We spent the Christmas holiday doing local fun things, making food and sometimes eating out with mixed results on both fronts. The highlights, however, were clearly the roasted duck legs braised with mixed vegetables on Christmas Eve, and the tailgate picnic from the back of my Volvo in the parking lot of Indian Springs Resort in Calistoga on New Years Eve. I have been going to Indian Springs, aka “the World’s Biggest Hot Tub,” since the early 2000s and usually around my birthday in February. We have tried the resort in spring and early summer and it’s only worth a winter-time visit when the hot mineral water can be truly appreciated. This time we just booked massages and bought day passes for the pool. It was a glorious winter day – not a cloud in the sky and 43 degrees, and it was the final day of the year.
On the way in to town for our late morning massages at the resort, we stopped by Buster’s to pick up grilled St. Louis ribs and BBQ chicken with sides of coleslaw and potato salad. After some pool time and massages, we went to the parking lot and ate the meat and sides room temperature. Messy and delicious! The greatest disappointment was the Prime Rib on Christmas. I made it right, and it was a great cut of meat, but for the money, time and trouble I would just as well do with grilling Snake River ribeye’s on the Weber, with charcoal and mesquite wood. The meat cooks all the way through on both sides and there are no leftovers. I made a pretty good ribeye hash last night, however, with the leftovers after working for 30 minutes or so defatting the two-bone rib roast. I got the recipe from Mark Bittman in his book, How to Cook Everything. It’s one of the most useful cookbooks on the market, in my opinion.
The most fun meal of the holiday was at Ristorante Milano on Pacific Avenue in the Russian Hill neighborhood of old San Francisco. We went in to the city for a night a couple days after Christmas, on a Monday, when most of the go-to restaurants were closed. Yet we scored with Milano, a place that our cocktail server recommended when we went to the grand Fairmont Hotel at the top of the hill where California and Powell cross. I thought it was a good idea to ask a local where she would go for Italian and she recommended two spots, both in Russian Hill, and booked us a table at Milano, which is presumably owned by a man from Milan, Italy. The owner was certainly Italian and had the restaurant for 32 years, all in the same location.
The dining room was small, intimate, and could only seat 24 people or so with the 8-9 tables in the place. We were seated at a two-top in the middle of what amounts to a row of tables, adjacent to the kitchen. It’s the kind of place you find in big cities where the rents are expensive and the tables close enough to one another that it is impossible not to hear the conversations going on at the next table. In such a case I am sometimes tempted to say things to my dining partner like, “do you think we should hit the bank in full daylight or take out the Brinks truck when it arrives for pick up.” I wonder if I would get a knock on the door the next day. But no point in getting people worked up needlessly so I refrain and make polite talk, avoiding politics and pornography. Interesting grouping, those two subjects, aren’t they?
Anyway we checked the wine list and quickly selected a Tenuta Di Arcento, a 2019 Classic Chianti. The wine was delicious though it was colder than it should be. I held it in my hands for minutes trying to get it to a warmer temperature. As we looked at the menu – playing tourists for a day, both of us had had fish and chips and fish tacos at Fisherman’s Wharf in the afternoon and weren’t starving, yet did want bowls of pasta and roasted or steamed vegetables, I noted the music, which was horn-based and I don’t know how to describe the genre, but did, saying it sounds like music in a Woody Allen movie. Clarinet for sure. You know the sound. Before we ordered food a group of six were seated next to us and they were an eclectic group, featuring a man that could have been a commercial real estate broker or homebuilder, seemingly his wife, who was dressed in nice clothing that had a whiff of hippy to it that might have been purchased at an interesting and very high-end second-hand store. Both Caucasian and north of 55 easily. There was a young white man, 30ish, and a young Asian woman in her late 20s. They might have been a couple – he, the son of the older white couple and his Asian girlfriend. Then there were two Asian woman, one attractive and late 40s or early 50s and the other even more attractive and late 30s. The older one might have been the young Asian woman’s mother, and the other a family friend. They were all clearly close and enjoyed each other and it reminded me that we were in a real city where diversity is commonplace, unlike the suburbs and hinterlands where ethnic groups tend to stay close to their respective tribes. Even so, the blending of people and ages contributed to the Woody Allen theme… it is something that you might see in one of his movies, most if not all of which are very urban and urbane in terms of the movie set. Also, his movies tend to center on relationships, and interesting ones at that, with complexities, nuances, perhaps a little controversy, sexuality…. all the good stuff!
Just before ordering pasta (I had the spaghetti with lamb meatballs while my date went with a pasta and mushrooms dish with ground pork and we shared a plate of perfectly cooked mixed vegetables of broccoli rabe, asparagus, zucchini and peppers), two young women were seated at the two-top next to us. It wasn’t long before the one next to me addressed my date and said, accurately, that she had beautiful hazel eyes. That got the conversation going. The young ladies were tech worker colleagues from a previous company. The gal on the bench seating, opposite of me and next to my date, was a cute blonde, looking straight out of the Midwest, Iowa or Wisconsin maybe. We’ll call her Alexa (not her real name). The friendlier and more talkative of the two – Kimberly (not her real name), was also attractive but in a different way. She had a great personality and was enthusiastic about life, and also a food nut with a blog, I think. She certainly took photos of all the plates their table received. Kimberly asked about our Chianti, which we fully endorsed, so I asked one of the waiters to bring over a couple of wine glasses so they could taste it. He more or less ignored me and moments later the proprietor showed up and with his back to my date and I, took the wine order from our new young friends. I guess he needs to hustle up more wine sales. Regardless they ordered the same bottle and when served, the four of us raised our glasses and toasted the New Year.
Plates of food arrived at both tables and the conversation heated up as if we had planned to meet at the restaurant and catch up on our lives. On the other side of us… the urbane six-top, they were getting louder and more jovial as food and wine was consumed. All in good fun. We were out in a crowded tiny restaurant and just living life!
I can’t say that the conversation between us and Kimberly/Alexa was getting flirty but was getting warmer and more familiar, when my date took a leave from the table for the restroom. It was then that Kimberly asked for one of my business cards. I answered that I would be happy to give her one if my date did not object. When my date returned to the table I asked in a low voice if she would object if Kimberly got one of my cards, and rather than reply to me she announced to Kimberly that it wouldn’t be a problem and said something else that I don’t remember, but Kimberly’s reply was a little defensive, saying “oh don’t you worry you are the queen bee and besides, he lives in Santa Rosa.” Santa Rosa! I wondered if the implication was that I resided in a farming community or some other version of “hick town” or that I was merely geographically unfriendly (GU to players!) and that side visits ostensibly for romance would not be possible when you are separated by 55 miles and have to cross a bridge (the Golden Gate!) to connect.
Oh the weakness of the male mind, in this case, mine, when that little exchange allowed me to enter the realm of fantasy and think, for a moment, that I was about to end up in a foursome in which not a single golf ball is involved! Me and the three lovely ladies.
It was about then that I had the thought, and mumbled: “We are in a Woody Allen movie.”
All three of the women looked at me and asked: “What did you say?”
But not in a disbelieving way…they simply had not heard me.
“Nothing,” I said. “The music in this place just reminds me of a Woody Allen movie.”