Knock-Back Jokes, the Dregs

I got zero input from people. Jomo did raise an eyebrow. Here are the last two:

You stumble onto a peculiar varietal. Do you:
a) blog about it;
b) rave about it to your wine purveyor;
c) leave a 5-minute voice mail at BevMo for Wilfred Wong;
or d) don’t sweat it since Dottie and John will "discover" it in 18 months.

Bonus: Match the items in the two columns:

1. Dottie
2. Malbec
3. Thousand Oaks Chardonnay from 7-Eleven
4. Walt Mossberg

a) John
b) Can't miss with charred meats
c) "Light and almost as refreshing as a Slurpee"
d) "Ask me again if I’ll fix your computer. Go ahead, ask me."

Knock-Back Jokes

Additions welcome.

Layoffs at newsrooms are rising. Do you blame:
a) the whole bloody Internet;
b) lousy media unions;
c) too much corporate debt;
or d) operational inefficiencies holding up Dottie and John's expense reports.

The Dottie and John "Tastings" Video Drinking Game:
• Every time they clink their glasses, drink.
• Every time they mention each other or a family member, drink.
• If bored and are drinking when they drink, drink three times and start the video all over again.

The tasting note "Last night: aging OK, hints of melon and spice, weak finish" is by:
a) Dottie;
b) John;
c) Dottie and John;
or d) the hooker they got off Craigslist to hear them blab about wine.

Goodbye to All This

Now that the one-month leave I took to care for Araceli is about to end, I have a couple of thoughts. Come to think of it, I always have a couple of thoughts now that I have Araceli.

One is that we are a remarkably wealthy country despite the nasty unemployment. Look at the folks out and about all the time. For instance, half the people on my block don't seem to have the usual work commitments; by 10 am at least half the garbage bins have been moved back inside. Then there's the constant traffic on the arterials, along with the usual goings-on at Amoeba on Haight during the middle of the day.

Second thing, how is it that a Mission-style burrito pushing $7 and beyond? Is it because I am pushing 40 and started hitting the taquerias two booms ago, when a trip to El Farolito set you back $2.46? (It's hard to forget those Mexican morsels, coming standard with fresh avocado and a fine pico de gallo.) Zona Rosa rolled a nice spinach-tortilla tube for me, throwing in the chopped onions and cilantro, and while enjoying it I couldn't help doing math. If the average tab is $8, how many customers do they need to make their nut? If I ran such a business, I'd call the landlord and offer him a burrito a day in exchange for lower rent. If he balked, I would counter by charging him extra for chips (they're not that good anyway) and then have him lower the rent.

Recession schmecession, places like the Eos wine bar are still turning tables, catering to customers with happy-hour offerings along with some nice plates a bit north of burrito prices. I met Jomo and his Torontan friend Ed there with half-carafes of South African chenin blanc and Chilean cabernet, plenty of pours for $10 each. The oysters also were $1 apiece, but turns out they were flown in from the East Coast somewhere and while plump weren't Tomales Bay quality. The manager made a point to walk around and check on each table, chatting up Jomo about his last take-out order. With the deals and small plates and the human touch, they're working it to keep everyone happy.

California-Arizona Travel and Life

The banana bread mix from TJ's is in the oven and I'm due for Satchmo's red beans and rice at Elbo's at 4, so here are some quick road-trip notes.

Foodies and winos, you know this is a wonderful state. In Palm Springs, of all places, I got turned on to a knockout Galician white. (Fanch, take note.) In Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, the wine bars were on par, if not better, than any place anywhere else. On the other side of the epicurean coin, there's something to be said about the comforting sameness of Mexican restaurants.

The best table salsa was that place on Rosedale in Bakersfield, although the joint in Parker, Ariz., across the Colorado River had a nice mix in its salsa bar. (All beverages also clocked in at 96 ounces. No wonder ... O, you know.) Tacos came hard and soft. El Rancho de Tía Rosa in Mesa, Ariz., took the cake for its succulent meats and also appears to be the most consistently crowded, for good reason.

The biggest hit were the rib-eye "sliders" at Intermezzo, the wine bar I found wandering in the Paseo off State Street in Santa Barbara. Biggest flop was the Caesar at the Parker Palm Springs (purloined pic of porte cochere is above), which I tell everybody is Merv's old place, although the management did email me asking for feedback. Now they've got it.

Review: EOS Fails to Excite

Alex’s dad and step-mom took us out for a lovely b-day fete a week ago at EOS in Cole Valley. We chose it because it’s new to us, it’s close (I was still on bed-rest) and it’s always busy, surely a good sign.

The restaurant has a good layout, with tables nicely spaced apart and a very tolerable noise level, but there’s a coldness to it. Sleek black tables with very uncomfortable chairs, which might as well be made of cement and give little back support, simply weren’t very inviting. I prefer a chair that feels good and a table setting with a cloth, flowers or candles to liven it up.

Then there’s the service: indifferent. Our waitress disappeared for long stretches, making it difficult to order a second glass of wine, and the small plates came out staggered at odd times, with long yawns between them. I certainly didn’t feel rushed out of the restaurant, but I did feel quite hungry by the time the final dishes were laid to rest.

Then there’s the food: uneven.

The first “small plate” to arrive was the spicy pan-fried long beans, nice, but no better than your typical green beans at a neighborhood Chinese restaurant. Still, the portion was generous.

Our salads, which arrived next, were a mixed bag (no pun intended). Mine, with cabbage, radicchio, green papaya and mango was colorful, flavorful and crisp, and not too sweet as I’d feared. The classic Caesar, however, was bland, unmemorable.

The other appetizer, grilled baby octopus with fennel and cress salad, had potential. The charred meat was satisfying and nicely offset by the lightness of the salad, but was marred by so much salt that it was as if the cook had forgotten to wash the ocean water off the ingredient.

Our “entrees” likewise were puzzling. The tea-smoked Peking duck breast, with gingered plum compote, was cooked perfectly, very flavorful and not greasy as duck tends to be. But the duck was warm and the compote cold, making for an unfortunate clash of temperatures in the pairing.

Also, for $16 bucks, this should have come with some kind of side vegetable or grain, rather than just four pieces of lonely duck meat.

The grilled New Zealand rack of lamb with summer squash and gremolata was juicy and zingy, but so salty it overpowered the dish -- just as the oversalting had nearly ruined the octopus.

Perhaps the best dish was the hazelnut-crusted Halibut. A terrific, crunchy shell coated the meaty, tender slab of fish beneath. It snoozed on a bed of pea shoots and bok choy, a delicious combo.

Sorry to say we won’t be going back to EOS. To be fair, I hate small plates and the restaurant does not indicate anywhere on its web site that it’s guilty of this sin.

So I felt irked immediately after sitting down and learning I would probably leave hungry. But I tried to be open-minded. Unfortunately, the food and service didn't overcome my misgivings about this evil genre of restaurant.

Wine: Robert Hall Recall

As they say in the NFL, upon further review...I'm going to retract my support for Robert Hall's Rhone De Robles. Another bottle of the '04, when compared to other bottles at our dinner last night Chez BrO, was weak. Its main feature was a steady sweetness that quickly grew boring. I'm not sure how I found the original bottle so worthy. I need help.

A much better buy was the Laurier 2004 Cab that Paul n James discovered at the Tower Mollystone's. Five bucks and drinkable, though no world-beater.

We also learned our lesson about decanting. The wine Tony brought -- Cimicky? Anthony, can you refresh our memories? -- started out twangy and grassy but soon mellowed into a wonderful bottle. When it doubt, air it out.

You Want Wine? Have I Got Wine

> Last year, Two Buck Chuck — available only in the Trader Joe's grocery chain and priced at $1.99 in California, hence its nickname — accounted for at least 8 percent of California wine sold in-state ...

http://tinyurl.com/2mnera

Wine: Robert Hall Rhone de Robles

Before going further, please note: I'd love to see more wine reviews, even if just a few lines long. If you open a bottle and have anything to say, let everyone know. A few quick notes, the price, thumbs-up or thumbs-down. Onward...

So I'm meandering my way through TJ's last week, digging "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the satellite radio and circling back and again past the quesadilla samples, when I realize we're out of rosso back at the Bistro. I'm skeptical of Joe's wine selection, and I've gotten bad advice from wearers of Hawaiian shirts often enough to forego all confidence in their wine expertise, but I ask anyway. It helps that the guy in the wine aisle is just about the oldest TJ's employee I've ever seen: thinning hair, gray beard and moustache, wiry build. I give him my criteria: no fruit bombs, please; good with BBQ meats of all types; and up to $10, maybe a bit more if it's justified. He leads me straight to the Robert Hall 2004 Rhone de Robles.

Robles, as in Paso, as in Central Coast. $10.99, and well worth it. I went back tonight and only found the 2005. We'll see how it compares.

Dry Creek Kitchen, Confidential

My dear friends, San Francisco family and real-estate aficionados Ron and Roz were going to have us over for a seder, but schedules and responsibilities thwarted the party plan. In a burst of menschness, I let them know I could treat them, in the City or in Sonoma, wherever they wished.

A couple of gentle reminders later, Ron starts to work the phone Friday and finds a table for Saturday evening at a place that's peripherally been on my list: the Dry Creek Kitchen in the Hotel Healdsburg. I call ahead myself and ask about the dress code and corkage. I'm definitely looking forward to it.


The stakes in Sonoma are a bit high, not just because of nearby Napa but also because of places like the Harmony restaurant in the Ledson Hotel on Sonoma's town square. Dry Creek Kitchen has a reputation because it's from a name in the business, Charlie Palmer. That's him at left.

I'm told over the phone that the scene is "business casual" and that as long as the wine you bring is from the county, there's no corkage. That's an awesome touch, I think. What a note of confidence, a great way to get people to think about local wine.

So what to make of dinner? The main courses and a couple of other things miss. Dry Creek comes up short, CP.

The room, where the big money went, is beautiful. Columns sweep into the ceiling, and at one point I thought of the TWA terminal at JFK. The windows draw in evening light that fades into candlelight from the tables. There's also this cute vase for breadsticks, and a small potted plant of thyme. We shed our four bottles of wine from the Trader Joe's bag -- one sparkling (Korbel Blanc de Noirs), a chardonnay (Belvedere) and two reds (a Peterson zin and a Hop Kiln blend of syrah and grenache) -- and have the first two opened right away.

The Korbel, which K and I picked up after a quick tasting on the way back from a hike in Guerneville, has a touch of sweetness and a nice gold hue that goes great with the starters: two ahi tuna tartares for R&R, a cannelini bean and smoked tomato soup for Kristen and a special one for myself. I'm having the housemade tagliatelle with winecaps, morels, ramps (Jomo, remember these from Perbacco?) and asparagus entree as an appetizer, an off-menu improvisation I learned from my dad.

Everything is going well. I do have to ask for a flute refill, and also for cracked pepper to finish my pasta primi. The tuna tartare is creamy and the avocado relish doesn't bowl everything over, even though it's rich. It's good. The broth for the soup, poured separately on the beans at table, is full of flavor, although K isn't into the caramelized bay scallops. I try them and not sure they're warranted. Maybe an Anaheim pepper in a very thin dice would have worked? Charlie?

My pasta is fine; not sure if I can tell this tagliatelle from spaghettini. I love looking at the shapes and colors, and there are mouthfuls of mushrooms and seasonal asparagus. My favorite thing is the plate: Think of a smooth, white LP with a bowl popped out of the center label. The transition to the red bottles also happens seamlessly. They're opened early on, and the Peterson zin gets decanted. (Hop Kiln did advise having its blend otherwise sit for 20-30 minutes.)

The comments on the entrees (check 'em out) are average, except for Ron's Wagyu steak, called excellent. Roz has the duck, K has the salmon and I got trout. The presentation is knockout, especially the skin of the trout fried into a thin cracker on half a filet, then a layer of green chard, then the other half of the filet on white watercress. Ron's russet-potato fries are stacked like Lincoln logs, at right angles. But again, three out of four reviews come in as just adequate.

Roz, who's been spoiled by Aaron and Del Monte Meats, doesn't think her duck breast is that special. I try it and agree. She also reports her "cassoulet" was overly salty. (Knowing her palate, that means too salty.) Kristen isn't doing cartwheels, although her salmon pieces in miso look beautiful.

I'm not overwhelmed, either. The cracker novelty wears off quick, the so-called bacon roasted beets are a bit bland, and how come I can't cut this chard that well with this knife I have for the fish? The fish: It's fine, rendering itself as trout. The best part, though, is the watercress and "pesto."

Our wines, all acquired at reasonable prices, pair well. I do have to reach over to the nearby counter and refill my glass a couple of times. The waiter did notice eventually.

Desserts, which included cappuccino crème brulee and a chocolate peanut-butter bar, become popular. I barely get a forkful once they go around Kristen. It's an up-note ending to a $300 evening, with $40 tacked on for corkage on two bottles.

Weren't Sonoma wines supposed to be comped corkage? Only two per table, our waiter says. Why weren't we told that over the phone? Two bottles are standard, he replies. (Hey, the charge is reasonable, given that we had chilled bottles, employed a decanter and used different glassware. Just let us know, mkay?)

Next time I'm around the square and feeling saucy, I may visit again and enjoy drinks and starters. There's even something of a scene with live jazz and couches in the lounge across the courtyard. Yet I want to ask, Charlie Palmer, even for seasoned food nuts like ourselves, shouldn't there have been more standouts? The setting and presentation are in place, but doesn't that raise the bar for what you actually taste, and for what you think you're getting?

It's your name out there.

Wine: Le Ferme Julien

Rouge 2004
Cotes Du Ventoux

Note to self: OK for self, not OK for discerning guests. It's table wine, fercrissake, not meant for snobbery. For $4.99 at TJ's, at least it's better than two and half bottles of Charles Shaw.