A seething mass of turgid drama.

Yesterday the wife and I went for a hike in Marin. We didn't get to the waterfall that the trail was supposed to lead to, but we had a great walk in the redwoods that always rejuvenates me. Plus some fantasizing about houses along a creek and surrounded by said redwoods. I would completely be in my happy place if we lived there.

Dinner out was at a Fronch-Californian-Japanese restaurant we've been to before. We keep going back because it punches above its price point in quality, and since we're usually seated at the long bar where they plate we get dinner and a show. Last night was a dinner with a Mendocino winemaker and the place was completely booked - which good for them. Dinner was excellent as usual, though the rich food did interfere with my sleep as I expected. And I'm going to eat lightly today...

Thursday the wife and I drove to the other side of the City for dinner and a movie. We went to our usual place when visiting this theater - a family-run Chinese restaurant. Sadly they aren't doing soup dumplings anymore but we still enjoyed some of our usuals: green onion pancake, green beans with chile, and dry-fried chicken wings (which are fabulous). The service is pretty slow but even with commute-hour traffic we had plenty of time.

We saw Spinal Tap II the day before it opened. I'm not quite sure how this indie theater gets to do that but I'm not complaining. The movie wasn't as good as the original, but it was never going to be. The Comicle put it well: it may not go to 11, only 8, but still rocks. We enjoyed it.

I have started brining 5 lbs pork loin to replenish our lonza stores, and am attempting a puff pastry sausage roll tonight for dinner. Mildly ambitious but that's okay for a weekend, and I'm using commercial puff pastry because I am not insane.

The wife's birthday was Saturday and I took Friday off. Our friends M&C came up for Friday lunch, because she loves making lasagna (and is really good at it) and we have a local lasagneria that we like. They enjoyed it and it's always good spending non-SCA time with them.

Saturday she did some shopping, and then we went out for dinner. I had read good reviews of a small restaurant called 7 Adams and the wife thought it sounded good. With some careful planning, I booked seats at their 6-person "chef's counter" - it's a short bar in front of their wine fridge, with a small prep station for some basic plating. Unlike Mijoté you don't get the full "cooks prepping in front of you" experience, but one of the cooks/ sommelier/ owner-chef each took turns explaining each course as it was presented. The chef's counter is a 10-course meal - thankfully all the courses are a few bites, so it isn't way too much food.

The abbreviated menu:
a soft-boiled egg and caviar, in an extremely cute egg dish with chicken feet
sea urchin roe and cauliflower mousse
scallop crudo
tagliolini (pasta) with black trumpet mushroom and shaved black truffle
black cod with rice porridge
a buffalo wing
roast duck
a rhubarb tartlet
cheesecake and shortbread

The pasta was a particular standout - I wanted to faceplant in a much-larger bowl of it. The buffalo wing was a gourmet (deboned) homage, as the chef/owner is from Buffalo NY. The roast duck was just as good as the pasta.

The whole thing took nearly 3 hours but didn't feel like it. I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked, predictably due to rich food and wine. Worth it though.

For my birthday, we went to see an Irish sketch comedy troupe that was in town. We saw them around the same time last year and apparently their tour was successful enough to 1) do another one; 2) play larger venues, including Carnegie Hall. In SF they booked the Warfield and it seemed mostly full.

We drove to the area - I didn't want to deal with getting a late-night Sunday cab - found some sketchy parking (it's all sketchy around there; we should have used one of the hotel lots), and went to a regional Italian pizza place for dinner. They call it "pinsa", and it's more flatbread-based. Think the '80s Stouffer's pizza... but much better. Plenty of customers even on a Sunday night. If it was local to us I could see hitting it for happy hour.

This year I was able to get better seats for the show. We were in the second row, about 10' from the stage. This did mean a bit of neck-craning but also meant we were in the interaction zone. The show was good - mostly short sketches but they started with some audience questions that they mined throughout the whole show. Early on they started making fun of San Francisco for having multiple names: "You use Frisco!" and we all booed. "And San Fran." We booed again. "What do you use as a short name then?" "The City." "Oh, that's not pretentious. But you do hate Los Angeles." We cheered.

I did yell out one thing during their last skit that was a callback to one of their questions, and got smirks as they incorporated it.

A fun evening, but we didn't get home until 10:30 so I am listless today. I should probably fortify up with a second cup of coffee.

The wife had some errands to run downtown, so we met for lunch - the dim sum that we had tried to get for dinner a few weeks ago.

It was quite good, we ate a bit more than we should have, and I suspect we will only have a light salad for dinner. Now back to work.

We saw Hot Fuzz last night at the local theater. We'd seen it before, of course - we have it on DVD and re-watch every few years, because it is a well-done action film/buddy cop satire. It's also really tightly written, which I appreciate. But we had never seen it on the big screen.

Anyway. This was billed as a "party movie night" so they allowed you to interact with the movie, presumably much-lower Rocky Horror style. It didn't really work. I think we were the only ones who yelled out "The Greater Good!" each time it was chanted. But it was fun, and of course the explosions and gunfire were much more over the top on a professional sound system. They also gave us aviator glasses, a fake moustache to look like the Andys, and a police badge. No one put them on during the show but the wife and I will take a picture later today.

I did catch a Doris sex joke that I hadn't noticed before - at the village fair she is standing with two men, looking at a roast pig, and says "That'll be me in a few hours." Because it's spit-roasted. I laughed.

Tired because we got home later than I usually do on a work night, but I had planned to work from home today to at least give me a bit more time in the morning.