fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice...

well shame on me of course. apparently some lessons are difficult to learn. and so i found myself once again dining in a tapas restaurant, hoping that small plates would finally fulfill their big promise.

this time the culprit was iluna basque, a somewhat trendy eatery on the corner of union and powell in north beach. as you walk inside, the interior designer's fondness for maroon becomes immediately apparent. the walls wear that color, as do the accoutrements selected to hang from it. but despite the bordello-esque hue of the restaurant, the corner location and long windows spanning 180 degrees of the exterior chase all possible feelings of claustraphobia.

and now to the downside; the dining experience. the first inkling comes just as you take a seat at your table. you unroll your place setting and spread the napkin across your lap, only to realize there is paper in your hand. it takes audacity to put seared foie gras on the menu and then ask patrons to dab their mouths with the product of a recycled notebook, but iluna basque does just that. if only they had demonstrated such boldness in other aspects, say the cooking.

between the three of us, we selected nine small plates, including a butter lettuce salad, seared scallops, a duck empanada, a petite ribeye and the aforemention foie gras. the only thing that stood out was the salinity. each bite elicited the expression of one who had inadverently swallowed a mouthful of atlantic ocean water. in fact, the saline flavor was so overpowering that you could taste nothing of the ingredients themselves. the only relief from this sodium infusion came from the wine, an excessively sweet and hollow grenache.

the one dish of the nine that i cannot speak for would be the cheese plate, which we ordered yet never arrived, except on the bill. upon mentioning to our server that he had overcharged us, he felt no need to apologize for the omission or to ask if we would still like to have the dish brought. without a word, he snatched up the bill walked back to the kitchen and made the correction. i'm not even certain he said a word -- not then or during our entire meal, since he felt no need to make a visit, other than the mandatory ones where he was dropping off food.

it's too bad, i mean for iluna basque. my two dining companions are recent transplants to north beach, and have plenty of money to spend. and i happened to know they were on the lookout for a regular neighborhood spot. somewhere to spend their money 3 or 4 times a month. the restaurant certainly lost them. and me along with it.

bar tartine: it's no tartine

if you live in san francisco, you are either well acquainted with tartine bakery or severely deprived. i suppose you could also be vegan, hence not able to enjoy their delectable baked goods, but there again you fall into the category of severely deprived. some doubt tartine's perfection, calling their bread pudding excessively eggy; those people would be mistaken. a more appropriate manner to describe the dish, and everything else they serve, would be the finest way to start a day.

despite the occasional complaint, however, the acclaim for tartine bakery is nearly universal. initially though, bar tartine -- same people, full restaurant -- failed to garner the same level of praise. inconsistency permeated the menu and the service lacked the attentiveness and precision of formal dining and the warmth and care of the best neighborhood establishments. or so the reviews said. but as the months passed, so did the critics. the dishes, which previously lacked imagination and suffered from flawed execution, had been fixed. now everything they served matched the quality of their bakery sister. allegedly.

i beg to differ. nothing on the menu was priced exorbitantly, nor did anything deserve to be. along with one of my regular dining partners, we split two each of starters, appetizers and desserts. i confess to never having any sort of confit except duck, so i was intrigued by the tuna confit salad. now i'm aware that tuna confit is just an alias for starkist. the fact that the greens were horrendously over-dressed in italian vinagerette only exacerbated the situation. my companions watermelon and radicchio salad was a significant upgrade, but still short of remarkable.

sadly, the entrees brought little relief. the sweet corn risotto was slightly undercooked, leaving the center of the risotto slightly chewy. but the pan-roasted quail didn't make me feel i had erred in my selection. the green salad the quail was served with actually overshadowed the bland prepartation of the fowl.

even the desserts, which would seem almost guaranteed to approach perfection given their relationship with the bakery, didn't quite meet expectations. the warm chocolate cake with chili flakes finished with a suprising kick, but it was notable primarily for its novelty. even their signature dessert -- muscato soaked nectarine served with a scoop of basil sorbet -- though excellent, brought little glee. the peel of the nectarine made it such that even when slicing with a knife, the fruit was ground into a pulp-like form. plus my knowledge that just a few short blocks away at range, a nearly identical, but superior version of this dessert was being served, simply made me wish i had chosen another dining location.

i'm sure i'll check back in a year or so. by then, maybe they will have actually sorted through their problems.

bocadillos, or how i learned to kick the tapas trend

i love the idea of tapas. but slowly and sadly, i am arriving at the realization that they don't work well in practice. sort of like marxism. in manifesto form, everyone involved is happy and well fed. in execution, not so much (see: ussr, late 20th century).

well tapas too. is it not every visit to a restaurant that after looking at the menu, you are faced with many more options than you could possibly try? not with tapas. instead, you get a taste of all the dishes that strike your fancy. mix it with a pitcher of sangria, a fex kalimutxos and a cafe con leche after dinner, and not only has your yearning for food been satisifed, but you're just caffeinated and inebriated enough for a night of socialization (and further revelry).

at least in theory. i've given tapas a fair chance. more than fair some would say. in addition to bocadillos, i've frequented esperpento, ramblas, picaro, alegrias, thirsty bear, cesar, cha cha cha and others i'm sure i've forgotten. i'm still waiting to be overwhelmed.

bocadillos has its high points, the foie gras roll and the grilled shrimp with pepper flakes most notably. but it has its low notes as well. the calamari was oversalted and the short ribs didn't fall from the bone when my knife and fork nudged them as they should. considering bocadillos represents the finest tapas san francisco offers, well, perhaps it's best to just stay away. the portions grow smaller, yet the price not to the same extent. the service seems rushed and uneven and the kitchen's execution inevitably tends toward inconsistency. maybe they're just asked to handle too many dishes at once. or possibly, the unshakable hipness of small plates these days means attention to cuisine just doesn't matter much.

whatever the reason though, i think i've finally learned to stay away. let the young urban professionals who populate the in-crowds fill the tapas restaurants; i've got other places to squander my paltry salary.

bad neighbor, part 2

so i knocked on the door (as the complaining party should have done) the two neighbors who may have been the culprits in the porch-light-tattling situation and both parties denied being the snitch. fishy.

although i'm certainly not the confrontational type, i'm a bit disappointed i didn't get to tell somebody off. at least the guilty party has been informed that their behavior is unacceptable -- even if he or she didn't have the backbone to own up to it.

stanford, a world class university

as i'll be moving out of palo alto and back to sf, and paying for the movers, i decided to do something out of character for me. instead of keeping my textbooks or giving them away to friends who are taking the class this coming term, in the interest of time, i sold my used books back to the bookstore.

so i tossed my thirty odd books into my big roller bag and rolled them to the bookstore. i piled them up on the cashier's desk in two large stacks and she took the top one off the right-hand stack and began to process the transaction. but then i heard something dreaded, she asked her co-worker how to scan it and the co-worker said we have to enter the isbn's my hand.

so i ran the coffee shop picked up a water and a pastry and had a makeshift breakfast at the cashier's desk while she painfully entered each book into the system. then i made a couple more calls afterwards. then i waited for another 15 minutes for them to finish. world class university my ass.

and my reward, 25 books sold and a big $63.50 in my pocket, almost 15% of the retail price! that's what you call being violated academically.