My all time favorite lunch
I’m driving down to Los Angeles. Again. We have opened a new ice cream and cookie store in Beverly Hills, and I get to go down and make it work.
The only shining light on the long boring drive is stopping for lunch at Pea Soup Andersen’s. I know what I’m going to get before I walk in the restaurant, the Travelers Special. All the pea soup you can eat, fresh baked rolls and a wide choice of drinks including not only soft drinks and milk but even buttermilk which you rarely see these days.
You really must order the extra toppings. For a dollar and a half you get small containers of ham, bacon, green onions, cheese and croutons. Careful budgeting will spread these delights over two bowls of soup, which is all I can eat these days. In my youth I could manage at least three and occasionally four bowls, but time is catching up with me.
Lunch over, it’s time for me to hit the road for another four long boring hours until I get to Los Angeles and can go to work.
I expect this to be yet another adventure. Stay tuned, and see how the cookie crumbles.
Budget does right.
If I complain about bad service, I have to give credit for good service.
This picture is of Bill, a driver for Budget. Somehow, I made a mistake and was running late for my plane. When I got on Bill’s shuttle after returning my Budget rental car, he said “how’s it going?” And I told him I was badly behind schedule.
Even though I was the only person on the bus he called his dispatcher and asked for permission to leave immediately. Dispatch said okay, and we were off to the airport.
The line at security wasn’t bad, my flight was 15 minutes late anyway, and I will be home with no problems.
The company is only as good as its employees. I wasn’t fond of the agents in Santa Barbara, but I certainly like the service I got from Bill here in Los Angeles. Win some, lose some.
Not in the Budget
We’re in Santa Barbara this weekend, visiting Gail’s son. We flew down, but I’m driving from here to LA for work while Gail flies home, so I had to rent a car, which I will return in Los Angeles.
Priceline got me a good rate for the week, and I sauntered over to Budget to get the car. Life quickly turned into a Seinfeld episode;
I had reserved a compact, and the agent began by asking me how many people (2) and how many bags (2), then told me that we really needed a larger car–suggesting a VW Passat. The car I reserved would have been just fine, but that sounded good—until he mentioned the extra $10.95 a day.
I said I didn’t intend to spend any extra money, just give me the car I had reserved. No insurance, thank you. No gasoline option, thank you.
Naturally, he started to sell me insurance. I said no again.
He tried to rent me a GPS. I have on in my phone, thank you. No. Just the car, please.
He tried to sell me insurance again. Still no, somewhat more forcefully.
He tried to sell me Roadside Assistance. I said i have AAA, just the car please.
He said my AAA wouldn’t pay the $600 if I lost the keys, which his $9.95 a day plan would. $9.95 is better than $600. Except that his plan is over $3,600 a year, for a $600 loss, which I have never had in a lifetime of driving. NO!
Remember that slightly larger car he offered me? When he was finally convinced that I wasn’t spending any more money with him, he told me that I was getting a complimentary upgrade–to a full size Chevy Impala.
Getting into the car, I noticed that it has a “LAX” sticker in the windshield. The need this car back in LA, which explains my “complimentary upgrade”. Unless they could trick me into spending more to upgrade to a smaller car first.
Then I started driving. The car, which is a year old with 34,500 miles on it, is a piece of crap. The tires are badly worn and the steering shimmies terribly. I plan to return it to Santa Barbara Airport when I take Gail to her plane today and get another, which leads to more of what Budget foolishly calls “customer service”.
I called their 800 number to talk about returning the car, and had to go through their automated process 3 times before it would connect me with a person. You say “agent” and it say, ” I think you want an agent. Let me try to help you…..” and goes right back to the same questions I didn’t want to get into the first time.
Then you get someone in Bangalore or Manilla or Kuala Lampur whose English is terrible, over a miserable internet connection, who reads from a script and is no help anyway.
In general, I prefer to rent from Thrifty. I joined their frequent renter program and the process is easy and fast. But I tried to save a few buck using Priceline this time, and paid the price in time and aggravation when I got stuck with Budget. You have been warned.
Just showing off
We had dinner with friends in Tiburon last week, friends who live on Belvedere Lagoon right on the water. They have an artichoke plant on their deck, and I got to taking photos of it.
I thought it would be nice to have a print made of my best photo and send it to them as a thank you gift. But I’m not all that sure I’m much of a photo editor–I’m not having much luck picking the one of these I want to print. Then it occurred to me: I have a blog! I can post all of the finalists and see if there is any consensus on which is the best. So here are the final choices, and there will be a poll at the end. I’m looking forward to your choices.
Number 1
Number 2
Number 3
Number 4
Number 5
Number 6
Number 7
Do some good today
Gail listens to talk radio on her way to work, and Sleep Train is a regular advertiser.
This week, they weren’t advertising mattresses, they were advertising their program to help foster children. School is starting, and these kids don’t have the wherewithal to obtain all the basics for class–backpacks, pencils, pens, etc. Sleep Train was soliciting donations to help the kids out.
Gail, ever the softie where kids are concerned, decided that we had to do something. So we went off to Office Max today to load up on the basics, then to Costco to pick up some backpacks.
When we got home, we assembled everything:
Busily assembling backpacks full of school supplies.
Once we had the six backpacks together, it was off to Sleep Train to deliver the goods. I had my usual role as pack mule:
First rule: show the sponsor’s name.
You’re doing well. Your kids and grandkids have everything they need. Why don’t you consider helping out some poor kids who have been yanked from their home and placed with strangers? Their life is tough enough without having to go to a strange school without the basic supplies. It will make you feel good, I promise.
On the plains of Runnymede
Jan Gunn and Dolph Rosekrans
In the year of 1215, King John signed the Magna Carta at Runnymede. Of course, that was in England. Today, we visited Runnymede in Woodside, on the Peninsula. There is no King John there;, the lord of the manor is Dolph Rosekrans, the grandson of Alma de Brettville Spreckels, one of the great grand dames of San Francisco society and a noted bridge player.
Mrs. Spreckles was a huge patron of the arts, and a driving force behind the Palace of the Legion of Honor. That tradition has been carried on at Runnymede, where Dolph’s brother John and his wife have adorned the 250 acres with a mind boggling array of sculpture.
We were there because we have the good fortune to be friends with Keith and Jan Gunn, and Keith is a long time tennis and bridge friend of Dolph. Life is who you know, don’t ever forget it. Jan brought a picnic lunch for us to share with Dolph, who gave us a tour of a couple of the buildings on site, then we set off to see the more than 160 works of art strewn about the premises.
Jan makes a good picnic
I recognized the names of a few of the artists, we even have some pieces by two of them, Gale Wagner and William Wareham. The rest of the art is way above my pay grade–I don’t have any commentary, just look at it and enjoy. You can click on any photo to see a larger version.
We consider ourselves inordinately lucky to have had the opportunity to visit this private art reserve. The family occasionally permits groups to visit, but they don’t get the kind of time and access we enjoyed. Life is good.
Plus ca change,
Plus ça meme chose. (The more things change, the more they stay the same)
Out tonight with a small crowd–Gail, Micky and Linda, Winnie and Jerry. We decided to try the Park Bistro, which was the Duck Club in the Park Hotel for the last 27 years, and has been newly renovated, remodeled and renamed. It officially reopened on last Saturday.
I like the salt and pepper grinders. They showed nice attention to detail in the remodel.
I last ate in the Duck Club maybe 10 years ago, having an experience so miserable that I haven’t been back–we waited an hour for dinner, then got an ice cold plate of food. I was not amused, and went into the kitchen to express my non-amusement. They don’t like that. Too bad. They comped my dinner that night.
Tonight started off well–I made a reservation on Opentable.com, drove over and dropped my car with the valet–parking isn’t great at the hotel, but the valet is free. Take your luxuries where you can find them.
The remodeling is quite pretty–the room is light and airy, with lighthearted art on the walls and waitstaff casually dressed in light blue shirts. The tables in the window nooks have tablecloths, the others don’t. There is a large, marble topped table for 8 in the front of the room as well as a private room which seats about a dozen.
So, we’re seated. Some drinks were ordered. Then, nothing.
My ice tea came. Gail’s wine came. Jerry put in an order for a bottle of wine.
More nothing.
We asked the busser if we could order. She said yes, but isn’t the person who actually does that.
Finally, more than 20 minutes after we arrived, the waiter got around to asking if we were ready to order. We were.
The Park Bistro menu is pretty good, with a decent breadth of offerings that include a number of items “for the table”, meats, seafoods, a couple of pastas. There is a $37 prix fixe meal which seemed like a good deal.
Our first courses arrived.
I ordered the Heirloom tomato caprese salad. They brought me the heirloom tomato panzanella salad, which isn’t the same thing at all. I wanted the salad I ordered. The waiter came over, and said there was no caprese salad on the menu. I said there was, the first item in the prix fixe dinner. He said that only came with the dinner and couldn’t be ordered. I said they were a restaurant and they most certainly could make me a salad, He went away shaking his head, but must have shaken some sense into it, because a very nice caprese soon appeared, although it was short on basil (and kind of chintzy on the cheese, too). Fortunately, the excellent tomatoes made up for its shortcomings.
Heirloom tomatoes, mozzarella and not enough basil.
Gail, Linda, Winnie and Jerry all ordered the caesar salad.
It’s the real thing with an anchovy this prominent.
Asked about her salad, Gail said “It’s fine”. That’s Gailspeak for “It’s acceptable. Not wonderful. Fair.” Winnie was less impressed.
Chairman Mao had his Long March. We had the Long Wait. We sat. We chatted. We schmoozed. We dawdled. Then we got cranky.
My iced tea was empty, and I had no luck getting a refill. I told the same busser I needed more, but perhaps she doesn’t speak english. I told the waiter, who took away my empty but that was the extent of his efforts. Mike tried to book bets on which would come first, my tea or my food, but everyone voted that it would be the food.
Finally, Gail got up and braced the waiter, who said it wasn’t his fault. True, but she had to yell at somebody and he was the guy who could make something happen, at least in theory.
Finally, at last, after almost 90 minutes, our meals arrived. I won’t say they were worth the wait, but they were pretty darned good.
Gail had the steak-frites, a hangar steak and fries.
That’s some juicy beef.
Linda and Jerry had the seared Ahi.
Nori-wrapped Ahi
This looks good, but the Ahi is over-cooked. Seared Ahi is usually essentially raw with just the tiniest ring of cooked meat on the seared edge. Still, there were no leftovers.
Winnie had the lamb porterhouse, basically a 4 inch thick loin lamb chop. Sorry, it didn’t photograph well. Or the photographer wasn’t up to the task. No, that can’t be right, it must be the fault of the dish.
Lastly Mike and I had the Seafood Carbonara., house made fettuccine with “house made salmon bacon” (which seemed like smoked salmon to me), peas, clams and “uni butter”. I enjoyed this dish, but it bears no resemblance to any kind of carbonara I’ve ever had–there was no cream, no cheese, no egg yolk.
Something called seafood carbonara.
The manager came over, quite apologetic about the interminable wait. He said the restaurant had only been open 3 days (not counting the previous 27 years) and they had more business than they expected. Since there were only 7 tables of diners in the room, I question this.
On the other hand, he comped our entire meal, except the wine.
So I’ve eaten in this restaurant 2 times in 10 years, had hideous service both times and haven’t paid for a meal yet. The food, when it was finally presented, was hit and miss–the caesar salad was mediocre,, the Ahi over cooked, the steak-frites excellent. Winnie loved her lamb porterhouse, and Mike and I enjoyed whatever it was that they call seafood carbonara.
Is it really a 3 day old Bistro that needs time to work out? Or is it a 27 year old hotel dining room room with a few cosmetic changes that can’t get it together? It may be unfair of me, but I’m going with the latter. I’ll check back in another 10 years. Maybe.
Good Eats
Just an old fashioned roadside diner
Every modern restaurant, it seems, brags about locally sourced, organic, slow food. Those are all good words and dreadfully politically correct, but first and foremost the question arises: is the food good?
Our friend Ray Kaplan took us to the Fremont Diner, on Highway 121 between Sonoma and Napa. It an old fashioned diner with a modern sensibility.
I think this pretty much says it all.
There is nothing fancy here–we ate at a picnic table on the side of the building. It’s rustic, from stem to stern.
Gail’s wine glass.
There was another couple who parked at the same time we did, and I was joking about racing them to get a good table. Gail instantly made a new best friend.
Tawny and Gail
We had so much fun laughing with her that we invited Tawny and her husband Dan to have dinner with us. The live in Petaluma with their two sons, 3 and 5. Life is more fun when you’re open and adventurous.
The food at the Fremont Diner is mostly classic Southern, with a touch of California innovation. The first thing they serve is a bowl of boiled peanuts, which are too ugly to post a photo of–peanuts all dark and wet and soft, but once you get them out of the shell the peanuts are pretty tasty, ifsadly lacking in crunch.
The menu consists of meat. Ribs, brisket, sausage, roast MEAT. Order a platter, and you get to choose two sides. Besides the usual suspects like cole slaw and mac ‘n cheese, they offer a watermelon salad and a black eyed peas salad. I had to try those:
Watermelon salad
Cubes of fresh local watermelon in oil and vinegar, garnished with onion and cheese. Very tangy and different.
The black eyed peas salad had corn kernels and chopped jalapeño–which made it too spicy for me, but everyone else seem to like it.
Then came the main event–slow cooked spare ribs, served dry on a two slices of white bread with pickles and onions. None of us really understood the white bread thing, and nobody ate it. The meat, though, was another matter:
The way ribs should be
My ribs were moist, fall-off-the-bone tender and incredibly tasty. There is one kind of barbecue sauce available, and it’s good. Not too spicy, not too sweet, the sauce is the work of a master.
A southern restaurant would be nothing without a decent dessert selection, and Fremont Diner delivers. I managed to get the last of the peach cobbler:
Local peaches, vanilla ice cream, caramel sauce and whipped cream. Just like being in the deep south.
Gail had a black cherry sunday, which is OK I guess , but can’t really touch a peach cobbler.
Service is down-home friendly. The ambience is great–besides the truck-driver chic of the diner, you get a sterling view of the vineyards and trees of the Napa Valley.
Not a bad place to eat dinner.
Thank you Priceline
The 20th Century Fox back lot and a view to the Pacific ocean.
I’m in Los Angeles for a few days on business. I needed a hotel, of course, but did not want to spend the huge money that Los Angeles hotels can cost. Priceline came to my rescue.
On Priceline you pick an area of the city and a quality level of the hotel and make a bid. If they can find a hotel will accept you have a room. If not, sometimes they will suggest a higher price that would work. I suspect this is a bit of a scam, but since the prices are still well below market I can live with it.
I was looking for a three star hotel, and was willing to bid $120 a night. That did not work, but they said I would get a room if I bid $148 a night, so I did. To my elation, I got a four star hotel in the middle of Century City right behind the 20th Century Fox movie lot.
I’m staying at the Hotel Intercontinental, a luxury facility. I have a large, beautiful room. The television has four Arabic language channels, along with everything else you would expect. The toilet has a sprayer attachment, so I assume they expect a lot of Asian guests.
This room would ordinarily sell for roughly twice what I am paying, but Priceline lets them sell their excess inventory and at least make a few dollars. They are happy, I am very happy.
Dinner with the angels
Saturday night dinner with a couple of angels:
We were dining at Angele, a marvelous French bistro on the banks of the river in Napa. I was prepared to bribe my way into an outside table, but got lucky and that’s just where they put us.
Did you notice the wine “bucket” on the table? I’ve never seen anything like it.
A very stylish system
It’s really just a heavy plastic bag full of ice and water. It looks good, is easy to store and keeps the wine cold. Note also the bottle of Groth wine–Sigrid pronounced it excellent. That will be the extent of my wine commentary for another six months or so.
I love a caprese salad of tomatoes and mozzarella, and I’m ecstatic about burrata, the blend of mozzarella and fresh cream. So when Angele offered a salad of heirloom tomatoes and burrata, there was no other option.
– Marinated Heirloom Tomatoes, Burrata Cheese, Oil Cured Tapenade, Fines Herb Emulsion
I”m not sure what the green foam is, perhaps the fines herbs emulsion. Fancy cheffery these days always includes foam. It didn’t hurt anything., and the marinated tomatoes were wonderful.
Sigrid opted for the Terrine de Betteraves, which is beets. It certainly looked great:
Marinated Beets, Blood Orange Gelée, Herbed Chévre, Walnut Vinaigrette
Sig followed the beets with the Petrale Sole. I had the Dorado, on the same setup. My dish was supposed to come with escargot, so I decided to switch to the crushed potatoes. Call me a hick.
Petrale sole, crushed potatoes and Napa verjus reduction
There was another classy touch, the salt and pepper service:
A small work of art
The dining experience is comprised of so many tiny touches, and the best restaurants pay attention to every opportunity to separate themselves from the crowd. A dish with ramekins of coarse ground pepper and sea salt is just one of the ways Angele shines.
I was unable to pass up the Tarte d’Ete for dessert:
Stone fruit tart on vanilla custard
Yes, it tasted every bit as good as it looks.
Angele is Gail’s favorite Napa restaurant. She had a lamb stew here once that she will never forget. The ambience is delightful, the service is expert and the food is great. Sit outside if the weather is at all clement.
Totally Unauthorized 