Sake!

Cloudy or Demon Killer? You be the judge...

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The House won the competition between Ozumo ("A mix of a fun atmosphere set in a stylish Japanese setting") and Farallon (and its website of crashing waves and submerging bubbles). The Guardian Angel and I have another food tradition: one night to ourselves, at a restaurant neither one of us has ever visited. Lisa had been to Farallon and we both had been (although only for drinks) to Ozumo.

And so it would be The House. Located on Grant at Columbus, The House is slender and cramped, take-out sized converted into full-on gastronomy. Such congestion creates the illusion of exclusivity (it's always full) and the possibilities for calamity (a waiter broke a water glass at the table next to us, spilling deadly H2o across the table. One casualty was a patron's cell phone, and he tried to calm the embarrassed waiter by saying "It's okay. I have insurance! I have insurance!").

Lisa and I began with cold sake. On the left was the cloudy Nigori sake. On the right was the Onikoroshi, or Demon Killer Sake. If you believe in the advertisements (generally a mistake), the Nigori is supposed to contain  fruity notes and generally be the sweetest of the sakes, while the Onikoroshi boasts vanilla and caramel notes.

Not on this night.

We both found the Nigori to be rather tasteless and the Demon Killer to be sharp, the fruiter and more aromatic of the two. The night had just begun...

Next stop: The House

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The day following my visit to The House (1230 Grant Street, North Beach, San Francisco), I arrived at Fang for what has become an important tradition: lunch with great old pal and current KNBR morning host Brian Murphy. When I continued to refer to the restaurant as "The House," he corrected me each time and said, "No, the restaurant is simply called 'House.'" I asked him if he we were having a Northern California/Southern California freeway language collision, as in "you take 101 North into Marin County" but "you take The 101 into Los Angeles." He assured me were communicating on the same NorCal plane, I just had it wrong: the official name of the restaurant was "House."

So, I took a picture to prove him wrong. I won, of course. He texted his lovely wife Candace to vouch for his position that the restaurant clearly changed its name.

It matters not. I was right. He was wrong. The universe remains in balance.
  

Don't let the smile fool you...

Rocket Fish on 18th and Connecticut had me until it lost me. My drink, a Hot Rocket (tequila, lime, basil, jalapeno) was spicy delicious, but I'm not happy. Lauralee tells me to be calm and Zen about the insult, to enjoy my drink because life is short and we don't get to see each other very often. Plus, does it really make sense to want to rip out someone's innards if you can't actually do it?

Why the rage? The food at Rocket Fish looks good - shrimp, sushi, satays, among other delights. The bar is full. We are not having a full dinner, just drinks and perhaps an appetizer, so we are not allowed to sit at a table in the resaurant - those are reserved for diners, naturally.

So, we opt for a high-top bar stool table.
BUT...the restaurant won't let us order from the bar menu because we aren't technically sitting at the bar.
The bar is less than five feet away.
We are not sitting at a dining room table.
They won't let us order the food we want.

This is stupid. It is beyond stupid. I began to plot their demise, even though the white "Grand Opening" banner is still on the facade of the building. I hate them.
"If you choose not to make a sale over this silly rule of yours," I said. "We'll eat somewhere else."

Laura undermined the revolution by ordering a seaweed salad. She hugs you, sure, but is she there when it's time to storm the hill? NO!

Rip Van Winkle needs a drink...

So, I leave the Comcast television studios Tuesday evening around 5:15 and proceed to have drinks with Laura in Potrero Hill, site of much of the Howard Bryant San Francisco Experience. It was in Potrero Hill where the Boston guys could find refuge at The Connecticut Yankee, on 16th and Connecticut. The preeminent Boston bar in the city, it was where the expats and I watched the Patriots beat the Jaguars in the 1997 AFC title game, where Big Play Clay intercepted Brunell in the end zone, sealing the win.

It is where the mural of O.J. Simpson was defaced with a red slash across his chest and the word  "murderer."

Potrero Hill was where I played softball at Jackson Street Field. It was where I lived from 1998-2001 (22nd/De Haro). It was where things made sense.

Laura Halliday, member of the Inner Circle dating back to the Haight Street years (1991-1995) pledges to meet me at the bar on the corner of 18th and Connecticut. The bar is GONE. This is of mild shock to me. It used to be Lilo Lounge. A couple of years ago it changed hands and became Lingba, where the tequila was good and the food was very good, in the Japanese Izakaya style (meaning a bar that served very good eats instead of lousy bar food).

Now, Lingba is gone, replaced by Rocket Fish, a sushi bar. This may be good news because the world can never have too much good sushi, even in San Francisco and the south side of Potrero has never had good sushi (Blowfish, Sushi to Die For on 19th/Bryant is excellent but on the Mission side of Potrero Ave.)

BUT...BUT...the real shock came while walking next door and I see that Eliza's, the stalwart Chinese of Potrero Hill is GONE. GONE. GONE. Sixteen years. GONE.

And so there I stood in front of Eliza's, frozen.

No more crab rangoon.
No more combination fried rice.
No more wonton.

I am Rip Van Winkle. My San Francisco is being replaced. I stand in front of buildings that aren't my buildings anymore.


Eliza's officially closed Sept. 27, 2009, replaced by Pera, a Greek/Mediterranean that I will not be patronizing, since I don't like olives.





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Chantal the beautiful

My old pal Chantal from the Boston days. Instead of studying for her Swiss citizenship exam, she chose to share lobster mashed potatoes with Bryant, party of six...a wise choice.
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BOA: 5 Stars and one superstar - Smokey Robinson

BOA
9200 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles CA.

I've always had something of a conflict with the traditional mahogany steakhouses, local legends like Manny's (Minneapolis), Alfred's (San Francisco), Gibson's (Chicago),  Plaza III (Kansas City), Gallagher's (New York) as well as the Ruth's Chris-Morton's-Capital Grille-Fleming's chains. In addition to being monstrously expensive (a meal with two drinks, two family-style side orders an entree and dessert cost roughly $100 per person), the food is always delicious, but sturdy, more muscular than creative.

And the ambiance of these restaurants can be old-school, everything from yesterday except the cigars. In a nose-thumbing to class and caste, I've always had the urge to act up in these places, tossing shrimp into the mouth of my co-conspirators, Blues Brothers-style.

BOA is different. It is located in West Hollywood, a sprawling decor of soft neons, tropical plants and outdoor heat lamps. It feels exclusive and it is, on the Zagat's scale, $$$$$ expensive, and of course is inhabited by rows and rows of the The Beautiful People.

I haven't yet perfected my rating system, but BOA is a winner, if you don't mind coming to a restaurant to GO BIG for a true dining experience. I would give it five stars. It caters to "event dining" meaning it is a destination for an evening and it delivers. Wished I had sampled dessert, but the table was fading...

And of course, there was the celebrity sighting: Motown legend Smokey Robinson, who took pictures with patrons, one exclaiming, "OH MY GOD. I'M GONNA DIE."

I didn't take pictures, naturally. But it was fun.
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The Post-Talk meal!

Boa...Oh.My.Goodness...
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