RAVE - Chez Maman

The fact that we've eaten many times at the old Chez Maman allowed us to give them the benefit of the doubt on the food at their new place. Confusingly, they've moved a couple doors up 18th Street to occupy the former Chez Papa.

Mr Chez has vacated their 18th and Missouri locale, making way for Mrs Chez to move in. The old Chez Maman will reopen soon as a rotisserie.

So, there's a bit more space for the new occupants and their customers, but the counter service has transferred successfully.

We ate a couple of salads - Mrs P the Endive Salad with pears, walnuts and roquefort cheese, and caramel balsamic vinaigrette ("probably the strongest sauce I've ever  had on a salad") while I had the Frisée Salad with poached egg, lardoons and a red wine vinaigrette ("probably the 100th time I've had this salad, and I never get tired of it").

Then her ladyship had the Salmon, grilled with roasted potatoes, fine herbs and crème fraîche. And she was un-impressed. Mainly with the potatoes, or at least that was her excuse for stealing most of the fries from my Chicken Burger. While it wasn't a luxury item by any means, the burger should have been more moist.

As I said, our previous experiences at their old place ensured we will go back despite the minor shortcomings.

REVIEW - Urchin Bistro

I don't know if recently-opened places experience a drop in standards - food and service, or whether there's a natural drop in enthusiasm from the public, or whether food critics are as prone to hyperbole about a new restaurant as the bulk of the City's laughing-gas-snorting restaurant goers.

Whatever it was, it's hard to explain what all the fuss was about Urchin Bistro when it opened a couple months ago.

Pavey ordered Kale Salad, with duck confit, quinoa, comte cheese, and citrus vinaigrette (why, oh why the lady continues to order Kale anything when it's consistently dull). I had the Gnocchi Parisienne, with fava beans, smoked bacon, and forest mushrooms. Score, Pavey 0 : Philip 1.

Our entrees were blah. She had the Grilled Free Range Chicken, with Spaetzle, foie gras butter, and peas (I refuse to use the restaurant nomenclature of 'English' peas, as peas are peas, and these weren't flown in from England). I had the Steak Frites, with vin rouge butter. Neither dish was particularly French, and neither was particularly standout. Score, Pavey 0 : Philip 0.

Perhaps the fact that we were seated upstairs, when all the atmosphere seemed downstairs, made the whole a so-so affair, and one we're unlikely to go for again.

RAVE - Kaiser Chiefs at The Regency

It's quite some time since we've gone to see a band for one main song, and while I've got a couple Kaiser Chiefs albums - and therefore know a fair percentage of their material - it's true to say that if they had not performed Ruby last night, we would have been very disappointed.

Good news. They didn't disappoint us. Not only did they play - and everyone sing along to - Ruby, but the packed crowd were enthusiastic participants in The Angry Mob, I Predict A Riot, Na Na Na Na Naa, Never Miss A Beat, and many more.

And the less said about supporting act Priory, the better.

RAVE - Ex Machina

"Not my kind of film" said Mrs P as we exited the theater. So we'll ignore her feedback shall we?

Mr P thought this was an excellent, and very different take on the perennial geek-meets-female-robot-and-everyone-wonders-if-they'll-ever-make-out story.

Our geek - a 26 year old programmer at BlueBook (a huge web search company) wins a competition to spend time at the mountain home of the company CEO. His time is to be spent conducting a Turing Test on a robot boasting the most developed artificial intelligence. The Turing Test is way of evaluating whether machines can think. The CEO is a mostly crazed genius, and the robot is a mostly hot babe.

"Ex Machina" comes from "Deus ex machina" (Latin: God from the machine) and refers to the mythological gods who were prone to visiting earth to meddle with earthly things. In this context, it  refers to the robot-creating CEO, who believes himself to be god-like.

Anyhow, our geek-meets-robot story develops with ominous overtones and - without giving too much away - it all goes artificial t*ts up at the end.

Definitely my kind of film.

RAVE - Izakaya Kou

While not the warmest or heartiest of atmospheres - it was cold and windy Sunday evening, on a cold and windy corner of Filmore - once we were all cocooned behind sliding screens at our pit (what DO you call those places where your feet are all in a hole in the floor?), things soon warmed up.

With 6 of us celebrating cousin Amo's birthday - 2 of the 6 were his kids - it was no surprise we practically ate our way through the menu.

Hence, you won't get an accurate listing of the sushi rolls, sashimi, chicken, beef, sausage, shrimp, and rice dishes we sampled, but there was plenty of choice and every plate was cleared.

While it may not have dislodged Blowfish from #1 on our "favorite Japanese restaurant", it's certainly up there near the top.

RAVE - Les Clos

In my continuing quest to sample every new restaurant in San Francisco, even if they're only new to me rather than the City itself, and in my other, related quest to keep Mrs P happy with where she's dining, we ate at Les Clos.

On the downside it's near the baseball stadium - usually a negative where restaurants are concerned - and perhaps consequentially it lacks a "date" vibe. This latter downside is especially important when escorting the elegant female half of the household around SF on a chilly evening.

On the upside, the food was sensational!

My escortee chose the cheese appetizer, with the Petrale Sole, turnips, and snap peas for her main meal.

I had the Morels, Foie Gras, and Peas. This dish alone is worth a visit to Les Clos.
I followed it with the Poulet Basquez, with Padron peppers, and Cous Cous. While not necessarily to the standard set by the Morels, it rounded out the dinner almost as well as a Cassoulet from Bistro Jeanty might have done.

Les Clos heralds its wine selection, which is pretty large. But if you know your wine, or at least know what you like, it's a good but hardly outstanding collection.

Nevertheless, the food was a success even if the surroundings were unremarkable.

REVIEW - Child 44

Having read the book just a couple of weeks ago, I was interested to see how the movie compared the printed version.

It wasn't better than the book. Both were impenetrably bleak. The movie simply amplified the dismal portrayal of life in Stalinist Russia that was portrayed in Tom Rob Smith's book.

Mrs Page begged to differ, firmly believing that Tom Hardy can do no wrong. And looks damned good not doing it.

Anyhow, the plot's covered in my review a few days ago. So, for me, this wasn't a classic.

RAVE - Belle & Sebastian at The Greek Theater

Preceded by quite possibly the dullest pair of support acts known to man, Belle and Sebastian performed a hectic set - for them - full of beloved tunes.

It was a hot Sunday early evening at the Greek. Not the ideal setting - if ever there was one - for a skinny dude in a black mini-dress and stockings. And costume wasn't the worst part of Perfumed Genius' act. His voice - a mournful moan; his backing band - about as lively as a dead battery; and his songs - not a whistle-worthy one in there, amounted to one hour completely wasted.

Like a touring limbo circus, Real Estate did all they could to perform a duller set than PG's. Usually, when I see 4 guitarists getting ready to perform, my anticipation rises. We were in for a disappointing next hour.

Which made the headliners an even more welcome sight. With an entourage of around 50 fans who'd responded via Facebook and were sat behind them on stage, a sextet of strings and horns, and the seven mostly full-time members of the band, the stage was pretty busy with a set choc full of singalong favorites.

However, when all was said and done, Tom and I would probably have wished for a few more decibels and bit more menace. After all, Belle and Sebastian are probably the softest thing out of Glasgow, a city more often associated with blood 'n guts than the fey tones of our lads.

REVIEW - Cockscomb

Ever since we tried dinner at Chris Cosentino's previous restaurant Incanto, we've been looking forward to seeing what he can do at his new place, Cockscomb.

The answer is: something and nothing.

His approach is bold - that much was obvious from his food at Incanto; plenty of pig's head, offal, and bone marrow. Some of that carries through to Cockscomb.

For appetizers, we had the Grilled Cheese, with duck egg and honey (too sweet), and the Country Pate, with pistachios, and cornichons (not enough flavor, not enough salt). For entrees, we had the Meat Pie, with beef, oysters, and vegetables (again, not enough seasoning, and the oysters were overpowering and had to be set aside on the plate), and the Pasta, which wasn't really pasta but noodles made from pig's skin. This was the standout dish of the evening, if only there was more of it. The relatively small dish of pig skin pasta was dwarfed by the Meat Pie. Shame.

Plenty o'atmosphere, with a bustling crowd and Mr TV Chef himself in attendance.

Strange that the experience was somewhat hampered by the mis-application of honey (too much), oysters (too many), and salt (not enough).

REVIEW - Hawker Fare

The colorful decor at Hawker Fare, the great service, and the basic premise of serving Thai street food at a bustling, indoor location should all add up to a lot more than it actually does.

First, the decor largely gets lost once you're inside. All the plastic table covers, and plastic chairs or stools, are interesting until you're sat in them. Then they just become part of the noise.

The food is a major disappointment.

Despite the preponderance of chili, nothing was too spicy. But nothing was particularly tasty either - aside from the Gai Thot. There were six of us, with choices all over the place. Here's what I had:

Beer Nuts - red peanuts roaster with makrut lime laves, chilis, and salt.
Gai Thot - fried chicken, cilantro root, white pepper, soy sauce, and nam prik pao.
Jaew Bong - Laotian chili relish of caramelized galangla, shallots, and dried shrimp, pork rinds and vegatables.
Kra-Toog Moo - Vegetables stewed in pork rib broth with dill, cabbage, thai eggplant, long beans, and chili.
Khao Mun - chicken fat rice,

I wanted to love the place, but I couldn't.

REVIEW - Woman in Gold

This one gets a lucky middling review. My choice was a snoozy rant, but that was up-voted to a review by Mrs P who liked it a lot more than I did.

Helen "getting on a bit now" Mirren plays Maria Altman, part of an Austrian Jewish family living in Vienna during the build up to WWII. Her Aunt Adele is painted by the artist Gustav Klimt, and so was born the Woman in Gold.

Altman escapes Nazi oppression by fleeing to the USA, while her family's possessions are all appropriated / stolen by the Nazis. 40 years later the Woman in Gold is "owned" by the Austrian National Gallery and Maria employs the nerdily bespectacled Ryan Reynolds as her lawyer to retrieve what is rightfully hers.

Somewhere mid-story I stopped caring and fell blissfully asleep, only to be jerked awake by the tender elbow of my wife.

My excuse? I don't care for the painting, even though it was spoken of as Austria's Mona Lisa; I didn't care that much about the characters, who were too pale - especially Reynolds - to get me rooting for them; and there was little to no drama - the result was all too obvious.

RAVE - Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

At the other end of the entertainment scale - I'd just read Child 44, a Stalinist serial killer story - was Nick Hornby's latest novel about 1960's UK, where a young beauty queen eschews the glum North of England and strikes out for London. She wants to be a comedienne, taking her cue from Lucille Ball.

Sophie Straw pretty soon meets with two comedy scriptwriters who are completely taken with her, and decide to write a TV show around her as the main character.

This, for a reader with the right background and old enough to have seen many of the programs and characters who appear in the book - and perhaps for someone without the background or the years - this was a giggle, if not a hoot.

Hornby loses his way - maybe intentionally - as the book dwells as much on the writers as the Funny Girl herself, but it didn't detract from the easy readability of the whole.

A perfect way to while away a few hours in the pool bar.

REVIEW - Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith

A short notice trip to Puerto Vallarta to see my brother and his wife on vacation led me to pluck a couple books from my home library (i.e a few bookshelves) rather than spend time with the Kindle app.

I started with Child 44, a novel set in Stalinist Russia from the 1930's through the 50's, a period that monumentally failed to produce much in the way of humor.

The story is about a security police officer who pursues a series of murders of young children. The authorities refuse to accept that crime exists at all in Russia, saying that crime is a Capitalist disease, but Leo doggedly pieces together clues while contending with the State, his commanding officers, and his dastardly second-in-command.

The trouble is - and I found this years ago reading Solzhenitsyn - Russia was generally, and Stalinist Russia was particularly a gruesome, depressing place to be. Hence, any fact-based story was and is necessarily gruesome and depressing. Even the language and place names sound miserable.

Tom Rob Smith managed to lift me just a bit out of the freezing mire, or maybe that was the constant service of the fabulous waiters in PVA.

Either way, this has now been made into a film due out later this April, so no doubt I'll march along to my local multiplex and relive the horrors.