Much better than decent dining in Sacramento
You probably think that all restaurant loving “foodies” are built on the chunky side. Not so–I get great tips on the hot places to eat from Diane Barton-Paine, who weighs about as much as my bathrobe. This week she steered us to Waterboy, in the very cool downtown area of Sacramento.
A good restaurant deserves the time to serve you without rushing, so we waited until the end of the tournament and enjoyed our meal there Sunday night after a dismal game of bridge. So dismal that my team withdrew, so dismal that they wouldn’t even let us withdraw after 5 rounds; we had to play the sixth and then we could leave one round early
All was made right, though, by the exceptionally pleasant experience of Waterboy.
The place is in an old, high-ceilinged building at 20th and Capital Avenue. There are outside tables in front, although for some reason nobody was sitting there on what was a very clement evening. White tablecloths (the owner claims to have very ugly tables underneath), solid, heavy flatware, waitstaff in all black, Waterboy is hip, slick and cool while maintaining warmth.
A fine variety of marinated olives to start off with.
The menu is modern continental–foods from the south of France and the north of Italy. There is complete emphasis on freshness and quality of ingredients, simply presented. Prices are moderate–the lovely olives above were a $4 appetizer.
Carrot-fennel soup in front, caesar salad behind.
My soup, garnished with ginger and cilantro, arrived piping hot and had a combination of flavors that amazed me–carrot soup which tasted like a savory, meaty stew yet had no meat in it. It’s some kind of kitchen miracle.
Gail appreciated her caesar salad, but notes that it wasn’t really a classic caesar dressing.
Gnocchi verde–getting gnocchi right is the mark of a great chef. They succeeded.
I had the gnocchi verde–Potato & Chard Gnocchi with English Peas, favas, asparagus, green beans, sheepsmilk cheese and cream. The gnocchi were the perfect consistency all the way through, the vegetables were cooked to crunchy perfection.
Gail’s scallops
Gail entree is described in the menu as:
Seared Dayboat Scallops with Asparagus-Fava Bean Risotto, Bacon Braised Endive, Watercress, Lemon & Tarragon
In truth, she would have been happy just with the risotto, it was so good. Being the gentleman that I am, I at half of her scallops, noticing how nicely they were seared on the outside without being overcooked in the middle–scallops are notoriously easy to overcook.
I was impressed by how well trained the staff are. When the busser came to clear a plate, she asked “are you still enjoying your …..?, rather than the usual “still working on that?” Of such small differences are great restaurants made.
A couple of nights ago there was some distinct grumbling about the bread at dinner–this is what bread should look like:
Crisp and crunchy on the outside, warm and soft on the inside.
The butter that was served room temperature, not frozen and hard and impossible to spread, seemed to be the European kind, which is richer and creamier because it has less water content than standard American butter. Another small touch of perfection.
We were full. No room at the inn. Ready to leave, but the waitress, doing her job of trying to sell more, couldn’t miss telling us about the house-made strawberry ice cream. Fortunately for me, Gail is addicted to fresh strawberry ice cream, so we had to order it.
She doesn’t smile at me like that.
This was a great dinner. First rate food with first class service. The price is moderate–dinner and 2 glasses of wine was $90 plus tip. Definitely a place to go again. And again. Thanks, Diane.
Decent dining in Sacramento
Dinner Friday night at the Zinfandel Grille (the “e” makes it elegant, or cool, or $2 more expensive). The food was good, the service was reasonable.
We had to rush right out after the session because the modern idea is that bridge players are all 84 years old and want to get the early bird special at Denny’s. Heck, the way we’re going, in another 6 or 7 years that might be true.
Anyway, we wandered off to this restaurant on Fair Oaks Blvd, about 10 minutes from the Doubletree and very close to the Dante Club, where Sacramentans have played bridge for over 40 years–it’s where I started while going to UC Davis.
We got seated easily, but there isn’t much business that early. The bread was un-exciting but the oil and balsamic vinegar and spices were good, so if you soaked up enough the taste worked out. I began with the non-exceptional black bean soup, then came the entrees.
“Pan seared” Chicken, covered in some kind of yellow stuff.
Russ had what they called pan seared chicken, although it looks more battered and fried to me. It must have been good, there were no leftovers.
Here, however, is where the Zinfandel Grille shines:
Wild Salmon on angel hair pasta.
They were offering two specials: a wild, line-caught salmon served with something, and a shrimp and scallop dish with house-made angel hair pasta. Being naturally contrary, I wanted both–the salmon on the pasta. Being smart, they managed to work it out, and I ended up with one of the best pieces of salmon I’ve ever enjoyed, cooked perfectly, on a bed of wonderful pasta with a butter and fresh tomato and herb sauce.
Gail’s dish was pretty wonderful, too:
Avocado and crab salad.
This is theoretically an appetizer–a salad accompanied by a mold of avocado and crab. The presentation is ingenious and delightful, the meal was fresh and interesting.
We might well have had dessert, but it was already 6:30 and we had to rush back to play bridge–it is no longer permitted to relax between sessions.
I’m accustomed to the idea of paying corkage if you bring your 0wn wine. I wonder if they would charge crustage if you brought a decent loaf of bread into this place–it’s all they really need to be excellent.
Savor this–it’s a rare sight.
Unit 499 performed a rare feat this week. In the Sierra KO’s, we managed to sweep all FOUR brackets.
Bracket 1 went to the Liss team, featuring Danny Friedman and Bob Munson; Bob Luebkeman and Mike Bandler were on the 2nd place Corliss team.
Grant Robinson and Teresa Boyd were half of the team winning bracket II.
The Curly Hair twins, Susan Cogan and Daisy Lennon, along with John O’Brien and Brad Komsthoeft, won Bracket III, giving Susan the points she needed for her Gold Card, as well. Marvin Suchman, Jane Burnson, Ray Barber and Bonnie Macbride were 3/4 in that bracket, too.
Cecilia Ip, Sefton Boyars, Mark Marty. Lee Stanhope and Lee Medeiros topped Bracket IV, completing the rare and unusual KO sweep.
It’s a proud day for the Diablo Valley. Congratulations to all of the winners,
A plate full of heart attack
Driving up to Sacramento this evening, to be ready to play at 9 am with Micky, we stopped for dinner at The Cattleman, in Dixon.
They built this place 40 years ago–I remember it because I applied for a job as a bartender. Made it to the second interview and some basic training, but then lost out to a woman who wanted to tend bar as a step up from dancing nude in a dive beer bar across the freeway. I probably wasn’t very good as a barkeep, anyway.
Even without my dubious talents, the restaurant has flourished these 2 score years, with a basic formula of good food, reasonable prices, huge portions, fast service and relentless upselling of appetizers and desserts.
We managed to avoid the up sell, and ordered dinner. All entrees come with a salad–they bring a huge bowl to the table and you serve yourself. Nothing fancy, just lettuce, cucumber, carrots, onions, tiny tomatoes, croutons and a pitcher of dressing.
A great rib eye, topped with onion rings and accompanied by a baked tater.
I don’t eat much beef, my cardiologist likes it that way. But the only fish on the menu was salmon from a farm, and Gail, who outranks the cardiologist, won’t let me eat farmed fish. So I had the rib eye–not always the tenderest cut but generally the tastiest.
Just to make sure that I got my quote of saturated fats, the rib eye comes topped with onion rings. Then there is the baked potato, with butter and sour cream. If I’m going off the wagon, I’m going all the way.
An entire bread plate worth of some kind of parsley. Why?
The plate was dressed with the above mountain of parsley. Does anybody eat that stuff?
Gail had the filet, and being the careful and healthy sort had broccoli instead of potatoes. They gave her a massive pile of very good lightly steamed veggies; I was impressed.
The bill for all of this, plus a glass of white wine and an iced tea, was $56. That’s hard to beat.
I wouldn’t want to shock my heart like that every day, but one a year or so it’s fun to just eat like there was no such thing as coronary disease, and The Cattleman is a darned good place to do it.
We all scream
The classics, like a hot fudge sunday, just can’t be beat.
Played cards with Jack Scott yesterday, while Gail played with Carol. Jack and I had a good first session and a poor second–that damn consistency is so hard to find.
After the game we went to Table 24 for dinner, but that’s no the story. There’s an ice cream parlor in Orinda I’ve been enjoying for 50 years. Yup, half a century of butterfat, and I think I can see every bit of it on my hips. And I don’t regret a single bite.
Loards has been around since 1950. They have the store in Orinda, and one in Danville, and about 20 other locations around the state. Generations of high school students have worked there making banana splits, hot fudge sundays and whatever a ‘tin roof’ is. They stock a couple of dozen flavors, and bunches of unique candies including old brands like Beeman and Clove chewing gum.
Gail just wants a vanilla shake, I go for the hot fudge. Jack likes the caramel sunday. (Is it sunday or sundae? The latter seems pretentious)
We eat in a fair number of fancy restaurants, and I’m usually up for the strange, exotic and outré. Sometimes, though, you just want the old standby, the classic, the basic. And you can never go wrong with a hot fudge sunday. Extra whipped cream.
Tribes
New York City’s Broadway is famous for first rate theater, but if you like modern, edgy and experimental you’re well advised to seek out the off-Broadway environment where risks are taken and ground is broken.
We are particular fans of the Barrow Street Theater, in the west Village. We saw Bug there, which later was made into a movie with Ashley Judd. We saw Red Light Winter. And this trip, we completely enjoyed Tribes, written by Nina Raine and brilliantly directed by David Cromer.
Billy is deaf. Always has been. He doesn’t sign because his very eccentric family refused to teach him–he has learned to speak and to read lips phenomenally well. Speech and sound are integral to the other members of the family–father is a retired professor of linguistics, mother is a budding novelist, brother Dan is writing a thesis, sister Ruth thinks she wants to be an opera singer. The play opens around the kitchen table with everyone talking, arguing, preening, crowing, badgering and postulating, with Billy trying manfully to follow it all.
Then Billy meets Sylvia, a young woman who can hear but is going deaf. Her parents are deaf, too, so she know how to sign and begins to teach Billy, whose world then opens up.
But as Billy comes into his own, his family disintegrates, especially his brother Dan, who regresses into stuttering incomprehensibility.
The cast is all excellent, starting with Russell Harvard, who is deaf, as Billy. Mare Winningham plays the mother, with a pitch-perfect British accent.
Barrow Street is a small theater–196 seats. The play is set in the middle of the building, with ranks of seats on all 4 sides. My only cavil with the production is that the surtitles used to explicate the sign language are often very difficult to read.
Is it coincidence that the two strongest plays we saw, Tribes and Death of a Salesman, focused on family and communications issues?
Death of a Salesman
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Phillip Seymour Hoffman consumes the stage as Willy Loman in the Mike Nichols directed revival of Death of a Salesman
Eight years ago Gail and I made a trip to New York to see Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Denehy and Robert Sean Leonard in Long Day’s Journey Into Night, a production the New Yorker said people would be talking about for 50 years.
Last week, we went again, this time to see Hoffman in Death of a Salesman, the American classic written by Arthur Miller. Directed by Mike Nichols, this is another production destined to stand the test of time.
The story of Willy Loman, a salesman riding high on a shoeshine and a smile, brought to destruction by time and shattered dreams, is a tragedy as heartfelt as Othello made real and personal. My mother saw Lee J Cobb in the original production 62 years ago, while engaged to my father, a salesman. She went with her mother, who suddenly took a considerably more dim view of her impending marriage. Grandmother may have been right.
Willy has 2 sons: Happy, a middling successful office worker who lives to have a good time. He has little depth as a person, but is skating through life without much care.
Biff, the other son, is another matter. In his early 30’s, he has yet to find himself in any real way. A standout high school quarterback, he lost his scholarships and his chance for a bright future when he failed math and refused to make it up in summer school–because he caught Willy in flagrante. Seeing Willy’s feet of clay seems to have ended Biff’s will to make something of himself, and he has been a drifter ever since.
I won’t go on about the plot, everyone has seen this play by now. What matters here is the acting, and it’s hard not to sound like the press agent for the Barrymore Theater. Phillip Seymour Hoffman is one of the most acclaimed performers of his generation, and this role may well be the apotheosis of his talents. I may never see an actor give a better performance.
Hoffman’s performance is so good it is easy to overlook the extraordinary talents of his co-stars, which would be a grievous mistake. The role of Linda, his wife, is not flashy or dramatic yet crucial. Linda Edmond manages to keep a tight rein on her emotions yet still make clear how much she loves Willy and stands by him. Her performance is a masterpiece of restraint.
Andrew Garfield, as Biff, is a seasoned British/American actor standing on the verge of super-stardom as the new Peter Parker in the SpiderMan series. He really has no need to undertake the tremendous physical and emotional work this role calls for, yet he shows up eight times a week to give it his all, and his all is very good indeed. Garfield plays Biff as simultaneously strong and weak, a man who is finding peace in menial ranch work out in the open air yet who still wants to please his father. It’s a complex situation, and Garfield handles it with grace.
The critics of the New Yorker always say a play is directed “lightly” or “brightly” or “sententiously” or some other adjective that I don’t understand in relationship to directing a play. Let’s just say that Mike Nichols, at 80, having already earned every possible honor and award, has nothing to prove here, he’s just busy putting on one of the great productions of American theater.
New York is a long way from home, but if we had done nothing but see this one play and come straight home the trip would have been wildly successful.
ArtMRKT
The traveling art world is in town this weekend, and we had to go see it with friend and artist, Harry Siter.
ArtMRKT is the way art is being sold these days–galleries from all over the world descend on an unsuspecting city, take over all the available exhibition space, invite the masses and hope for the best. In our case, there are three venues–Fort Mason, the Concourse Exhibition center at 7th and Townsend, and the Hotel Phoenix. Of the three, we enjoyed the Concourse center the most and the Hotel Phoenix the least.
The first piece in the door at the Concourse sets the tone:
Fear Culture, by Michelle Pred. A collage of items confiscated from travelers by the TSA.
All good art shows require some site-specific performance art these days, and ArtMRKT is no exception:
You’ll have to decide for yourself what it means
The man above was collecting signatures for his petition. Of course, I signed:
The supply of art is vast; deciding what you want/need is always a challenge. We have a collection of spheres just off the driveway, and Gail noticed this one:
Contemplating an addition to our sphere collection
This is a beautiful design created out of wind-felled old growth cedar from Stanley Park in Vancouver; it would make a handsome addition to what we have. The $11,000 price tag, though, made the decision quick and easy. If you hurry there today, you might be able to pick it up for $10,250.
Didn’t get the artist’s name, but I love this piece.
I’m seeing a trend to photorealism in sculpture, which can be unnerving when it is life sized, as well. This piece is only about 2 1/2 feet tall, but has such considerable presence and feeling that it fills a room anyway.
You can’t like them all
An interesting thing about art shows is the you can find pieces you hate interesting. This looks like a totem pole of politicians with gunk coming out of their noses. It’s about 15 feet tall, and just obnoxious. I wouldn’t have it in the house or the yard, and yet it is compelling enough to photograph and write about. That’s the art world for you.
Art most subversive
“Fear Culture”, by Michelle Pred
I like to write about how useless and wrong the TSA is, but oftentimes the strongest expressions are visual, not rhetorical. Picasso’s Guernica was surely more effective than anything Hemingway ever wrote, and that’s not knocking Hemingway.
Yesterday we went to ArtMRKT in the city, to see what’s new, and were greeted at the door of the Concourse venue with this collage by Michelle Pred–she has contracted with the TSA to purchase items which were stolen (OK, confiscated) from basically honest citizens in the putative name of “safety”.
Pred then makes these items into her own, particularly subversive, art. This flag is composed of 234 separate items forcibly removed from us. Notice the tiny tiny embroidery scissors. The screwdrivers. The little wrenches–what were the dreaded Islamofascist terrorists supposed to do, unbolt the airplane from the inside?
Can anyone really say they feel more secure knowing that nobody on the airplane is embroidering? That no 9 year old kids are playing Tetris on takeoff? Just how much does all this foolishness contribute to our society?
Heading home
Three days, 4 plays, one museum, a bunch of good food and we’re on our way home. Have to go to an art show tonight at Fort Mason.
TSA continues its bizarre ways. They have a new stupidity–you have to tell them your name and where you are going. Yep, even though they are holding your drivers license, they insist you prove that you know who you are, and where your plane is headed. I guess they think there is a new breed of terrorist capable of forging perfect ID’s, but not reading them.
So far I’ve seen this idiocy in SFO and JFK. Last month in Knoxville, and previously in Memphis, they didn’t bother. Or maybe those cities can’t find TSA agents who can read to see if I got it right.
There is some good news on the security theater front, though. With the new scanners I don’t have to take my suspenders off, which makes it easier. In San Francisco, they found it necessary to “pat me down” to prove the suspenders weren’t loaded. The gate raper didn’t like it when I insisted, as is my (and your) legal right, that he put on new gloves. He tried to convince me that the gloves were anti-bacterial, but suggested that the last 10 people he had fondled might not be. He said he didn’t fondle anyone, but what else do you call feeling all over somebody else?
Here in JFK they noted that I was wearing the braces, but didn’t do anything else.
Gail is a Platinum Advantage member, and they have a new program–big shots get to go through a special line and not have to take off shoes or belts or take computers out. Since they wouldn’t let a peon like me accompany her, she passed that golden opportunity and came through the same line I did. This actually makes some sense, since anyone with 2 million frequent flier miles has a pretty proven track record and they shouldn’t be wasting time on them. Now all I have to do is get another 650,000 miles…..
Reviews of all the plays we saw are coming up, stay tuned.
Totally Unauthorized 
