VinDivine - Living it Up John & Janine Style

Veña Godeval Cosecha

Well, hello there sexy. Yeah I'm talkin' to you. You are sexy. Say it with me: "I am a sexy animal". Feels good doesn't it? Wait, before we get carried away, maybe I just have wine goggles on. 'Cuz I just polished off a bottle of killer wine that you've never heard of. Betcha. Even you, Gants!

Let me introduce to your fizzled taste buds (it's Sunday, we know how y'all party on the weekends!) the 2005 model of Cosecha from Veña Godeval. Yummy. First A couple facts - 1) This is a white wine (people in the know would say 'blanco'). So, I'll say Blanco, you can keep calling it White Wine. Oops, I just got snarky...I hear I get that way sometimes. 2) This Blanco hails from Spain, one of my fave fave fave regions these days. Where in Spain? Hell if I know, somewhere named Galicia, I think in Northwest Spain. Whatever,  Google Map it if you care that much. This isn't geography class.

So what makes this wine yummy?

It's good. That's it...JHC, you need more detail?! My word isn't good enough anymore? Fine then:

Well, characteristic of many Blancos, this Cosecha has a crisp minerality that is just so fresh and clean.  Wait, isn't that an Outkast tune? Anyhoo, the Cosecha has bright pear flavors, a little green apple,  with a very very subtle pine note. No shit! The acidity is perfect, not so much it makes you pucker but tight enough to make you smack your lips.

Where to find this wine? Well, our buddy Brian Reccow, who started Thirsty Bear and is the owner of Sol y Lago in Tahoe City, gave us a bottle. So I think you need to drag your carcass here to SyL and get yerself some. Rockin' tapas, killer tacos, get the SyL Margarita, and the...wait for it...BEST chips & homemade salsa on the Lake. Get there Pronto! Chill - we're gonna blog SyL next!

Dam Café - Lake Tahoe

If you've ever been to Tahoe City there is no way you don't know about the Dam Cafe. Yes it's right next to Fanny Bridge where tourists lean over to look at enormous trout, and all you see is a bunch of ass crack. Oh and yes, a dam. And then you can debate what's bigger - the fish or the grotesquely huge ASS CRACK. I got two bits on the A.C.

Anyways, this place is very cute, kitschy, very tiny but very freakin' good. Jen & Glenn are the absolute coolest most laid-back happy people ever born. That's right, I said it. They Live It. And, the people that work there are super charming too, all super granola straight outta Eugene Orygun if ya didn't know any better. But they have amazing stuff here, kick ass b'fast and lunch grub. We hit it EVERYTIME we're here for b'fast at least one mornin'. And you should too.

Here's the skinny:

• They serve Illy coffee here. I'll have a double non-fat, half caf, extra foam, 3-shot...wait...what the hell am I even saying? 
• They bake cookies and pastries, don't ship 'em in from some offsite pastry farm where this stuff is cooked by oompa loompas. They Cook Them On-Premise. How official...and tasty.
  
• Kick-ass bagels, with so many options you KNOW there was some funny shit gettin' smoked when the menu was created.
• Sandwiches are OTH, very fresh. Cold, hot, room temp. Whatever. It's all guuud.
• They serve wine and beer. Nuff said.
  
• Yummy smoothies.
• Best breakfast burrito around - meat or veggie. We get our veggie sans avo. Why the hell is avo on everything in California, isn't it pricey?

Funny thing: A Tahoe 2nd homeowner (BTW, prolly with a big pine branch up her ass) once wrote into the Tahoe City Newspaper about how all of the people that live here are a bunch of "Low Life Locals". Ouch. Tahoe folks went mad. Rightly so since so many of them work at establishments that make this biotche's home valuable.  Now it's an official local movement empowering the community. So the folks at the Dam Cafe had a ton of 'I'm A Low Life Local' t-shirts printed up!

Stop in and get one! Tell them "Veggie burrito, no avocado, large drip + caramel syrup" sent ya! And oh yeah, smoke 'em if ya got 'em.

Straits Café - SOMA

That's right, we eat at a mall, a kick-ass mall here in San Francisco that is. We've spoken about the Lark Creek Steakhouse in the mall, freakin' awesome cow. Hey, one of the best movies ever made had a buncha kids that worked at the mall: Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It's that magical place where Stacey Hamilton and Mark Ratner "fell in love" before the sl*t got knocked up by that slime Damone. I digress. Ya momma's alright, ya daddy's alright, they just seem a little bit weird...surrender. Ok, I'll stop.

Now it's time to tell all you VdVers about Lark Creek's neighbor Strait's Café. This place is rockin', even before we found out that our friend Lawrence usta work there a long time ago. Apparently it doubles as a "club" in the evening with a live DJ but seriously we'll go as far as to DRINK & EAT at the mall, (as long as it's not in the food court) but we certainly ain't "hangin'" at the mall at night. That's for the ole' bridge and tunnelers. What, It's true.

The question is: Would I go there if I wasn't going to the mall? The answer is: Probably not, but it's a DAMN good place to break up the shoppin' day. Takes the sting outta spending large ya know?

Apparently it's a chain, 5 spots, mostly in the Bay Area but one in the ATL. (Gotta love the ATL btw, at the airport the bartender asked us if we wanted our wine in to-go cups to take on the plane. Wow.)  Great small plates at this happenin' spot. The chicken wings are a bit weird though. You know when they take the chicken off the bone, mash it up and put it back on cuz they think you think it's cool? Well it's not. Creeps me out actually. The rest of the bar menu rocks. Go there, knock back a few, nosh and get yer shop on!

Straits Cafe
Westfield - San Francisco Center
845 Market St. $th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
415-668-1783
Valet Parking available on Mission St. Side

Za Pizza - Russian Hill

In my NY not-so-humble opinion there ain't THAT many good pizza joints in SF. Bagels suck too for that matter. Get H&H overnighted from NYC. I think it's the water in the dough but that's another conversation. Za Pizza is a great place to knock back a slice and a beer in this neighborhood spot on Russian Hill! This place comes somewhat close to a tiny NYC hole-in-the-wall, without smelly pizza guys from Italy throwing the dough in the air of course.  We usta go in here and wait for our pups to get a good washin' at the Russian Hill Dog Groomers. Leonard is the man there. Brooks is the man behind Za.

The slices of pie are gynormous, they have a specialty they call the Potesto Pizza. Slices of potatoes and pesto sauce drippin' all over the place. Yum. And thin-crust too. Not like our thick late-night drunky Golden Boy slabs,  but that pizza is for soakage, this is for tastage. We get any pizza with onions and mushrooms but they have some fun-named pizza like the Vincent van Dough (fresh roma tomatoes, basil & garlic) and the Salvador Dali (chicken, sun-dried tomatoes, pesto &  tomato sauce...mmmmm). Get a salad, any salad. Also huge. Feels like the never-ending plate of greens. Good though. Wine is so-so but they've got great beers on tap. Don't get delivery, by the time you get it it's too cold, soggy, tough. You gotta go there and pick it up.

Hint: If you eat outside at one of the two tables on the hilly sidewalk, watch out for the pups that go into get groomed next door. Pee flows downhill people. Pick up yer feet!

They don't have a website so check out Za on CitySearch. Buck up for the site guys!

Za Pizza
1919 Hyde St. (Green St.)
San Francisco, CA 94109
415-771-3100
Parking is tough, it's on the cable car line.

Orbit In - Palm Springs

Aloha! Mahalo! Or as Janine would prefer to say, Manolo (as in Blahnik for all you Birkenstock-wearing shoe haters). Nope we're not in Hawaii, kittens. We are in Palm Springs, but it kinda has that feel. 'Cept for that whole 'being surrounded by water' part that is. Anyhoo, it is hot here, and it is hot in Hawaii. So shut your pie hole and just read.

So, we snuck down here to Palm Springs for a couple days of heat and R&R, as we've both been hittin' it hard lately (and I'm not talking the bottle). If you haven't been here, the rumors are true. No not that one about the heat. That's not a rumor. It gets kiln hot here. Think Old and think Gay. Yes there are plenty of old people, plenty of gay people, and plenty of old + gay people:

Bottom line, if ya can't deal, make your getaway plans for somewhere else, East Bay. Ha. Just joshin' with ya, all ya lovers from Concord, Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hell, I mean Hill, Oakland (oh yeah, don't wanna piss off any of my homies from o-town), and Stockton...wait a minute let's skip Stockton. Skip Fresno too.

This place is f'ing Fantabulous. J&J will put down roots in this barren, hell-hot oasis, mark my words. Now go make some money Janine! I mean P.S. is all about '50s rat-pack, mid-century modernism, hedonism and all those other good isms. It's an hour or so cheap flight from SFO, and...wait for it...your fave hotel snobs J&J stayed in a...oh god I can barely say or type it. Nope, contrary to our Modus Operandi, we didn't do a Viceroy or Palmer resie...we went Old School and WENT chillin' at the uber-retro-cool Orbit In, bitches! Think Roadside Motel, people. Think Sinatra and the Rat Pack. Think Twister! Think martinis and any beverage that needs to be poured out of a shaker.

That's right. What took us so f'ing long to grace this place with our presence?! Right off that bat, you fly into an outdoor airport. Then a $10 - 10 minute ride to downtown. Then check into a rockin' cool motel, which there are oodles of, but Orbit In takes it IMO. 8-9 rooms, we got a miniscule room but still doable. Everything centers around the cool pool and outdoor bar anyway. And they pump Sinatra bascially 24x7 by the pool.

So beside laying around the pool and getting hammered at the outdoor bar? Cruise the downtown strip, sucka! By day: old, tame and laid-back. By night: gay as a purseful of rainbows. Woo Hoo! We went to a tapas bar and the second the sun went down, we were smack-dab in the middle of an awesome drag show.

So people there is something here for anyone, except for rednecks. Is that not nirvana? 

Orbit In
562 West Arenas
Palm Springs, CA 92262
760-323-3585

Sunnyside - Lake Tahoe

Since Tahoe City is our 2nd pad why the hell don't we have a freakin' category for it yet on VinDivine? You KNOW we ain't holed up in our place all day eatin' crudité. Sunnyside shines bright in the mountain of cafes, restaurants and waterin' holes around the lake tonight, around the lake tonight, oh, that's a Toadies song. I digress.

Sunnyside how do we love thee, let us count the ways, we're feeling in a "loving" mood today:

1. It's smack dab on the lake with an ass-kickin' view and a gynormous back deck for hangin' in the sun. You'll also find Donzi dicks rollin' up to the dock with their screamin' loud boats but don't knock Sunnyside cuz the idiot's from Fresno. Grab an order of Deep Fried Zucchini and the adult beverage of your choice, get a little sun on your face, a little buzz in your noggin and do some serious people-watching. 

2. Hands down some of THE BEST people (who just happen to be bartenders, shocker!) we know. Dana, Scotty (fames owner of snow removal business "Snow Job"), Rafe, Bryan, Derrick, you rock it!

3. It is home to the annual silent auction to raise money for the ski school at Alpine Meadows where instructors teach instructors how to teach people with disabilities to ski. Whew...try saying that sentence in one breath. Crazy cool. Even crazier? Ole' Johnny beat out some snot-nosed spoiled 10-year old for Darren Rahlves skis one year. Made him cry. Boo Hoo. Learn a life lesson, punk!

Then we rubbed a little more salt in his wounds and got Darren to sign them for us! John's ski: "You schooled me in the bumps - (yeah right)" (Darren just couldn't bring himself to write it without the caveat). Janine's ski: "Nice bumps". Watch it Rahlves! Sweet. Too bad for the kid, if only granny felt like coughin' up a cool four-hundy you'd have 'em now and there would be something far less childish written on the skis than our meager minds would want. Hey the ski school was the real winner.

4. Close to the best burger we think we've ever had, RARO bien sur. Hey that's Spanish AND French for you single-language speakers. Oh it's the Kobe burger, spend the extra 3 bucks, don't cheap out. Comes loaded with bacon and gorgonzola cheese. We go sans both as that is some strong-tastin' toppins!

5. Chili - Winter-only, made with FILET mignon!!! Are you kidding me with that chili? Once John offered a taste to some dude sitting next to him who was drooling over the sight of it and the dude took him up on it! Who does that? Anyway, we actually got the recipe but you need to make like 20 gallons of this crack. RAFE - Break it down to a few servings for us cooking neophytes.

6. Fish tacos - 2 huge ones, get them Cajun style. It's not on the menu but tell 'em we said ya could. And on Wednesday nights they have taco night! I think the deal is 2 tacos and a Dos Equis for $5 or some crazy deal. Woo Hoo!

7. The Major Margarita. Words can't really describe it. Just get it, on the rocks, salt, float of Grand Marnier. Nuff said.

8. After only one of #7 you can walk around the corner, rent a waverunner and kick it on the lake! Insider tip: hmmm..."should I give this up?", I ask myself as my fingers float tentatively above the keyboard...shit I can't stand it, here goes! Rent at 3PM or so, cuz the Tahoe Gal - a big fake paddle-wheel boat - comes through and throws out a hella-big wake. Crank that throttle and catch some air, bitches!

9. People Watching - We once saw some dude from Stockton with his brother on the deck. Both pretty tanked on pints o' beer. One bro turned to the other to do the 'cheers' thing. Anyway, as timing would have it, Bro #2 was taking a swig and he got his own glass 'cheers'd' right into his face! Ouch. I think we both peed our pants laughing. Now that's a solid watch. Ya don't get that every day.  Note to y'all: Cheersing is like the tango. It takes two. Bonus sighting: You'll usually see some chick's pants that are WAY too low in the back sitting down gettin' ass full-o-air. Can't she feel that wind? Dang gurrl pull 'em up!

10. A wine list a shwank SF restaurant would envy. We've usually been too heavily beaten over the head by the buzz fairy to get all wino up there, but we do know a solid list when we see one. Word. Plus they have some fancy wines by the glass. So all ya cheap drunks, you can actually make believe you have class and only have to buy a single glass. Rock on!

11. It is a straight shot of 3 miles to our chez J&J. Now that's worth lovin'!

So if that's not enough to persuade you to hang at SS winter or summer, you have a serious aversion to fun. Go away. Unsubscribe. All you others, we expect to see you up there pronto!

Sunnyside
1850 West Lake Blvd.
Tahoe City, CA 96145
530-583-7200

The Brickhouse - South Beach

I have NO idea why we haven't blogged about THIS PLACE yet. I mean it's been in South Beach forever and is about a 3 minute walk from our pad. Therapists often say sometimes you treat those closest to you like crap, sorry Brickhouse, we do love you.

To say that this place should be right in the heart of Eugene Oregon is an understatement people. What do I mean? It's like Brickhouse asked someone to go to a few yard sales in Eugene put on by a bunch of stoners with dreads and tats (who incidentally can also be found selling puppies for $5 each out of shopping carts at Saturday Market), bought the entire garage of mismatched furniture, drove it right down and POOF you have your kitschy little Brickhouse. We love you!

Lunch is amazing, Tuesdays and Thursdays they've got the Hot and Wild Pig sando that'll knock your socks off! Mondays and Fridays go for the Happy Meatball, great name, who isn't happy eating meatballs? No friend of mine I tell ya. Oh and don't think you can go in at lunch, plop your ass down and start sucking down their free wifi, no-go. They want paying customers not Starbucks loungers that run their entire day from a wing chair drinking ONE cup-a-joe. Cheap asses.

Go for a burger for dinner, made from WAGYU Beef. The Big Ass Burger is truly a great description.

Did we say full bar? No but I'm sayin' it now, LOUD. FULL BAR.

What we really go for? Sundays? Brunch? You betcha. Knock down a huge plate 'o eggs. They say it's two eggs, but we'd like to see the chicken those eggs came from. That musta hurt. Make sure you get the mimosa with 'em. They're heavy handed with the old sparklin'.

So go there, have fun, tell 'em VinDivine sent ya.

The Brickhouse
426 Brannan St.
San Francisco, CA 94107
415-369-0222