VinDivine - Living it Up John & Janine Style

An Open Letter to K&L Human Resources

Dear K&L HR,

It's me. Your favorite Mystery Shopper. I don't ask for a dime. Just your consistent, enduring snobbery. And for that I thank you. Hell, what else would I jabber about?!

Sooo. Time stamp this one K&L HR: Friday July 18 3:19-3:27 PM PST. SOMA branch. No one can buy a mixed case faster than me! Especially because no one ever bothers to interrupt me to see if I need help! Or bothers with idle chit-chat at the checkout line. Time-suckers like 'Hi there", "Did you find everything OK" and "Thanks, come again" are so superficial and they downright invade my personal space. Glad you understand. If I ever have to visit Stalingrad I'll come here first for some immersion training.

So why, with all this bitching, do I pull out a baseball statistic ".500" for today's visit? Well, 'cuz one person was quite friendly and one was a dismissive prick. That's why.:) Hey, you asked.

So, back to you, HR: You have a slightly older gentleman that was working this shift. Gray/white hair, spectacles, and a beard...Holy crap you hired Santa Claus! Oh. Nevermind. That was silly. Anyhoo this guy was very nice, asked if he could help me and created a less-than-icy situation at the check out. 'Cuz the dude that rang me up - back to physical descriptions here.

BTW HR, why don't you make your people wear name tags?! It'd be so much easier! Hmmm, maybe a symptom of a deeper issue...Well, enough of my armchair psychiatry. So the checker whisked in (no one was behind the counter), didn't even look at me or utter a word, and just started ringing up the bottles. 'Robotic' comes to mind. Oh yeah, the physical description! Ha. Lost myself for a second. Tall, 'bout 6' I'd guess, mid-30's, spends too much time getting that hair coiffed, little earring in the right lobe. Oh, one last detail I almost forgot. Gender = male. That may help you nail it down.

But like Santa swooping down on a snowy rooftop to bring cheer to the kiddies, your star employee that previously offered help came right over, discussed the wines and foods they went with as he was boxing them (although he fell kinda silent when he saw the $9 bottle of Bogle) and...wait for it...offered to help lug it out to the car! Kudos, nice person without a name tag so I cannot give you real props!

Two takeaways today, HR:
1) As I have asked before, talk to Finance and free up a few bucks for a couple more mini-shopping carts. It will have a positive ROI.
2) Batting .500 might earn ya  a Ty Cobb award in baseball, but it's a pretty crappy standard for a business!

Local Kitchen & Wine Market

Yeah that's right. We waited for the dust to settle on this one. Local shmokal, we said. If it survives beyond 6 months we'll check it out. I mean, we are a busy, dynamic duo, in-demand troupe. As you are well aware. So on day 181, 'ol J&J and our fresh-back from Manchu Picchu friend Candida stormed the place Saturday night. And without a resie! Clutch my pearls. Anyhoo, we dug this place from the get-go. And even though they were crowded the hostess was cool and assured us we'd get a table pronto. And we weren't even wearing our VdV blazers. How Did She Know?! Are we that famous? LOL.

Sooo, after waving at Claus, the guy we know from 21A that really talks this place up and getting ZERO recognition from the rat bastard and making us feel pathetic for making a big deal about saying "oh that's Claus! Hi Claus...HI CLAUS!!!" and getting no love we slinked (slunked?) around back to the bar.

The layout here is pretty groovy. Cool. Sorry I'm not in the mood to get into it any more than that. So we find 2 seats at the bar, a couple people leave and we pounce and decide to just eat there instead of waiting for the table Claus still has not vacated. And it was all good except for the bloated self-important bartender-who-knows-all is a d-bag and completely (or at least sorta) condescending about how he knows all about the 'daily rotating' wine list and we know shit. Just about when I was gonna introduce him to Mr. Knuckly and my 5-year old biz card from wine.com, J calms me with a flirty little Albarino. Mmmm. Nice.  A pretty nice wine list to boot. Saved that bartender's ass, let me tell ya.

The menu is hot to trot as well, especially if you think 'wine bar' vs. 'gastronomica'. That's right. 5 syllables. Check it. Anyway, they have a great selection of semi-thin crust pizzas, we had the Margarita Pizza. Great sauce, and BUFALA mozzie to boot. Only hint - put large, full basil leaves on top (look left...do you see large, full basil leaves on top?!).

Then JP and I shared the Organic Chicken w/ Panzanella. Two great tastes that taste great together. Killer roti bird with panzanella - and y'all dunno what that is, it's bread salad, and in this particular case with balsamic red onions, heirloom tomatoes and arugula. Yeah baby.

I have absolutely NO recollection of what Candi ate, but she seemed happy. Hell, after eating weeds and porridge in South America for 2 weeks I guess the bar was set pretty low! Ha. But no disrespect to the Local, this place is solid.

A few other enu stand-outs: Truffle & Parmesan Fries, Coppa & Pepperoni Pizza; Croque Monsieur; and a kick-ass brunch. Go guurrllll.

The take-away? I give this place a solid 7.5, maybe an 8. Coulda gone to an 8.5 without the 'tude from the 'tender. Oh well. I do think it may have been flukely and overall the people are cool. Go! And if you get that d-bag bartender, just ignore him and have an extra glass of wine. It gets pretty fun to make fun of him!