Don't Drink Long Island Iced Teas, Even If You Have To

El Gran Ron weighs in on a fussily ordered he had, yes, at our Perbacco:

> As Luis Bunuel (and I) would respond, it is crucial to use only uncrushed, whole ice cubes in making martinis and to place them and the gin only into a shaker, not some beaker. Stirred martinis -- often and wrongly stirred in a beaker so as not to "bruise" the gin -- are for ignorant and often pretentious pussies. Gin does no bruise, but it does improve in lip-smacking "dryness" when served very, very cold and as undiluted as possible by (yech) water from (ugh) crushed ice. Martinis are serious business, not slushies. Moreover, the shaker should be agitated (without beating the ice to death and cracking it) for some several minutes. at which point the martini should be poured into an already chilled martini glass. We'll leave the choice and application of types of vermouth and olives, onions or other delicacies to be served within the martini for another time.

I hope you don't take offense, Antonio Luis, but that slick bartender at Perbacco, who you seemed to know by name [this would be Scott -AL] and vice-versa, did not make a good, not even a decent, martini, I am sad to tell you, despite the fact that he tried twice. If he focused less on his fancy hand-job routines in making drinks and various other showoff flim-flam behind bar and more time reading and studying and understanding what a good martini is and how to make one, he might be salvageable; though frankly he seems to too vain and hubristic to me to ever be a good bartender, whose major attributes have to be a total absence of needless flash and filagree and a basic, openly expressed sense of humility and compassion.

So, in the slightly altered advice of Abe Polonsky, I would encourage you not to give up and come to a false understanding before you have to. If you ever get any crushed ice in your martini, the putz behind the bar has flim-flammed you with fency hand jobs into believing that he knows what he's doing. The only defense is to know more and better than he does.

As ever,

El Gran Ron

Lucky Star

No matter how hard I try, I can't stop eating. K has learned to schedule activities around a meal. "We're meeting so-and-so at 11 and then we can walk to the lunch spot. OK?" I nod and begin daydreaming.

This time our walk brought us to B Star, which I believe is an outgrowth of the still hugely popular Burma Superstar a block over. Haven't been there in a decade, and I'm sure it's still quite good.

But the mojo I think is now at B Star. I couldn't quite figure out what to get, which is something that happens, like, never. Should I have a soft-shell po' boy or the mango salsa tacos? Can one eat too much soft-shell crab, or too many tacos? (I still drool at the memory of the crab I had on our honeymoon in Maryland, pulled out of the water 15 feet from my table the minute I ordered it. Then there was the taco stand, rather a taco lot, at Santa Monica and Vermont in L.A., which had the handwritten sign in Spanish that said, and I'm paraphrasing, "Please bear with us. We are working to comply with the city health department." Everything there was $1.)

K had the French toast with Nutella and strawberries.

I had the pork belly with white beans and bok choy.

I asked for a bit of Sriracha. Not even a grain of jasmine rice was left over.

Lunch or brunch or what have you, we won't be doing Q. We're not ready to splurge on Philippe's Clementine. The B is our shiny new thing.

Around the Neighborhood with 80 Bucks

While I scrounge around to remember what the lovely, saucy, superknowledgeable ladies brought me at Beretta (like the charred radicchio with ... ), I give you my tab from Kabuto. Yes, I was warned about Kabuto, stuck sort of nowhere a few blocks off Park Presidio. But do I ever listen?

1849 Oysters, 2 pieces (oyster, uni, quail egg, tobiko): $10
Abalone, 2 pieces: $10
Akamutsu (snapper?), 2 pieces: $10
CeViChe (flash-fried seaweed, halibut, salsa), 2 pieces: $5
Escolar, 2 pieces: $6
Shima Aji (like butter), 2 pieces: $7
Osumimono (clear soup): $4
Wakame (seaweed and greens salad): $5
Asahi, black: $5
Hojicha (green tea, free refills): $2

That adds up to $64, and tax is about $5, and I tipped too (imagine) so there you go. It's perhaps my most expensive single meal, and have to say one of the best. See you there during the next boom.