the best places we ate.

Nick San - most people agree this is the best restaurant in Cabo. It's a fine Sushi and Fish restaurant with excellent food, fabulous service, and a great atmosphere. It even got a solid thumbs up from Lawrence, who normally sticks to battered fish, with Chips and vinegar.

Pancho's - on the surface this is just one of many traditional Mexican restaurants around the town, but we went here most days for lunch or dinner, or maybe just to hang out at the comfy sidewalk tables for the ladies to sample their mega margheritas, and the boys to sample from Panco's "largest selection of Tequilas in Mexico".

Lorenzillo's - with a great setting right by the marina, this Lobster and Seafood place managed to tempt Laurence and me with it's non-Lobster and Seafood products. Curiously, our handy lobster expert (Pavey) found hers thin and not meaty enough. Despite that, the rest of the menu, the location and the perfect male company proved a winner.

DOC - This is probably a better place for a bottle of wine - we had an excellent Domino Sauvignon Blanc one night - rather than a full Italian dinner - we found it a bit bustly and hot inside for our meal the following night.

Alexander's - This traditional Mexican stood out from the many along the marina, for offering coconut chicken appetizers (we tried them at other places after falling for them at Alexander's), friendly staff (alright, everywhere has friendly staff, but Alexander's are extra special friendly).

Cabo Wabo - Sammy Hagar, the 70s singer and guitarist first became famous with rock band Montrose, then Van Halen, and in the 80s opened this bar, restaurant and night club in Cabo. It's certainly not a destination I'd pick for it's music or food, but it's worth a touristic visit.

REVIEW - M.Y. China

There are just a few too many things wrong with M.Y. China - things that get in the way of the otherwise top notch-ness of this brand new place from TV Celebrity Chef Martin Yang.

And it could be that 50% of what's wrong comes from it being open less than a month. The other 50% probably comes from it being run by a "celebrity".

Either way, nothing could save it from its location - inside the Westfield Mall. It's not just that it's in a mall. It's that it's wide open to the mall, and sucks in shoppers with their kids and attendant detritus.

Last night for example, after we'd got past the usual inept host - "Even though a quick glance from Stevie Wonder could tell us there are at least five tables ready, set and waiting for your party of four, why don't you amuse yourself at the bar while I just check to see if I can move mountains to get your table ready" - we were sat at a large, corner booth, only to be joined by one table of two couples, one baby, several bags of shopping, and one movie-player to amuse the baby while it dragged two plates to the floor. And as if that wasn't enough, two other brats from another table had to keep coming by to hang out with our neighbor's baby in order to watch the movie and threaten to pull at the Buddah statuettes lining the wall.

Our first course: Wild Boar Juicy Dumplings, Pork & Black Truffle Juicy Dumpling, Spicy Seafood Dumplings, and Bang Bang Chicken Wings, was perfect in every way. But our Peking Duck course was just "Hoy Sin sauce makes everything taste better" good. And finally, our Wok course: Hong Kong Crispy Noodle with Chicken, Wok Sauteed Mushrooom, Sweet and Sour Pork, and Five Spice Pork Ribs was a bit all over the place in terms of quality, preparation, and taste. 

The whole M.Y. China experience proved consistently inconsistent.

RAVE - Alice's Restaurant

Lawrence had picked this place from the Web before flying from the UK.

It's a favorite of bikers, hikers and other visitors to the Redwood forest ten miles west of Palo Alto. 

It was built in the early 1900's as a grocery store to support loggers, and in the 1960's was bought by Alice Taylor, who renamed it after the Arlo Guthrie song of the same name - Alice's Restaurant.

It's certainly picturesque, even more so no doubt when it's not peeing with rain, like it was today.

Nevertheless, once tucked inside, we revelled in the burgers, wings, and omelettes.

The weather kept the motorcyclists at home, in front of their fires, but we still loved the atmosphere provided by the staff and the mix of crusty locals and tourists having a good and relaxing Friday lunch.

REVIEW - Hakkasan

This is a fabulously-run and decorated place that somehow managed to underwhelm us with its food last night.

The location, the valet parking, check-in desk at the ground floor and at the second floor restaurant itself, the design and decor - all of these things remind you that you have arrived at a significant restaurant.

The staff was equally impressive throughout our visit.

And our party, which included my brother and sister-in-law staying with us from the UK, were up to the task of making this an event.

But the food was a little bit weird, and just a little short of the required fabulousness.

Our Hakka fried Dim Sum platter was perfectly cooked and tasty, if a little too carefully formed. The duck and pumpkin puff, the crispy prawn dumpling, and the scallop puff were delightful, but left us feeling they were over-produced.

Then we had the Prawn Toast. These were huge balls of prawn covered in what must have been a toasted crust, because there was no actual toast in evidence. That method of preparation made them tasty but really filling, and we could only eat half of the eight balls of toasted prawn.

Our entrees were similarly only half eaten. We shared the Roast Chicken in Satay Sauce, the Pipa Duck, the Black Truffle Roasted Duck, and the Beef Tenderloin Stir-Fry with Green Pepper. I'm glad we tried so many dishes, because even though we ordered too much, and had a lot left over uneaten, at least I can say now that I won't be as keen to go back as I was to make this first visit.

Review - The HoBBit

This was one of those instances when my wife loved the film, and I thought it was OK.

It was a beautifully-made movie, just what we expect from Peter Jackson. It was looong. Again, just what we expect from Mr Jackson. So long in fact, that we'd slogged through the scene setting and story foundation, I'd fought sleep and mostly won, got my second wind and the motley crew of hobbit, wizard and dwarves had got through their first couple of adventures, and still there were nearly two hours left to go.

It was definitely pitched at the kids in the audience. The way the story unfolded, the "merriment" with the dwarves that kept me expecting to see Snow White at any moment, even the tra-la-la soundtrack all said PG-13 in a way the Lord of The Rings trilogy never did.

And, without giving the game away, the story never got completed. The quest was never realized. So we now have to wait until the second, and maybe third of the Hobbit films is made before we arrive at a point fifty years before LOTR.

Snooze.

RAVE - Poquitos

With so many Latin-American restaurants in San Francisco, from generic and pseudo Mexican to Peruvian, Argentinian, Guatemalan and all points between, it's a crying shame we so rarely sample their fare.

Last night was one of those infrequent times we did indulge, and it was rewarded with an excellent, mostly Ecuadorian meal at Poquitos.

We first had to ignore the setting - an unglamorous stretch of 3rd Street - and the bar that occupied the front half of the place, but once sat down in the restaurant itself, we were treated to dish after dish of interesting and flavorful spins on the taco- and empanada-centric menus at most Latino places.

The four of us shared Habas Fritas (fava beans, fried and salted), Llapingachos (Ecuadorian potato pancakes with cheese and green onions), Beef Empanadas with salsa roja, Chorizo Sliders with gorgonzola cheese and caramelized onions, Shrimp Tacos on jicama wrapper with pickled slaw and guanabana balsamic reduction, and Fritada (crisped, braised pork with hominy, pickled onions and spinach salad).

While the pork was a little dry, everything tasted good and fresh, and the marvelous rum cocktails that Josh and I tried several times handled that dry pork. The owner and waitress were both very friendly and informative and - sheesh this is sounding like a review from Mr Nice.

RAVE - Bluestem Brasserie

I'm glad we got past the negative experiences at the door, and gradually relaxed into an excellent meal.

There were four of us, and we showed up about twenty minutes early for our 8:30 reservation. We were asked to go get a drink at the bar while our table was made ready. There was no space at the bar. Ding #1. So we exited the restaurant and went into the Press Club next door. It was busy there too, but we got four seats at one of the bars with no trouble at all, and had a selection of unremarkable wines. The fact that my three glasses of champagne were unremarkable was a mixture of my fault - I chose that selection - and the Press Club's - none of the three champagnes was served cold enough for me.

Anyhow, we filed back into Bluestem Brasserie at 8:30, only to have to wait for ten minutes while the hostess - who clearly couldn't host jack - allegedly looked for our table. I hate standing around at the front of a restaurant waiting to be shown my table, especially when a quick glance around this place showed two or three available tables. Ding #2.

The less-than-stellar service continued, with our wait staff needing to be reminded once or twice about the non-arrival of our cocktails, and the tardiness of our entrees. 

But stop whingeing Philip! The food was Bluestem's saving grace. The ladies split a soup to start. George and I had oysters. The other three had fish - Branzino and Arctic Char. I had the Filet Mignon with a Bourbon Espresso sauce.

It wasn't the most adventurous of places, or menus. But overall it was a stylish eaterie, with good people-watching potential and great food.

REVIEW - Red Dawn

Despite all the negative reviews of Red Dawn, I went to see it last night.

First, those reviews were mostly well-founded.

Like a lot of other people, it left me asking a few important questions:

- Why would the North Koreans bother invading the US, only to target Tacoma, Washington?
- And why North Korea? The makers originally planned for the invaders to be the Chinese military. During the production however, they realized that people in China buy a lot of movie tickets. So they switched their focus to North Korea, a country that allegedly couldn't organize much more than an argument, let alone an invasion.

- Why did the US armed forces not bother to respond? The brief statement that "most of the regular US Military was away from the country on various deployments" is a cop out.

- Why would anyone expect a bunch of teens to have any effect on the invading forces?

- How could the walkie talkies the teens had escape from being fritzed along with all other electronics? Eh?

- Why bother to remake a movie that had a minor impact when it was first released, back in 1984?

I bet a lot of these faults are true of that original version, but to not fix them in a remake is inexcusable.

If you suspend belief for ninety minutes, the film is OK. But if you're prepared to do that, you'd also find most of Jennifer Aniston's movies watchable.

REVIEW - The Day

A bleak, monochromatic film. Well, it has to be, seeing as it's set in the near future, after a disaster of some kind - we never learn what - has decimated the land and nearly everyone on it.

Five survivors hike from who knows where to who cares where, looking for food and shelter.

They discover an abandoned house, and decide to hole up there for a while. You can tell it's not a good idea thanks to the ominous music and sounds.

They find a stash of canned food in the basement, which heightens their spirits temporarily. Of course, things go pear-shaped following that.

The absence of any real purpose or context to their wanderings, or a decent dialog for them to entertain us with while doing that wandering, leaves us with the not very horrible horror of a day in their miserable lives.

It's strange that I look forward to the next episode of The Walking Dead for a dose of post-apocalyptic reality.

REVIEW - Killing Them Softly

A mostly pedestrian crime movie, featuring a lackluster cast that includes Brad Pitt as a mob cleaner-upper, James Gandolfini as another cleaner-upper, who needs cleaning up himself, and an assortment of other foul-mouthed characters who do little more than sit around and swear a lot.

Ray Liotta just seems to get beaten up, and look beaten.

The story, if you can call it that, revolves around a mob-sponsored poker game that gets robbed by a couple of no-hopers, who then need dispatching. Pitt gets called in to do that dispatching.

The dialog is dragged out, as is most of the action.

The constant backdrop, provided by TVs that seem to be everywhere - at the airport, in bars, in hotel rooms, and in the poker game - is of the 2008 McCain versus Obama election. I don't know why. It didn't add anything other than an excuse to tie the events to a date. That date was irrelevant to the story, so the backdrop was just annoying.

All in all it was slightly better than staying in and watching Saturday night TV. But not much.

RAVE - Hitchcock

I'm not a particular admirer of Alfred Hitchcok, or his films. Yes, he's responsible for some of the most significant thrillers of all time, but they don't, for me, bear watching in adulation now.

But this film wasn't a biopic of his life, or a review of his films. It was the story of his marriage to Alma Reville - played by Helen Mirren - specifically while he was filming Psycho.

I remember the first time I saw Psycho. I was a in my early teens, and saw it one night on TV, while I was babysitting my Uncle and Aunt's 5 year old. Sat in a dark, somewhat unfamiliar house - the young 'un was thankfully tucked up in bed - and Psycho definitely moved me, scared me.

This film wasn't a thriller though. In fact, it was funny. The dialog was superb, and witty. The acting was superlative. Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren deserve Oscars, and no doubt in a couple months they'll be vying for those awards.

The closing lines were typical of the film's wit. 

After the premier of Psycho, Hitchcock says to his wife "I'll never find a leading lady that's a beautiful as you". 

"I've been waiting 46 years to hear those words from you Hitch" she says.

"That, my dear, is why I'm known as the Master of Suspense".

With my better half on a brief trip to the UK, I was free to watch a movie I knew she wouldn't want to see. It didn't in any way make up for her being away, but it was nevertheless an outstanding movie, and a terrific insight into the corpulent director.

If the film is to be believed, he was an incessant eater, sloppy drinker, and an all around grubby grabber of his leading ladies, with a long-suffering wife who tirelessly supported his fragile ego.

Not a bit like Mrs P, but still thoroughly enjoyable stuff.

RAVE - French Blue

Saturdays don't get much better than this. Alright, Manchester United could have got beaten today, and that would have made this particular Saturday even better. But without a United defeat, Saturdays don't get much better than 70 degrees of winter sun in St Helena, Napa Valley.

To be fair, French Blue is worth the ninety minute trip to Napa for lunch only. The menu probably isn't dinner worthy.

But it's a delightfully sunny restaurant, with a suitably relaxed vibe, elegant country decor, and - this is all sounding a bit twee.

Maybe I'm waxing a bit lyrical about a ham and egg sandwich, with extra bacon, a peppery bloody mary and a killer espresso. Wait, how can you wax over-lyrically about ham, egg, and bacon? In a sandwich? And a bloody mary?

Our outing was rounded off with more sun and more wine at Alpha Omega winery. Top-tastic.

RAVE - Quince

Last night, the Nutrisystem diet that I have been carefully following for the past four or five months, the one that has powered me to lose around thirty-five pounds of the world's largest love handles, was strapped to a rocket and shot into outer space.

Yes, it was the visit of Mrs. P's closest friend from the UK that prompted a celebration at the altar of excess, dinner at Spruce.

You can keep your touristy Gary Danko's, and your somber Masa's, your big name chefs and your fifteen minutes of fame-rs. Quince is for me the best restaurant in San Francisco.

It's not just the food - although that is unparalleled - but the service, the comfort, the decor, the experience, even the location - absolutely everything about Quince makes me delighted to have been, and excited to go back.

I won't list our meals - heaven knows there were enough dishes and flavors to give Leo Tolstoy writer's cramp. And I'm trying to avoid saying 'Ambiance', seeing as that word has lost its cachet since cheap advertisers use it to describe everything from airline seats to the average bathroom makeover.

Suffice it to say that dinner was perfect.

RAVE - Life of Pi

Only to be expected of Ang 'Crouching Tiger' Lee, this was an engrossing story, beautifully shot, with plenty of heart-stopping action at sea.

It's the story and a half of young Pi Patel, son of a zoo owner in Pondicherry, India. Faced with an uncertain financial future, Patel Sr. decides to move the family to Canada, and takes his zoo animals with them in a freighter. 

The ship meets a wild storm in the middle of the Pacific, and everyone and everything goes down, except Pi and a few of the animals. He's set adrift on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan and a tiger. Sounds like the start of a joke, I know, but the weeks and months on the ocean prove to be an arduous yet life-affirming journey for Pi and the tiger - less so for the unfortunate zebra, hyena, and orangutan.

While gorgeous looking, the film didn't really benefit from 3D, as there are only so many shots of tiger claws and teeth one can stomach lunging out from the screen.

Yes, it was slightly long, and the way the film was a little too nicely tidied up with an explanation of who each lifeboat passenger signified was in some ways unnecessary.

Either way, you won't see another film like this for a while.

RANT - Taken 2

I'm tempted to say "YAWN" and be done with this review.

But surely I can give this a more intelligent put down?

It certainly deserves a warning label. I was convinced half of the scenes actually came straight from Taken 1. The plot virtually did.

I know Liam Neeson is hardly Laurence Olivier, and this role was barely a stretch. But his acting, especially in the scenes with his daughter, and/or ex-wife, and/or his pals, are painful. He steps it up to "just OK" with people he's trying to shoot, slap, or run over, but that's the best I can say or he can do.

I won't bother to tell you any of the story. It's enough to say that it picks up seamlessly from the first film, with no-one seeming to remember what happened in similar circumstances last time.

As I said. YAWN.

RAVE - Region

While we've tried several Chinese restaurants here in San Francisco, none of them have so far come up to the standard set by places like Zen, at the Heathrow Hilton. 

I know it's illogical to demand that food is prepared to an English specification - heaven knows it's unlikely to be that way in Shanghai or Beijing - but as long as the chefs hope to sell their Chinese food in Western countries, and westerners want to buy that food, we may as well have it prepared the way we want.

Which brings me to one of our favorites - Beijing Duck - which we been unable to find here the way we did in the UK.

Well, not until now.

Region is a classy place, specializing in Beijing style Chinese fare. And that means crispy Beijing Duck, cooked with the right spices and sauces, and the right thin pancakes. I say "the right" spices, sauces, and pancakes because the last time we had the dish was in Hong Kong, after a l-o-n-g and tiring flight from the US. To say that meal was a disappointment would be an understatement. It came as a slab of cold, fatty bird, that seemed to have had only a fleeting relationship with any acceptable method of cooking, and - to top it all - with overly fluffy pancakes. I'm sure the good people of Hong Kong are usually delighted with this preparation, but it left our table untouched, and us still famished.

There was no such disappointment last night. Region is a perfect place for a date, specially if like me, your date loves her duck.

The cocktails were equally classy. To tell the truth, the duck kind of out-performed the other menu items. We had the Crispy shrimp and pork Chao Zhou rolls, Grass fed Piedmontese cubed filet mignon, red onions, string bean and beech mushroom, and the Basil prawns with oyster mushrooms, green beans, eggplant and bell pepper. They were all fine, but I wouldn't be as fulsome with the praise if we hadn't first had the duck.

Duck, duck, duck, duck, and duck. I'm sorry to go on about the duck. But it was perfect.

RAVE - Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis may be a great actor, but he's often self-important, and that can be said of Spielberg too. 

So you can almost guarantee a bucket-load of self-important bloat when you put DDL in a movie directed by Spielberg, about probably the most lauded of American Presidents, Abraham Lincoln.

But that bloat didn't get in the way of this film.

It may have been a story about Lincoln, but it was more the story of the vote for the abolition of slavery.  This was arguably the most important vote that the US house of representatives has ever had, and one salutary fact is that the vote was so close. It could have gone either way. It would have gone against the abolition of slavery, but for some Lincolnly shenanigans.

If it wasn't for this being such an important time in US history, and the story told so well, this would have been a tedious exercise.

Daniel Day-Lewis will undoubtedly win the Oscar for best actor based on this performance. He may be an old wind-bag, but he can definitely act.

REVIEW - Skyfall

Not to be confused with my previous review of the similarly named Deadfall, this is the new 007 film, which we saw late on opening night here in San Francisco.

There, that's got the positive side of this over and done with.

Skyfall is a huge disappointment. Not just a huge disappointment over earlier Bond movies, but a huge letdown in terms of how much I wanted to enjoy this, how much I expected to enjoy it.

The plot - as in all Bond films - is irrelevant. An arch-villain steals or builds a dangerous weapon, threatens M, or one of Bond's Babes, or the whole world with it, and Bond saves the day. The Quantum of Dr No with a Golden Gun.

The style and content are critical. And Skyfall's style and content are sub-Bourne to say the best. Aside from the first fifteen minutes, which featured the obligatory action tour through a Turkish bazaar, and a clever motorcycle chase across the rooftops, the film featured no other action aside from various shootings and explosions.

There were no supercar antics. There were cheers from our audience when Bond cracked open the doors of his garage to reveal the 1963 Aston Martin DB5 made famous by the inimitable Sean Connery. Daniel Craig uses the car to escape the ludicrous Javier Bardem, taking M to the supposed safety of his family seat in Scotland. It's a good job the trip didn't require a high-speed race, as the DB5 is only a 4 liter, sub-300 bhp antique, capable of just beating the average family sedan at the traffic lights.

And what's all the hogwash about Javier Bardem being a perfect villain. Rather than being a Blofeld, he just blows. 

There was nothing new about this iteration of Her Majesty's allegedly top agent. Now, one doesn't necessarily expect an all-new Bond. The series calls for a delicate balance between staying true to the tradition, while keeping it fresh and exciting. 

However, Skyfall does neither.

REVIEW - Deadfall

A car speeding along a snowy country road hits a  deer and rolls out of control.

The two passengers survive the crash, but they just happen to be escaping from a casino robbery they just committed.

This starts a run across wild country, with the two crooks, a mostly clueless group of state troopers, and a boxer just out of prison all converging on the same address, a house in the middle of nowhere.

With a couple of mildly interesting developments, this is mostly familiar territory story-wise. It's not helped at all by the woeful Eric Bana in the lead bad guy slot. 

Bana has never been much of a "star" for me. His nothingness was sealed when it was widely rumored that he was being considered for the next James Bond role, after Pierce Brosnan and before - thankfully - Daniel Craig was chosen.

The notion of Bana - an Australian - playing the quintessential Englishman was just too much for me. It's better if he continues to meander along in roles like this.

RAVE - Flight

It's funny how everyone asks: "Have you seen the new Denzel film?" rather than use his last name. Is it because everyone feels an affinity with Denzel, or because that first name is unique?

Either way, Denzel Washington's latest performance is riveting as an alcoholic pilot who performs a miraculous manoeuvre to attempt to save the lives of his passengers as his plane suffers a number of mechanical failures on a flight from Miami to Atlanta.

The film is not really a thriller, despite the first 20 minutes which covers the flight. Instead, it's more a character study of a pilot who's lifestyle and addiction to booze and drugs leads to a disastrous outcome.

I don't know whether he intentionally let himself go for the role - putting on a few pounds and letting himself look like a less than fit guy in his late fifties - but he is certainly not the sleek character from Training Day.

With or without Denzel onboard, I want my plane and pilot to be serviceable and in tip-top condition.

RAVE - Cotogna

We've had this restaurant on our "gotta go" list for a couple months now, but it's always booked several weeks in advance. So it was a real surprise to find a table just a day in advance, for a reasonable 8.30pm.

Having got there, I was sitting on the fence with my verdict until we'd eaten. My first impression was slightly negative - it was packed and noisy, and in my view - literally - poorly lit. Add to that the fact that the menus and wine list were indistinctly printed on brown paper, and it was virtually impossible for an old man like me to read them. Of course, Mrs Page thought exactly the opposite - that Cotogna was warm and inviting. So, we both waited for our Tuscan liver crostini and Asian pear, prosciutto & smoked almonds, followed by a shared Bistecca alla Fiorentina.

The verdict was liver-y, game-y, and humungously fabulous.

We adored our appetizers, and the steak - the first Florentine-style steak we'd had since spending a couple summers in and around Florence a few years ago - was absolutely perfect. As I was eating it I could just hear my brother Lawrence arguing that he'd rather have it cooked more, but our medium rare was just perfect. 

So, yet another reason not to go to North Beach if you want great Italian food.

RAVE - Cloud Atlas

We've just seen either: 

1. One of the greatest films ever made, or

2. One of the worst films ever made

Either way, it was a remarkable film.

It has several concurrent stories, including a ship's voyage in the mid 1800s; two composers collaborating on writing music; a publisher trying to escape from forced retirement in a rest home; a tribe living on a pacific island; a writer investigating a crime at a nuclear power station; and a futuristic Korean capital featuring a soon to be rebel who will become a Goddess. And all of this with the same actors playing one or more characters in each of those stories.

Maybe it's no surprise that it seems to take forever to tell all those intertwining stories - the film is around three hours long.

The characters and the acting are sensational.

I struggled to find connections between the content of the film and the alleged story about a world searching for energy, but that didn't seem to detract from my enjoyment of this engrossing film.

REVIEW - Out The Door

One of the inelegantly-named offshoots from the revered Slanted Door team, which also lists Heaven's Dog, The Academy Cafe, and Moss Room as its sister restaurants.

This was the Pacific Heights' instance, and proved to be a much better experience than the horrible Heaven's Dog, or the full o' tourists Academy Cafe. Was it as good as the Moss Room, which I've found classy and laid back, if not exactly a boundary pusher?

Once you get past the cafeteria look and feel of the place - something that seems to go with the Vietnamese street-food roots of most of the group's properties (even Slanted Door) - and get to concentrate on the food, all is good.

We had - or should I say Holly, Pavey, and Tom "had", because they shared their meals in true family style, while I plotted my own route through the menu - a great meal. Typically, I ended up choosing pretty much the same as they had: the shaken beef, eggplant and rice, with the crispy salt and pepper squid, grilled pineapple, jalapenos, and toasted garlic, which was as good as any squid I've had.

Their hue dumplings, mung bean, sesame, scallion oil, spicy soy, and spring rolls, shrimp, pork shoulder, mint, and spicy peanut sauce looked great, but I was on a strict no share diet to the bitter end.

That end wasn't bitter at all. Out The Door is an unpretentious slice of Viet Francisco that, with the kind of company I had last night, is a place I'd want to go back to time and again.

REVIEW - Take Shelter

A construction worker starts having hallucinations, imagining thunderstorms, twisters, huge flocks of birds circling the sky. Then the dreams start: his dog attacks him, he has a car crash, and each time he wakes up in a sweat. So nothing has actually happened - all these portentous goings-on are in his mind.

Then he decides to clean up and extend an underground storm shelter in his garden.

At the same time he reads library books dealing with mental illness, and starts talking to his doctor and a counselor.

Things get worse. They always do in this kind of film. There's a certain inevitability about the need to pile on the suffering, forcing someone who's already approaching the brink to stamp on the accelerator and go plummeting to the bottom of a cliff in a fiery explosion.

I usually hate movies like this: ones that have a series of ominous events that mostly turn out to be in the mind of some troubled individual.

But is our hero correct in his preparations for an imminent cataclysmic event?

I wouldn't go as far as agreeing with the poster declaring this "Stunning. An American masterpiece", but it's definitely worth seeing.

RAVE - Argo

I don't know which is more amazing - that Argo is based on a true story, or that it's taken over thirty years to tell this story. Either way, it's a cracking story.

It's set in 1980, just after the Iranian revolution had ousted the Shah. Demonstrations were happening all over Tehran, and one such demonstration at the US Embassy threatened the lives of everyone inside. While most Embassy workers fretted about what to do, six managed to escape to the nearby home of the Canadian ambassador, where they hid out for over two months while American officials dreamed up various schemes to get them out. 

Ben Affleck plays a CIA extraction expert, and together with a genuine Hollywood producer and director, puts together a fake film project. Affleck then enters Iran posing as a film producer to meet the six embassy staff whom he enlists as location scouts for his "film".

Argo starts with a brief history of the troubles in Iran, and the various interferences run by US Governments and the CIA. With such a checkered history, and the benefit of hindsight, it seems a pretty dangerous job being an embassy worker.

The tension is non-stop, with the chances of the lone Affleck plucking the nervous team of embassy workers from the clutches of the heavily armed revolutionaries seeming very distant.

In the end, this is an exciting revelation of recent history.

RAVE - Seven Psychopaths

A film with a great story, and an original one at that.

It's a comedy and a thriller, with lots of killing - well, how can you have a film about seven psychopaths without there being lots of psychopathic action?

Colin Farrell plays a screenwriter; Christopher Walken and Sam Rockwell play his kooky friends who make their living by kidnapping dogs, then turning them in for the reward money. 

Things go pear-shaped when they kidnap the dog of gangster Woody Harrelson. 

With people of this caliber in the main roles, it's maybe somewhat of a surprise that Sam Rockwell blows everyone away with his role. He has the best character, the best lines, and he delivers them better than anyone else delivers theirs.

There are some really funny moments, especially during the gratuitously bloody shoot-outs.

The film inescapably covers Tarantino territory, but has a funnier, less sinister feel. 

REVIEW - For Greater Glory: The True Story of Cristiada

Mark me down as someone who knew nothing at all about this war. 

The Cristeros War (1926-1929) - so I've now learned - was waged by the people of Mexico against the atheistic Mexican government.

A few years after the Mexican Revolution, the relationship between the Mexican government and the Catholic Church deteriorated as President Calles began strictly enforcing the anti-clerical laws written into the Mexican Constitution of 1917. These laws forbade priests from criticizing the government, and from wearing their religious "uniforms" in public, justifying the penalties by saying they were protecting the freedom of the people and holding true to the principles of La Revolution.

In response to those measures, civil organizations protested the new laws at first by peaceful means. The LNDR (League for Religious Liberty) was foremost among those organizations. 

Met with even sterner rules, people across the country took up arms. These men and women became known as Cristeros.

Starring Andy Garcia, an almost skeletal Peter O'Toole, and the not-at-all skeletal Eva Longoria, the film tells an interesting story about a country that one always thinks of as deeply observant of its religious roots.

It's a shame that observance doesn't extend to the violent drug gangs that infest parts of the country now.

If pushed to be hyper-critical, it's a long film - two and a half hours long - and I'd say the film veered a bit toward the self-righteous. But I'll approach the topic carefully when we're in Cabo at Christmas.

RAVE - The Raven

On October 7, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe was found, near death, on a park bench in Baltimore, Maryland. 

The last days of his life remain a mystery.

So goes the introduction to this rollicking thriller featuring John Cusack as poet and author Edgar Allan Poe.

I remember having a drink at the bar with John Cusack, at a show in a mostly derelict Chinese restaurant in East LA, turned for the night into a club called God Save The Queen. I forget the low-quality music being performed there, but I remember vividly the elegantly dressed guy dancing with a teddy bear, and of course a slightly tipsy Cusack.

Anyhow, it's good to see the classy Cusack in this role, as a part-time American Sherlock Holmes, although Holmes was of course fictional, and didn't appear until 1887, nearly forty years after Poe died.

At school I read Poe's Murders in the Rue Morgue, and The Pit and The Pendulum, both of which are depicted in this film. The latter had plenty of impact on the imagination of a twelve-year old, and that story still comes to mind whenever I rig up a massive axe to swing from the ceiling.

Back to the plot: Poe is called in by the police when a series of brutal murders are discovered, each of which copies the methods depicted in Poe's writings.

The film is nowhere near as dry as a classic Sherlock Holmes story, nor as pop-video-ish as those horrible Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law versions. And those differences are what make this film.

RAVE - Gossip, at Treasure Island Music Festival

Thank heavens for Gossip.

I say that because the rest of the line-up was decidedly ordinary:

Los Campesinos, an unlikely-named crew from the UK that tried its best on the smaller stage of the two.

El Radio Fantastique, who were set up on a fancy, barn-like stall and pumped out a feelgood style of country jazz that had the small crowd gathered around dancing and er, feeling good.

Divine Fits, with their unimpressive set that seemed to drift off into unimportant and unoriginal territory.

Best Coast, who proved yet again their unoriginal spin on 60s California sounds.

M83, as above, but this time with an unoriginal French spin on beefed-up 70s Jean Michel Jarre and Rick Wakeman. A waste of all those fancy lights if you ask me.

Which brings us to Gossip.

Beth Ditto is for those people who think Adele is just too thin. 

This is the second time we've seen Gossip, and I guess like all women with strong voices, you wonder how long they can keep that up. The band thumps and bumps with her, delivering bass- and drum-heavy rhythms that get everybody moving.

Which is all just as well, on a weekend that every year seems to make this festival, in this particular location, like listening to your boom box on an ice-berg in the Arctic Sea.

RAVE - Hotel Yountville

If you're wondering what we used as our base for this weekend of good, not great dining in Napa, it was Hotel Yountville.

Aside from the sky-high cost of a "standard" king room - priced perhaps according to it being Napa's peak harvest season - the hotel was perfect. Well, steady on there Philip. Perfect? As in, "nothing whatsoever to criticize"?

Alright, aside from the staff starting their clean up routine around the hotel just a little bit before we were ready to hear them, the place was spacious and luxurious, the staff was attentive and always there when you wanted them, the food - we had breakfast in the garden - was delightful, the bar served killer cocktails, and the location was ideal.

It allowed us to walk to most of our stopping off places in Yountville, and was just what we needed to fill up the trunk with purchases from Dean and Deluca, Mumm Champagne, Duckhorn, and Round Pond wineries.

So yes, it was perfect.

REVIEW - Ad Hoc, Yountville

Sheesh.

Three restaurants, and not a RAVE among them.

Ad Hoc's ordinary REVIEW was the biggest surprise of the three. It's one of a growing number of places in and around San Francisco that burn so brightly that it's really hard to get a reservation. Ad Hoc is always fully booked two months in advance, so you almost need to get a reservation then plan your weekend visit to Napa, rather than the other way around.

Which was why we got this reservation for brunch, which may or may not have resulted in us being under-whelmed by the experience.

First thing to remember is that Ad Hoc offers just one three course menu per each meal. Seeing as this was brunch, our menu offered:

- Pattiserie selection, from Bouchon bakery

- Sausage, Canadian bacon, eggs, potatoes, and mushrooms

- Vanilla mousse with apple and peach

Now, on the one hand that sounds like a fairly ordinary meal - a little bit more inventive than Denny's, but hardly Michelin-starred greatness.

On the other hand, it was beautifully prepared, piping hot, and fresh as one could wish for.

What surprised us more than anything was the overall downwardly mobile nature of the place. It was little more than a regular breakfast place, with many a reverse baseball-capped diner in sight. Pavey will be having dinner at Ad Hoc with some friends in December, so we'll see if they do better then.

It just goes to show that the Napa air can get to everyone, infusing diners and restaurant staff alike with a superior - perhaps justifiable - view of the area.

REVIEW - Red Wood, at Yountville

This was another relaxing, while not especially memorable Saturday night out at Redd's Italian restaurant - come on, it's a pizza and pasta joint - in Napa's Disney-like town of Yountville.

I say Disney-like, because it's a little too-perfect a spin on Napa. 

In a totally un-Tuscan style, there's not a blade of grass out of place in Yountville, and the many restaurants and wineries in the town fit that slightly artificial vibe. That's not to say that a bit of perfection is ever to be sniffed at, it's just that when cracks in that image ever appear, they're all too obvious.

There was nothing at all wrong with the food. However, Pavey said her pasta was not quite as good as last night's at Tra Vigne. Aside from that, I had chicken liver toast - not as good as the excellent Bar Agricole's preparation - and a pizza. Forgive me for sounding churlish, but with so many pizzerias in San Francisco, I can't get that excited about yet another prosciutto, arugula, grana padano, and black pepper plate.

Our server was affected, in a way many servers have become - a little too much detail on which end of the garden offers up the best vegetables, what the chef was wearing when he pounded the pizza base, and so on. That trait was in evidence at all three of our restaurants this weekend.

So, it is what it is. A victim perhaps of Yountville's high standards yielding too many plates with too similar components, all cooked in too similar a way, and all sold with a too similar condescension.

REVIEW - Tra Vigne, St. Helena

We started our weekend in Napa by trying out a restaurant in St. Helena, which was supposed to be a sophisticated Italian but turned out to be a bit of a zoo.

It's a large place, with a few entrances and several dining areas, inside and outside, upstairs and down. This, and it being Friday night, contrived to make it seem like we were bursting into a fight scene in an Italian opera. Alright, I doubt there are many fight scenes in opera, even Italian ones. But if there were, they'd be just like Tra Vigne on a Friday night.

The food was better than okay: the hand made Mozzarella, grilled bruschetta with olive oil was simple and good, while the Maltagliati Verde: herb infused pasta, slow cooked pozzi ranch lamb and sangiovese wine sugo was, according to Mrs P, "wonderful", while my smoked and braised beef short ribs were falling-off-the-bone goodness.

But the overall experience was less than spectacular. The service was courteous and complete, but it still felt like a glorified pizzeria.

One piece of good news was that cost-wise, it was equivalent to a glorified pizzeria, so nothing was lost.

RAVE - Maccabees at The Independent

We learned earlier this week that Maccabees is yet another word Americans manage to pronounce differently than us English. 

There I was, perfectly happy with my pronunciation of Mack-a-bees, when my local expert on Jewish affairs said it should be pronounced as Mac-aah-bees.

Aside from being terrible at using those phonetic thingamys you find in dictionaries, I'm guilty of going with my first pronunciation.

I must have spent too long in the indie music desert of San Francisco, because no-one I know has heard of them, despite their having released three CDs so far. And it looked like that unawareness was true of the rest of the city too, as The Independent was only half full.

Mind you, the support from Oakland's Mwahana must've kept people away in droves. They were a tuneless, mediocre outfit attempting to channel Pink Floyd's Arnold Layne days with synthesizer-driven psychedelia. My wife / comedienne said that when they announced they had one more song it was like being stuck at the airport and hearing you're flight's been delayed another 2 hours.

I can't imagine what possessed the Maccabees to pick this crowd of no-hopers as their support act, but at last our boys appeared on stage at 10.30pm and blew the place apart. They were sharp, lively, exciting and - unusual for a set containing only two songs we'd heard before - memorable.

In fact, these relative newcomers were miles better than last night's New Order.

Perhaps after this show, the word will get around a bit.

RAVE - New Order at Fox Theater Oakland

This is the third time I've seen New Order live, and each time was a very different experience.

The first time, at the Brixton Academy in London, they were supporting The Communards, and they were just okay. Maybe it was because I had such high hopes - they just couldn't be as good as I wanted and expected them to be.

The second time was at the Shoreline Amphitheater, just south of San Francisco, where they supported Moby. There, they somehow got lost in the huge space that is the Shoreline.

Last night was the turn of the Fox Theater in Oakland.

Not that I've ever visited one, but the inside of the Fox looks how I imagine a Turkish bordello, all stained glass and huge gold statues. Very regal, so not much like a bordello at all.

Anyhow, after a wimpy start - poor sound, and indistinct vocals - caused us to move closer to the stage, things picked up, and the band rattled through a ninety minute set consisting almost entirely of "hits".

Although they got started in 1980 from the Ian Curtis-less remains of Joy Division, and they're now without their founding bass player, and core sound-maker Peter Hook, I believe New Order's music to be timeless. Of course, that view is entirely personal and therefore worthless. I'm sure my dad believes the music of Gerry and the Pacemakers to be similarly "timeless".

RAVE - A busy weekend in SF

They say - and you know they are never wrong - that this weekend will see more people in San Francisco than at any time in its history.

With the Americas Cup World Series staging its 'battle of the bay' it's likely that there'll be more of a battle getting around town, let along down to the waterfront where Fleet Week also sees the Blue Angels performing daily air shows, the Parade of Ships filling the various water parking lots, and the Fleet Week Band Challenge meaning you'll have even more trouble than usual getting on a bus with your trombone. 

Added to that, we have the Hardly Strictly Blue Grass concerts filling Golden Gate Park, the SF Giants hosting the Cincinnati Reds in the first two games of their playoff series, and - just to make sure you can't get into the City from the freeway, the 49ers are hosting the Bills on Sunday.

Last night we hit the Embarcadero to view the multi-million dollar yachts parked up for the night. What with the cost and the accoutrements - the floodlights, the armed security guards, the parking restrictions - it looked just like the paddock of a formula one race.

Because I don't follow sailing that much, I had to ignore those selling tickets for the VIP seating at $1,000 per day. So, I'll just cheer on the Olympic multi-gold winning Ben Ainslie and the J.P.Morgan BAR team - which is the closest thing we have to a British entrant - from the comfort of my living room.

RANT - Trouble With The Curve

Monday night at The Kabuki Theater is dead. Nobody's around. The cinema is deserted, which is somehow appropriate for this lackluster effort by Clint Eastwood.

He's had a less than impressive couple of weeks, what with making a joke of his speech at the Republican conference, where he addressed part of his rambling talk at an empty chair on the stage, imagining Barack Obama was sat there.

In this film, he plays an aging baseball scout who's losing his eyesight. His daughter comes along with him to keep him company and watch out for him as he's scouting a young batter with great hopes of making it in the big league.

It's a cutesy little story, but comes across like an episode of The Waltons, with the all the drama that evokes. It's certainly not a patch on the last baseball movie we saw, Moneyball.

Heaven knows I wouldn't mind sitting around watching baseball for a job when I'm pushing eighty-something, but I'd like to be doing more than just complaining all the time and being just - you know - an eighty-something year old.

It was the same with Gran Torino - Eastwood huffs and puffs his way around, grunting rather than talking to anyone. But at least there was a plot. Alright, every step was telegraphed, just like in The Curve. But at least something happened occasionally.

Out friends didn't make it to the movie - some school thing going on. You may say I'm stretching things a bit, but I'd almost rather have been there with them.

RAVE - Another Monkey

For the past couple of years, this location has been home to Conduit, a hip-ish Valencia Street place serving I forget what kind of food. I only dined there once during those two years, and it looks like everyone else did just that. For now it's changed into Another Monkey. Owned by the same people that owned Conduit, and still own Koh Samui and The Monkey, this is not just another Monkey, but another Thai restaurant.

I know it was Saturday night in the Mission, and I know there was a packed Greek Night in the parking lot the other side of the street, but even so Another Monkey surprised us by being totally full - all tables in this far from tiny place were in use. 

We soon learned that virtually everyone else had a Groupon dining discount. No matter, it didn't bother us a bit that we were paying the full price for dinner - it still felt a bargain.

Our Crispy Calamari, Bags of Gold (minced chicken and shrimp wrapped in rice paper), Lamb to Die For, and Grilled Bangkok BBQ Chicken were accompanied by a variety of sweet and spicy - but not too spicy - chili sauces.

Another Monkey had a nice, warm atmosphere - helped no doubt by its being packed. Let's hope they don't have to hand out discount vouchers every night to make that happen.