RAVE - Aster

At last! A new, date-worthy spot, with a cool, relaxed vibe, and excellent food.

Plate sizes are small-ish, so it's fine to have 3 courses. 

My gorgeous date had the King Salmon, with peach, almond, chili oil, and basil. Then the Delta Asparagus, ham hock, spring onion, egg yolk, and sorrel, followed by the Black Cod, chard leaves & stems, and smoked bone broth. She wasn't as pleased as I was with my choices:

I had the Porchetta di Testa, pickled summer squash, and nasturtium. Then the Soft-cooked egg, crispy potato, nori, and caviar vinaigrette, followed by the Pork Shoulder, sweet potato, rhubarb, and grilled broccoli.

The bottle of Petit Chablis was top notch, and our server even better. 

Despite being busy, the noise was muted, which added to the overall mellow-ness of the place.

REVIEW - Mad Max Fury Road

This might have cost $150m to make, and Tom Hardy may have more acting skills in his little finger than does Mel Gibson, and Charlize Theron may look hot in a mechanic's outfit, but there's only so much car chase I can take in one film.

The film's - indeed the series of films' - underlying story: that oil is in such short supply that rival gangs need to barrel up and down the desert in souped up gas guzzlers is all a bit pointless.

Yes, the visuals are dramatic. And yes, the action is mostly non-stop. But for heaven's sake let's have a plot.

REVIEW - Causwells

Online restaurant reviews have always had a reputation for being filled with plaudits from the relatives, friends, or even staff at a new restaurant. Presumably, that was the reason Causwells got voted one of SF's best 11 restaurants of the year, and having one of the 15 best burgers in America by one review site.

On both accounts, the reviews were woefully wrong.

First, with all the competition in San Francisco, a restaurant - in my mind at least - must be more than a crowded space where one might shelter from the rain, or rest awhile from the tiresome shopping in the Marina, in order to be voted one of the best of anything.

Second, and more specifically, the Americana Burger falls way behind half a dozen other SF places' fare, let alone the country's. With its mangled sauce that's part Worcestershire, part Thousand Island, part "magic potion", cheese, and crispy onion rings it tasted more like something from Burger King than an award contender.

The pea crisp, with mint, yogurt tasted good, although a quick snort would've dispensed with the dish, while the Andouille fritters, with chili lime aioli lacked real taste - presumably from the virtual non-existence of any andouille sausage in the potato.

RANT - 50 Shades of Grey

Having peeked at a few pages to try and see what all the fuss was about, and quickly realizing it was badly-written tripe that was barely worth the effort of holding the book open, I avoided this masterpiece of marketing until the film hit pay-per-view.

Last night was slow enough, with no Walking Dead to entertain me, so I succumbed when Mrs P - who has read all 3 books - suggested we watch the film on TV.

What a load of unadulterated bulls**t this turned out to be. We already know the premise was suspect - a moderately good-looking billionaire with "singular" tastes wants a dominant / submissive relationship with a moderately good-looking woman - and we already know that 99% of the books' readers have been 1) female and 2) besotted. And we know that - as per usual - 99% of the men in those besotted females' lives can't make out whether they're supposed to sprint off to their local Good Vibrations store and pick up some appropriate gear or JUST KEEP THE HELL OUT OF IT!!!!

Consequently, I was blissfully unaware of just how bad this movie was. The script was limp. The dialog was banal. The pacing was glacial. And the whole effect was soporific. Surprise, surprise (an inappropriate segue considering the fact that there were absolutely NO surprises throughout this pile of hippo droppings) I was asleep well before the end, and woke up asking "what happened?".

Well, you'll just have to make a flask of coffee and watch this through to the bitter - and undoubtedly dull - end to find out for yourself.

RAVE - Jon Spencer Blues Explosion at The Independent

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion is a band I've known for 20 years but never seen touring anywhere near where I was. They're a band who's music I've owned, but never heard on the radio - so I've no idea where I first heard of them. They're also a band that virtually no-one I know has heard of.

All of these things made it very difficult to a) find someone to go with and b) persuade Mrs P it was a good idea to go see them when a) failed.

Getting her there was one thing. Getting her to like them was a completely different proposition. Their music is sometimes awkwardly arrhythmic - a term that doctors normally use to describe mis-timing heart beats and therefore one that I'm probably using incorrectly to describe a tempo, or beat that keeps changing mid song.

This arrhythmia made it hard for Mrs P to get into the groove, and for me to tap my feet to the beat.

Nevertheless, I was very happy to break my 20 year drought of live Blues Explosion.

REVIEW - The Water Diviner

The Water Diviner is a good but not great film that tells the story of an Australian farmer - Russell Crowe - who travels to Turkey four years after the 1916 Gallipoli campaign, in which his 3 sons died.

As a farmer, he has a knack of finding water on his mostly dry farm by using Divining. Once in Turkey, he manages to use the same method to find the exact spot where his sons fell.

While covering a traumatic period in the life of the farmer, the 7,000 Australian and New Zealand forces that perished, and the nearly 70,000 Turkish fatalities, this isn't a war film. Neither is it a romance - despite Crowe sniffing around the widowed owner of his hotel in Istanbul.

Instead, it's an inclusive look - considering the Turkish, Greek, British, and ANZAC roles in this part of the First World War - at the aftermath of conflict.

REVIEW - Trevor Noah at Cobbs Comedy Club

Unless you've been living under a shell, you'll already know that Jon Stewart is stepping down as host of The Daily Show, and Trevor Noah is taking his place.

That could be the end of the story, but for a few facts.

First, the attention paid to TV talk show hosts - Letterman, Leno, Jimmy Fallon - all of them - is epic.

Second, Trevor Noah is South African, of mixed race parents, and uses his ethnicity as a well from which to hoist material that's on the one hand familiar to fans of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, and Chris Rock, and on the other hand unfamiliar - his upbringing in Apartheid South Africa has given him a somewhat unique outlook on life.

Anyhow, that outlook has made him a very intelligent, observational comic who should do well on The Daily Show.

REVIEW - Sleater Kinney at The Masonic

Sorry to disappoint all the Riot Grrls there last night, but this was just plain too loud. I know I sound like an old feller clutching his hearing aid in anguish, but I assure you I like it as loud as the next (old) man.

This was simply a case of giving a handful of tender, young ladies the keys to a nuclear firing range.

I've seen Sleater Kinney twice before, both times at the Great American Music Hall - a venue with a sound system that only goes up to 10. The Masonic has a full on turbo nutter system, and --- I should stop going on about it now, because SK were exactly what it said on the box. Loud. Direct.