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.