VinDivine - Living it Up John & Janine Style

Pete's Tavern - South Beach

It was a bold move to put yet another restaurant/bar in the ever-dying restaurant hub that used to be Max's, Vixi, and Kingfish. No one can make this place last. You can't put a big sign on it cuz of historic reasons and it's pretty off the beaten path across from PacBell Park. BUT, If anyone at all can do it, It's Pete, owner of the uber-successful Momo's at the park just down the block. And we did need a Tavern with the same name as the favorited bar in the NYC BTW.

So J&J take a stroll over there and wow, he may have done it. This place has been totally re-arranged to be one thing and one thing only...a big ASS bar. This bar is enormous, and you know about our equation people.

The grub? Let's call it white-trash meets hangover food and boy do we love it. The "salad" is chile in lettuce cups - good stuff. The wings are rockin' and the chicken nachos are worth gettin' your digits grimey. Great for noshin' on while you're hanging out watching one of the 20 or so flat screens during a game. We did ask our buddy Rachel who opened the place what the steak sandwich is served on, when she said biscuit we knew it was THAT type of place. Big belly food. The BBQ Brisket and the mini corn dogs are supposed to be OTH btw. The beer taps are plentiful, the "Pete's Ale" is a SpeakEasy...shhhh.

Oh, you want upscale comfort food and better wine? Walk over to Momo's.

All of the locals love it, and you'll often find our Momo's (Pauly, Kenny, Gil, Rachel) and Paragon faves (Nicky, Spencer, Ken) hanging out there after a hard day at work. Ask for Pete or Pete Jr., tell him John and Janine sent ya.

Pete's Tavern
128 King St.
San Francisco, CA 94107
Valet at Momo's
(415) 817-5040

Sir Harry's Bar - NYC

We had to be at the Waldorf Astoria for a convention so right after we took a moment to try out their old-school bar Sir Harry's. We don't have a problem with old school bars, given the choice we like new, hip, trendy but hey, a cool bar is a cool bar. Hey we love the Pied Piper at the Palace. However, Sir Harry's...not so much like the Palace.

Sure it has that old school vibe, dark mysterious place, tables with the wooden inlays of checker board (like anyone's gonna pull out the checkers and start playin'), old-fashioned carpet, chairs with wheels on them (classy!) and you're outta-towner drunks. Oh yeah.

Guy to our left: Digging his finger's in the bar gravel until his fave gravel is gone, so he starts to dig in ours! Reason #1 for NEVER EATING BAR GRAVEL. Guy to his left, WAY overweight, screaming at the top of his lungs, outtatowner, walking right up to the 42" TV, blocking everyone's view so he can "hear" what they're saying. Helloooo, it was close captioned, that doesn't mean get "close". But he was so drunk he couldn't follow the bouncing ball. Then this guy proceeds to go to a random table to eat that bar gravel. Reason #2 for NEVER EATING BAR GRAVEL.

Anyhoo, it's a bar if your desperate for a drink, or you just want to people watch...

Sir Harry's Bar
The Waldorf Astoria
301 Park Ave., New York, NY 10022 at 50th St.
212-872-4890

Luna Park - The Mission

So post-CrushPad meeting where about 10 of us discussed the creation of our next KILLER ZIN (we just scored some '07 fruit from the Turley Vineyards), the lot of us was hungry. Hey winemaking (well, discussing winemaking while noshing on crackers & cheese) takes it out of you!

We're in the Dogpatch area, where I wish I would have done some real estate speculating 5 years ago, and the first place I think of, being sooo in-the-know ;) is Piccino, the new Italian spot off of 22nd and 3rd. But I think 10 people at 9PM on a Thursday is prolly a no-go in a place that seats...about 10. So we frantically call around. Slow Club? Nope. Luna Park? Yessirreebob. We are IN.

Bonus, since J&J were carpooling with our buds Jonathan and Brian in their fancy new Caddie SUV (hey, way to go green, guys!), we didn't even have to sweat parking! Got drop-off service right at the door.

So the thing is, ever since this place opened 6-7 years ago I had heard plenty about it. Not necessarily good or bad or actually any detail. Just the name. So we stroll in there with zero preconceptions.

Cool, kitschy vibe. I think the folks at Luna call it 'Flea Market Chic'. Whatever, you get the idea. Dark, blood-red walls, lots of  wood, semi-Eugene like (if you've been there, you'll know) laid-back, definitely not the oh-so-popular and cool stainless steel and glass decor.

First impression: Well I guess second impression since I already said it seemed cool and kitchy...not so good. I ordered a couple 'ritas when we walked in. Took literally over 5 minutes for the person to figure out how to make a margarita, so I quickly said - "hey, you may as well make it a double". I left out "because as inept of a bartender you are I may die of thirst waiting for you to make a second round" part. Anyhoo, so when we finally get them, the tab is $22. Per drink. WTF?!

But hey, we get seated quickly which was great, I really did expect a wait.

B-I-G menu. Lotsa stuff, 8-10 Appys, 1/2 dozen salads, 8 pastas, 8-10 entrees (basically every type of meat imaginable) and about 6-7 sides. Dang. All pretty reasonably priced too, appys sub $10 and most entrees around 16-18 bones. Leans toward comfort food (corn dogs, fries, mac ' cheese, pot roast...did I say Corn Dogs?!) with some nice non-comfort stuff thrown in too, like Curry Pork Satay with Mint-Cucumber Sla, Nicoise Salad, and Grilled Alaskan Salmon with Beluga Lentils, Frisée, Orange, Olives, Tomatoes and Basil. Think the strategy is to have something for everyone? Well it works. Hell, like I said we had 10 people at our table and I don't think anyone had the same dish!

Well, I wish I could report back to y'all with a review of something more exciting, but J&J ordered mighty boring...Nicoise Salad and a Burger. Yep, you guessed it...Rare, Cheddar, no bun. That's us. But of course with a side of fries. I'm not gonna  yammer on about a Salad Nicoise, it was solid. The seared tuna was muy tasty. The burger? Showed up rare.  Is this chef from France?! Whoa. He or she certainly took our order seriously. Polished it off. Don't kill me, but I can't remember much about the fries.

Next time around I'd try the Pork Cutlet stuffed with Gruyere and Shrooms. Breaded, just in case you were wondering.

Everyone seemed to enjoy their food, and of course we had a blast. Service was good enough.

So bottom line: I give this place a 7 outta 10. You get what you pay for, the food is solid. Nothing hugely memorable here to make me rush back, but if I'm in the Mission and hungry for comfort food I'd give it a go. Oh, no valet and parking blows, good luck with that.

Luna Park
694 Valencia Street (nr 18th)
San Francisco, CA, 94110

A Perfect Day in Paris

OK, next. Désolé pour le retarder. What was I writing about, anyway? Oh yes, The perfect day, Sunday, our second day, in Paris. Sweet Jesus. Let’s break it down, and preface it with pas de Musée de Louvré. Light on culture, let’s say. Heavy on tourisme français.

Let's break it down:

1) Early AM run on the Seine. Had the city to ourselves. Gorgeous. Ran past the Place de la Concorde and noticed they were settin' up for the finish of the Tour de France.

2) Nice breakfast in the Artus Hotel, where we mapped out our tourist strategy over eggs & patisserie, and...mimosas, of course.

3) OK, here’s where it starts. Wandered around Place Vendome and the fancy-shmancy jewelry shops... then off to the Opera House. Actually did a self-guided tour (very un-J&J-like). Gorgeous architecture. Chagall on the ceiling. Very nice.

4) Next stop - Montmare & Sacré Cour. Been here a hundred times when we lived here. Beautiful early 20th century church, looks very mosque-like actually. And Montmare has a great little square jammed with artists and...you guessed it...cafés to enjoy glass after glass of Bandol Rosé. It actually started absolutely pouring rain, like raining harder than you can imagine while we were there. So we took refuge under the awning of a cool café, ordered up some Poulet Roti and Bandol, and watched the action. Those artist-stall people Do Not Leave under any weather conditions!

5) Then, off to the 5th. The Latin Quarter, San Michel and home of the Sorbonne. Cool, bohemian spot, the 5th. Plus home to more Greek restaurants per square block this side of Athens.  And of course a couple glasses of rosé to quench our thirsts while we people watched outside of San Michel.

6) Next stop, the Tour Eiffel, of course. Never changes, but always cool. Damn. No places to grab a quick glass of vin! So we ran across the Seine by Diana’s bridge and found a cool outdoor spot, where everyone ogled our iPhones (they are not released in Europe yet).

7) Then we hit the Champs Elysees & caught the end of the Tour de Farce. Then a (long, 'cuz I took a wrong turn) walk home and a nappy.

8) Back up at 10PM. Drinks and then din din @ midnight at the Alcazar in the 6th, also the home of the A-Z bar, where we spent NYE 2001! More drinks and then home at 2. Ahh...I love Europe.

Next, hear about our crazy dinner with a famous actor!

The Beacon - NYC

We musta walked past this place no less than a hundred times. It's a few doors down from our fave hotel the Chambers. Janine had a meeting downtown and after running the loop in CPark we were hungryyyy. So we asked Joseph, our superman concierge where to go for a quick fun lunch. "The Beacon!" he cried. Ok, sounds good. So he walked us a few doors down, came in wink, wink, "Hi hon, can you VIP these lovely people?" Love the Joseph. When did VIP become a verb?

What looked from the front like your generic-run-of-the-mill NY restaurant with little-to-no character ended up being this cavernous 20's like cool place. Seriously shock for the J&J, I mean look at the logo, would you run in?  We're immediately whisked down into this pit-like room to a huge table and treated like royalty. They thought we might be in it for the long-haul but we were short on time. Too bad. If Janine didn't have a meeting it mighta been an all dayer. We did have to stop an order of complementary oysters coming to the table. a) didn't have the time, b) who sends oysters? That was very nice of them.

Nothing really "light" about this menu. This is like the place where all the media moguls take their clients out and PIG out. No, CHOW down. No, strap the feedbag on. No, gimme the vomitorium. No lie. We searched the menu for that quick lite salad to no avail. But we did find the greens. We split a HUGE salmon salad, light on the salad, heavy on the slab o' salmon. We also got the seared tuna nicoise both salads very good and very large.

We couldn't let this yummy grub go on without a glass o' trusty ole Rosé to wash it down with but we had to ask our waitress (training wheels on, oh boy) about 5 times for it. Hmmmm, don't put the training wheels on the VIPs beacon! Kidding only kidding.

All in all, a GREAT find in midtown. Not sure what the after work bar scene is, perhaps next time!