RAVE - Cotogna

Not being a chef sometimes makes it hard to judge a restaurant. Last night we ate at Cotogna which, to our non-professional tongues, seemed like it produced the best-tasting pasta in San Francisco.

But - and here's the relevance of my non-chef statement - pasta is pasta is pasta. Isn't it? I mean, provided it's freshly-made in-house, it's only a combo of flour and eggs. Logic says every chef's pasta should taste roughly the same.

However, last night we debated whether Cotogna's home-made pasta was better than last week's home-made pasta at SPQR.

The decision, narrowly, fell to Cotogna.

My appetizer, the Raviolo di ricotta, comprised a poached egg inside a pasta shell. While that in itself combines the devil's own ingredients, the execution was impeccable.

The rest of the meal: Mrs P's Burrata, radicchio & pomegranates, and Pappardelle with muscovy duck, and my Pork Loin with sunchokes and apples were equally outstanding. Together with the service, this place consistently manages the complex algorithm that makes up a perfect date place.

All I had to do was bring the perfect date.

RAVE - Placebo at The Masonic

It still surprises me when I visit a venue where its founders - in this case the weird and wonderful Freemasons - probably anticipated receiving guests with more formal attire and intent but now entertains bleached goths and assorted die-hard Depeche Mode-rs.

And so it was last night, when the gloriously loud Placebo played.

We'd seen Placebo a couple of times before, but I'm still in credit with Mrs Page concert-wise, so she was happy to join me for an eardrum punishment session on the balcony of the Nob Hill Masonic Lodge.

Brian Molko has a voice that can cut glass, and that plus four guitars, two keyboards and a drummer who worked up a real sweat attempting to out-do the rest made for a great show.

REVIEW - Fury

Despite all the Brad Pitt hype, this turned out to be just another war film, and a not very good one at that.

It was hampered by a weak story: a five man tank crew under Mr Perfect Hair slugs its way through Germany during the closing stages of WWII, while breaking in a new recruit.

It was further hobbled by crushingly unoriginal dialog. I know tank crews are not particularly renowned for their poetry, but Pitt's line "The war will end some day, but before then a whole lot of people gotta die" probably had that other great artillery commander William Shakespeare turning in his grave.

It was somewhat interesting to see the war from the bowels of a tank, but it didn't turn this pedestrian affair into anything like the trailers would have us believe.

RANT - Her

A film for those who believe their lives are empty and meaningless, Joaquin Pheonix plays a nerd going through a divorce who has a "relationship" with his operating system.

Unlike most people who have a love hate relationship with their Windows O/S, this serves a a salutary reminder not to get in too deep with their otherwise enabling technology. "Apple fan boys" anyone?

Perhaps Phoenix's silver screen weaknesses are warning enough. Heaven knows his mustache, apparently ripped from Sonny Bono's face sometime in the 70s should be some indication of his lack of backbone.

Aside from standing by and waiting for the obvious disaster, there's little for the viewer to do as Phoenix bumbles through life as a letter writer - interesting that in a world where technologists can create super-intelligent operating systems there's still a need for people to write letters - frittering away his real life.

Not for the first time I was tempted to bludgeon the actor with his "smart" phone.

RAVE - Kill The Messenger

Another true story turned into a movie, this one about a journalist working for the relatively small-time San Jose Mercury News uncovering the machinations of the CIA, who unbelievably helped a Nicaraguan drug cartel import and sell tons of Cocaine in the US during the 90s.

The CIA's misguided (i.e. criminal) involvement was driven by their need to help fund the Nicaraguan Contra rebels in their fight against their government's communist leanings. The fact that they did so by enabling the spread of crack use in America's largest cities was jaw-dropping in its ineptitude.

I remember taking my brother to see All The President's Men when it first came out and him shaking his head when we exited the theater saying "that was dull". Well Lawrence, my dear brother, Kill The Messenger bears a lot of that film's hallmarks, but it's definitely not dull.
 

RAVE - Pride

I may have said before - once or twice - that I often mix metaphors and judge movies by their covers, having a pre-formed review in mind before I even sit in the theater and pop my first handful of Raisinettes.

And so it was, a few days before we saw Pride that I said to a group of friends that we intended seeing this movie but I feared it would be full of the obvious South Wales coal miner versus Gay Londoner jokes, just like Marigold Hotel was full of the British retiree versus Indian humor.

But I was wrong.

Pride turned out to be funny, as most British comedies full of regional accents and observations tend to be, and not stereotypical in any way. Well, it was stereotypical, but not in a demeaning way.

It was based on the true story of the epic battle between two of history's least likeable characters, the miner's leader Arthur Scargill and Margaret Thatcher. Scargill led the miner's through a year-long strike and Thatcher was her right-wing self.

A gaggle of gay campaigners in London saw the pressure and criticism undergone by the mining communities echoing their own experience and decided to collect money in support of one particular mining village in South Wales. They visited the village with the first of their collections, and initial mistrust and anti-gay bias turned into mutual trust and collaboration.

The soundtrack - full of 80s gems from Soft Cell, Culture Club, Joy Division et al - was knockout, as were the acting and the script.

REVIEW - Automata

"Different Strokes" neatly sums up my view of this movie. More accurately, it sums up the views of other commentators on this mish-mash of Blade Runner, I Robot, and every other Robots-Go-Wild-and-Take-Over-The-World sci-fi story in between.

Admittedly, there are those Asimov fans who tend to like virtually anything based on the great One's writings. Then there are the "scientists" who like to debate the propensity of machines to evolve.

This is a low-budget attempt - certainly lower budget than Blade Runner or I Robot. It's Bulgarian-made - albeit starring a decidedly unglamorous Antonio Banderas as an Insurance agent investigating robots that may have been tampered with, but set in a similarly post-apocalyptic landscape that turns out to be more conducive to robot existence than human.

Without giving away any more of the rather obvious plot, I'll just consign this to the Would-a/Could-a pile.

RAVE - Fleet Week

If you like the sound of thundering engines overhead, watching the Fleet Week air show from the deck of a boat in San Francisco Bay is about the best way to experience it.

Our boat was a modest Red & White cruise charter, but at least it had a bar and food, and the weather was sunny enough for us to spend most of the three hours on deck enjoying the sight of seemingly thousands of other craft weaving their way around the Bay while various daredevil pilots did the same just above us.

Everything - from the aerobatic crop dusters, through the US Navy Blue Angels, to the United Airlines 747 coming in so low it looked like it was going to land on the Embarcadero - was a hoot.

REVIEW - Nombe

I could probably summarize our experience at Nombe the same as that at Hillside Supper Club - great service but so-so food.

The vibe was allegedly "Japanese American", although the food seemed to have little Japanese influence and mostly American diner.

What it really had going for it was that the San Francisco Giants were playing a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals, and - as is the case in every diner and even some of the supposedly classier places here - the game was on the TV. The fact that the Giants won, and thereby made it through to the World Series was good enough. The added bonus was that Nombe is on Mission street, which turned out to be celebration central for every local Latino and his banner-waving, whoopin' and hollerin', car-horn honkin' pals.

I hope over the coming weeks to be doing more celebrating of the Giants' progress through the World Series, although I expect to do little of that from a table at Nombe.

REVIEW - Hillside Supper Club

A decent, if unspectacular Bernal Heights restaurant that leans heavily on its neighborhood-ness - which basically equates to easier parking - and not a whole lot more.

Service was a high note - another product perhaps of the place not being super full, despite it being prime time Saturday night (even in Bernal Heights they must have something going on, eh?)

Our appetizers - Mussels, Roasted Garlic Soup, Meatballs ("Alright, but not as good as mine", said Mrs. P), and Duck Liver Mousse ("Not the best I've tasted, and certainly not as good as the other night at Cafe Claude", said yours truly) were just OK.

Our main meals - Roasted Local Black Cod, Garganelli Pasta, and Chicken Trio (Leg, Sausage, and Farm Egg) followed the same thread - fresh and decent, but not particularly noteworthy.

That's what one gets for being unadventurous I guess.

RAVE - SPQR

We revisited this non-North Beach Italian restaurant for only the second time in over ten years, and were reminded what we had been missing during that decade.

First, it's still hard to get a reservation, even with so much competition in the city, and particularly at the "good" end of Filmore. But we were with special friends, so with a little extra forethought and a month's notice, we got a Friday night table.

I don't remember exactly what we had. After our appetizers of suckling pork confitura, brassica and grains salad, hamachi crudi and the like, the dinner blurred into a feast of flavors and excellent Rosso di Montalcino.

The bustling atmosphere and great company did nothing but enhance the experience.

We're looking forward to 2024, when our regular next visit looms.

RAVE - Gone Girl

I'm really in two - make it three minds about this latest film from Ben Affleck about a guy whose wife goes missing leaving him to suffer under the spotlight of police and TV investigation.

On the one hand it's a tense movie, full of tightly-wound characters that ooze menace, and a story that keeps you guessing long after the credits have rolled.

On the other, it's an unevenly-paced film that had me first of all wondering when something interesting was going to happen, then when it did thinking the film was about to end, to the final third where a lot happened without resolving many of the loose ends.

My third mind was occupied by the inane audience that, like so many I find in SF, seem to be unbalanced in their participation - laughing out loud at non-comedic moments, or screaming at non-scary ones.

But after all was said and done, our conversation on the way home was full of items that were left unresolved, with activities incomplete and the big question: "Did it all really happen, or was it all in his or her mind" left unanswered.

RAVE - Jardiniere

We last dined at Jardiniere over 10 years ago, and found it a delightful spot mostly occupied with diners squeezing in an early meal before going on to the theater, opera, or symphony nearby.

I was excited to go again, not only to celebrate our 11th Wedding Anniversary, but also to see if it had lost any of its late night style. We needn't have worried, as it was special in every way.

The ambiance - that of relaxed luxury from the moment we left our car with the parking valet and sat for pre-dinner cocktails at the bar occupying the ground floor - to that of the busy restaurant up the sweeping staircase. The well-controlled efficiency of the many, many staff permeated the evening, where the standards were impeccable.

We splurged on the tasting menu, 10 courses of oyster, caviar, halibut, albacore tuna, wagyu beef, pork belly, hazelnut mousse, and a variety of amuse bouches to keep us engaged.

Jardiniere offers a refreshing change to the many temporarily trendy, impossible to get into places that spring up all over San Francisco.