Heurism

Please find below a quick recap of food/eats from the trip bin and I took to the bay area last weekend. Yeah, I knew you’d be interested….

Sat:

Ferry Building: We arrived too late to partake of the many food trucks (sorry Tom) that are usually there on Saturday (some rather severe traffic coming in over the bridge). We did, however, hit up the Slanted Door for drinks and appetizers. The food was amazing and the drinks citrusy and well thought out. We’ll be going back here I think.

Elephant and Castle Pub: Meh. Gross.

Sunday:

Mifune Don: bin had been on the look0ut for SF okonomiyaki since visiting Japan years ago. Yelp recommend this place. Mifune Don (not to be confused with Mifune) is in the smaller portion of the Peace Plaza in Japantown. It’s a tiny little place that features some classic Japanese food. We had some delicious tempura shrimp and the amazing okonomiyaki which is a rice flower pancake topped with cabbage, seafood, crisp noodles, sauce, and more sauce served in a skillet. Wow. I was totally blown away. I’m SOLD!

Cafe Zoetrope: Francis Ford Coppola’s little cafe in the financial district. We had a prosciutto pizza which was pretty damn good (I mean…how wrong can you go with prosciutto pizza?) and some really damn lovely wine. We got to make fun of the couples next to us who came in to a wine cafe and ordered a Mai Tai. Not great, but good…and wonderful atmosphere and a place to just hang out and take in the city.

Bourbon and Branch: A speakeasy smack dab in the middle of the tenderloin district. You have to have a reservation (email only, please) and the password for the night. Otherwise, you aren’t getting in. The club is nicely decorated and the aura is interesting…but to be frank I was a bit disappointed. The service was horrible. You’d think that a place serving super high-end cocktails would be constantly coming by to refill your drink, but that wasn’t the case. The waitress really pushed the Valentine’s Day menu (I mean REALLY pushing it) so bin and I had some. Mine was really rather tasty. We finished up with a flight of Irish Whiskeys including a “peated” version which did, indeed, taste like camping. Truth be told, the Chapel does just as good a job of combining high end liquors and home made concoctions into tasty cocktails…with less pretension, lower prices, and much better service.

El Sol Taqueria: Hot damn. This is a hole in the wall a block’s stumble away from the Bourbon and Branch. We had the hugest plate of hot, delicious chicken nachos ever and a beer for 8 bucks. Easily the best Mex food I’ve ever had in SF.

bin’s Bradley Collins in our room: bin is perfecting her version of the Applejack based Bradley Collins. It’s a thing of beauty.

Monday:

Ton Kiang: All the way out Geary in Richmond is Ton Kiang…home for reasonably priced dim sum. Good lord I always walk away from this place pleasantly stuffed. Shrimp and scallop, shrimp and shrimp, shrimp and chive, pot stickers….mmmm. Highly recommended.

All in all, we were totally blissed out with food and booze. Can’t wait to go back.

I took this pic this weekend with help from Miss bin and a new iPhone App. Not art…but I dig it.

Quite a gap there. Most of July, all of August, some of September.

I had a whole wonderful post ready to go about Prague, but suddenly I feel like I’ve already told that story. Suffice it to say that it was an amazing time. I love Prague, and got to fall in love with it all over again. It was amazing to see Alan and Mish and Ziggster. And, most of all, it was good to fall in love with Miss bin all over again too. We travel well together. Really well.

That being said, here is a picture of me with some delicious beer.

Sunday afternoon bin and I took in the waning hours of the Nada Dada Motel Project. The project is a once yearly event that takes place at two “weekly” m(h)otels in Reno. The idea is that you rent a room for the week, set up your art (whatever it may be) and people come and browse. Because of the surroundings (the legendary El Cortez, and the less legendary Town House Motor Ledge) hijinks are bound to happen…are even *supposed* to happen. Since we got there a bit late, some of the crews were already cleaning up. Some highlights:

Joy Wong: a damn intriguing portraitist. Check her out.

Christopher Robin Blum: some nicely photoshopped photos. Here.

Christopher Umana: a terrifically talented illustrator. Here.

And yeah…the room of 1,000 dildos. Completely crazy. Oh…and the rose room. Even crazier. One thing that really struck both of us, however, was a room at the Town House Motor Lodge between two NadaDada rooms. Keep in mind that people continue to live in these spaces even during this art event. This room, full of boisterous teen somethings and perhaps an adult or two had a sign taped to the door…it said simply, “No Art Here.” Really? Isn’t that the modern definition of “art”? Sorta. Ish? I made bin take a surreptitious photo.

This past long weekend was one steeped in the arts for bin and I. Thursday we saw Up, Friday evening we saw Dick Dale, and Sunday we took in the NadaDada Motel art show. Amazing.

Dick Dale put on a pretty damn good show. He is 72, just recovered from cancer (a 2nd time) without the use of painkillers, and still capable of kicking out the jams. I’ve seen Dick a number of times and he was very much chattier Friday night than ever. He seemed to be having a complete ball playing older tunes (Miserlou of course), some of his tunes from his time in South America (Esperanza and Belo Horizante), oddball classics (The Hully Gully!), and even Hava Nagila (Hey!). I can’t believe he did trotted out The Hully Gully. Hilarious. Over the years he seems to have gotten over the fact that he really can’t sing and embraced it. Now, well…he is who he is. At those moment he locks into a groove and really plays, he is hard to beat. I’d go again in a heartbeat. Sharing that with bin was really something special.

I’ve often wondered the same things I guess….what happens to our goth bretheren in hot weather? Well, this site pretty much sums it up. Link

I’ll preface this post by saying I’ve only had Dim Sum twice. So, I guess that makes me a complete amateur. Regardless of my amateur status, I had some delicious Dim Sum yesterday. In Reno!

bin and I, accompanied by Miss C and Mr. T, ventured to CaiE’s (note the weird cap E at the end there) for brunch. Weekdays they have an all you can eat Dim Sum with a very limited menu. On Weekends they have a not all you can eat menu with quite a bit more variety. We tried a vast variety of things. Listed here are my favorites:

Salt and Pepper Shrimp: I could eat several pounds of this. Deep fried shrimp with jalapenos, battered and fried garlic, and salt. Amazing.

Shrimp Har Gow: Steamed shrimp dumplings. Simple and amazingly tasty.

Shrimp and Chive pockets steamed then lightly fried. Delicious.

If you go, don’t expect the standard Dim Sum experience. Food is ordered off a menu, not off cute little trolleys, and the place was almost sedate and quiet. Very nice actually. I’ll most certainly be going back, and Mr. T and I might take in the weekday lunch menu just to compare.

This here is my favorite live song from the entire Nirvana catalog. Where Did You Sleep Last Night aka Black Girl aka In The Pines is widely attributed to Leadbelly, but pre-dates him. Wikipedia even pushes the original folk song back to the 1870s. Kurt makes the song scary and sad and lonely…just like it should be.

Below is the Leadbelly version for comparison…

eMusic continues to be my source for delicious, DRM-free digital music. Now and then I’ll pick up an actual CD, or something from Amazon, but most of my needs are met by eMusic. Here is the stuff I’ve downloaded lately.

The Monks – Black Monk Time: The Monks were all GIs stationed in Germany in the early to mid 60′s. They began playing together in ’64 and by ’65 had been discharged. Black Monk Time is the only album they ever produced and it is a stone cold classic. Garage, underground, frighteningly original and ahead of it’s time, this won’t appeal to just anyone. Recently re-released this is pretty dang wonderful.

Wild Rumpus/Wild Rumpus feat. Beardyman – Purple Summersault and Rock the Joint: Juke joint swing re-mixed into funk electro? Sure. Dig that beat, baby.

The Mooney Suzuki – The Maximum Black EP: Good ol’ American Garage Rock. Check out Love Is A Gentle Whip.

The Dirtbombs – Ultraglide In Black: Detroit’s renowned punk/r&b live act.

The Oholics – Baby Blue Eyes: A delightful EP by some very very drunk Swedes. Delightful.

King Khan & The Shrines – The Supreme Genius of King Khan & the Shrines: A Berlin based garage/psych band. I listen to this all the dang time.

A couple of drinks into our Friday evening, and over some really nice goat cheese pizza, bin and I had a moment of intense, soul gazing connection. Some radio station or other was playing and for some reason chose to play Bread and Butter by The Newbeats. It’s a very odd song. Midway through the first bar bin looks at me and says “this is Bread and Butter” and then “I had this on Goofy Greats.”

Of course I, too, owned a copy of Goofy Greats when I was a child. Now K-Tel must’ve released about 20 different versions of this album. Some had two LPs, some only one. Some had Mr. Bass Man, and Leapy Lee, while mine did not.

As far as I can tell below is the track listing of the Goofy Greats I had:

Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron
Brian Hyland – Itsy-Bitsy, Teenie-Weenie, Yellow Polka-Dot Bikini
Newbeats – Bread And Butter
Fendermen – Mule Skinner Blues
Bobby Day – Rockin’ Robin
Hollywood Argyles – Alley-Oop
Johnny Thunder – Loop De Loop
Ohio Express – Yummy, Yummy, Yummy
George Baker Selection – Little Green Bag
Tokens – The Lion Sleeps Tonight
Trashmen – Surfin’ Bird
Ohio Express – Chewy, Chewy
Ray Stevens – Ahab The Arab
Shirley Ellis – The Name Game
Lemon Pipers – Green Tambourine
1910 Fruitgum Co. – Simon Says
Piero Umiliani – Mah-Na-Mah-Na
Bill Haley – See You Later, Alligator
Playmates – Beep, Beep
Jewel Akens – The Birds And The Bells
Lovin’ Spoonful – Nashville Cats
Larry Verne – Mr. Custer
Larry Williams – Bony Moronie
1910 Fruitgum Co. – 1-2-3, Redlight

You’ll notice a few important things here. This list contains the greatest rock and roll song of all time (Surfin’ Bird by the Trashmen), the greatest rock and roll song with the word bo-birley in it (The Name Game by Shirley Ellis), two amazingly non-pc classics (Ahab the Arab and Mr. Custer), the Ohio Express doing all of their “-y” catalog, and Rockin’ Robin. The fact that we both owned this record, both could identify Bread and Butter, and her name is Robin….that /has/ to be kismet right? I’ll be stoked about this for a long long time to come.

(and no…this is not the correct cover for the LP I had…)