Where to Go at 3 a.m. to Cash Your Paycheck

They Be Hookahs 'n' Hose up in Thar!

There Goes the Neighborhood...Again

Truly a sign of the ever changing times was the arrival of this sign yesterday, three doors down from me and two down from the Roosevelt Tamale Parlor. I'm assuming it's an offshoot of this place out in the Avenues.

No Feelings, But Senses for Sale

I have heard from more than one reliable source that there is a restaurant called Feelings on Charles Street in New Orleans. Now before you start laughing and saying that "Feelings" is the worst song ever written, go back and watch Nina Simone's spine tingling reworking of that tune that plumbs its modest lyrics for emotions you never knew you had.
We don't have a Feelings in San Francisco, but we did have a Senses that is now for sale. This sort of Basque restaurant at 1152 Valencia was preceded by the unfortunately named Watergate, one of the first attempts in the late 1990s to bring finer dining to Valencia that has since become more common. Once Watergate closed, they reopened as...Watercress. Most hilariously, they didn't bother to take down the old sign but just put awnings over it with the new name. A, get it, new Watergate cover-up. I wished they'd followed it with Monica's.

I'm sort of pissed that Firecracker has closed on Valencia and will now be the third Indian restaurant within a block. Mind you, I love South Asian restaurant as much as anyone, but I will miss Firecracker's feel of being an opium den for recreational users, as if it were a place a dowager from Atherton might escape to let her hair down. And I really dug their yin-yang prawns.

Anyway, here are some names I've long toyed around with for trendy restaurants:
* iPod, uJayne Mansfield
* kNeebraska
* Susan Anton's Suddenly Salad!
* Feelings West
* East Dakota/West Dakota
* Gregg's Eggs
* Fred's Fried Slophouse
* The Russian T-Room...Too
* The Gravy-on-a-Stick Warehouse
* Carlos' Cuy-town
* Just Pho U
* The Chupalines Junction
* The French Coin-op Laundry

...and I Don't See No Horns on You, Boy

Interesting article in the current issue of New York magazine about Taavo Somer and his whole empire of Freemans restaurant and adjacent clothing store, the Rusty Knot bar and other enterprises. It seems that antlers and taxidermy are not just a Paxton Gate/west coast thing. I have to admit I've always had a greater weakness for boho/bobo/shabby chic over sleek chic, but all the same, I think I agree with those who dismiss this dude as being a total douche bag. Regardless, the whole look seems like the 826 Valencia/Paxton vibe ramped up a bit in that whole super groovy lower Manhattan sort of way. But it just doesn't seem as fun as it might have been 30 or 40 years ago. Or, to quote the only memorable line from the tediously self-important Short Bus, "It's just like the '60s...without the hope." But, at the same time, the clothing store does seem sort of cool, though I'd prefer to head out and create my own aesthetic instead of paying him for it. And $88 for hand scrawled t-shirts at Barneys? No thanks. Though the descriptions of Somer's aesthetic -- ironic and earnest, neurotic and carefree, cool and cheeseball -- certainly resonate with me, but his personal style evidenced below certainly doesn't inspire any straight-bait lust in my heart. I'll stick with Futball Club Barcelona instead.

Interactive Thursday - Worst Name

Tugboat Dave down in New Orleans was suggesting the other day that this was the worst name for a restaurant anywhere. I say, Fuku. Not you, Dave, the restaurant. Well, you can guess the proper way to pronounce it. It's in J-town here in SF. Actually, not bad sushi.

Yes, I know we're totally off schedule, but perhaps readers can suggest their local variant
on the worst named restaurant. Sorry, Popeye's and KFC don't count.

In Your Gut You Know He's a Nut

I'm posting this one with a tip of the beret to Bryce Digdug, who is not above writing about conservative politicians. Funny thing is, today one actually wishes old Barry was around since today's right wingers make him seem downright sensible. All the same, whenever I see this in transit (where I write this using the rare free wifi offered a Phoenix's Sky Harbor terminal, which along with lack of snow in the winter make it an ideal transit point), I have to ponder: "He's terminal? I could swear I heard that he died at least 12 years ago. However, in case I didn't mention it earlier, I was able to confirm that General Franco is still dead. I doubt he'd approve of those tasty little hombres walking hand in hand along Passeig de Gracia, but I sure did.

Vetting the Chocolate for Symmetry

Two things that it is hoped you will never see on JunkThief are posts with titles like “50 Things About Me” or “Random Thoughts on a Tuesday.” Granted, JunkThief is very fond of randomness, the synergy of synchronicity, and just plain dumb luck. But the phrase “random thoughts” is just too overflowing with contradictory linear imagery. And, as you all know, JunkThief is anything but linear.

A nifty new book in the JunkThief library is, appropriately, Symmetry – The Ordering Principle by David Wade, a svelte 58-page volume that magically weaves art, mathematics and 19^th and 18^th century woodblock prints. JunkThief has long wrestled with his perfectionist symmetrical tendencies and striving towards wabi-sabi rough hewn informality, and these two sometimes merge, only to leave him wondering if this convergence is an illusion or self-deception.

Trying to decide which of these to embrace is part of the eternal process of vetting. That word is not used by JunkThief multiple times a day but probably manages to weave into a conversation or email 4-5 times a week. Needless to say it was given pause when one of his coworkers, who has a Ph.D. from that school in Cambridge that starts with an H asked him while reading a forwarded email, “’Vetting’? Is that something that can be used as a verb?” Yes, it actually can, and she seemed to grasp that it is sort of like sifting and sorting, though more specifically;

To examine or investigate (especially a person) thoroughly; to check someone for suitability or reliability for a particular activity, especially a job which requires a high degree of loyalty or trust

Being in the process of hiring people for three positions and dealing with 300-350 resumes, vetting is a word passed back and forth a lot with HR. JunkThief goes through the vetting process in many corners of his life and often finds that all the grains of sand fall through the sieve.

Today’s “resignation” by Cindy Sheehan, came barely 12 hours after JunkThief was having a conversation last night with fellow blogger/writer The Blue Elephant about activists in general and the work of Medea Benjamin and Code Pink in general. JunkThief made some brash statement about her and then retracted them partially by saying that while he probably agrees with most of Benjamin and Sheehan’s points, he just don’t want to listen to what he often finds to be shrill rhetoric. Then he looked a number of Benjamin’s video clips before work this morning and was amazed by how balanced and sane she sounds in interviews.

What’s saddest about Sheehan’s “retirement” is how some of statements almost echo Nixon’s gubernatorial concession speech. ``Good-bye America ... you are not the country that I love and I finally realized no matter how much I sacrifice, I can't make you be that country unless you want it,'' she said. ``It's up to you now.'' Further she went on to say that she was the face of the anti-war movement, something that plenty of other activists could take as an insult. It is easy to understand why she would be so fatigued, angry, discouraged and confused. But it’s hard to understand why someone who dedicated so much time to a cause would give up at a point when public opinion has changed dramatically, no doubt in part due to her efforts, even if the White House has not budged.

It will take time to know if all of her work made any difference or how she’ll be remembered.

The hopelessly randomness of all these comings and goings swirled into JunkThief’s mind as the bill and chocolates came at the end of dinner down the street at Manivanh this evening. Eating there three to four times a month, JunkThief has never been given the same brand of chocolates twice. Tonight’s offering was the best yet from Hoshall’s Salon and Spa in Folsom, California, bringing a touch of comfort in knowing that each person plays his or her own role as a JunkThief to move the world randomly forward.

And Now I Have Sporked

So now I have had the Spork experience in the former KFC venue on Valencia. I'd held off for a month or so until they'd gotten beyond first few weeks jitters and before there were crowds. I went tonight around 7 and was one of maybe six dinners.

I'll surely return, but I have to say it gets about an 8 for concept and a 5 for execution. The staff is all adorable, incredibly pleasant without being in your face and the sea bass I had was perfectly acceptable. But for $30-35 do I really want to go to a former KFC instead of having something more memorable at Chenery Park? Surely their menu will expand, and it is certainly a place to go with a group or a date instead of going solo. (Going solo? Oh, about that, I've decided it's definitely time to get intentional about changing that soon, but more on that topic later.)

Aside from that, their "fortune cookies" featured above were certainly fun.

I Spork on the Grave of the Colonel!

Okay, I'll admit it, every six months or so, I used to get a hankering that I just could not hold back and would have to go into the only true fast food franchise on Valencia, the KFC at Hill Street. It was mainly about those fries, I'll admit, but I usually tried find a way to hide in one of the back booths since it's pretty rare that I don't run into a familiar face on Valencia. Just imagine the horror of one of my Herbivore buds catching me gnawing on an extra crispy wing, the grease dripping on my chin. I was once spied by a passing acquaintance who gave me a glare much more judgmental than if he'd seen me snorting crack (or do you shoot it?) as I put a "spork" full of that nasty cole slaw in my mouth. Cole slaw? Sorry, I just never got the appeal.

How fitting, then, that the new semi-upscale Spork has taken over the former KFC venue. The reviews on Yelp are generally positive, and I will likely try it out sometime in the next few weeks before it gets discovered.

One of the things that separates fast food venues' transformations in San Francisco from those in the Midwest is that here they become a place where you can now buy a $15 hamburger and in the "heartland" they become all-you-can-eat Chinese food buffets where you can get a platter full of heart-clogging food for $6.99. Same grease, new package.

I'm sure the food at Spork is good, but dern that grey exterior looks just like the Colonel's meat!

Living Daylights

Okay, besides the fact that it was much too hot in San Francisco today and I managed to reset all the "manual" clocks in the house early yesterday afternoon, can someone explain to me why it usually takes Sprint at least 24 hours before they reset to the accurate time? It has happened consistently for the 5-6 years I've used them as my main mobile carrier. Both computers updated themselves automatically as did a $15 Crate & Barrel travel clock, but not the Treo 650. I was also surprised that the less than a year-old, fairly pricey SONY DVD recorder didn't reset itself. I'm sure it will next month.

I hope that I am not starting my work day at 6 a.m. or 10 a.m., though the fact that I have coworkers in about 15 different time zones always adds confusion to it all.

Then there is the fact that there is a 15 minute time change when you go from Nepal to India. Nepal did it just to prove that they are not part of India

Anyway, it has cooled down enough I can go out for yin yang prawns at Firecracker.

UPDATE: Okay, Duh-moment alert. I turned the phone off and then back on and it went back to contemporary time. Hey, it took me three years to do a MySpace page. Now if the IT guy could just tell me why I can't print...

I miss the Taco Nazi

For more than 80 years the Roosevelt Tamle Parlour at 2817 24th Street, between Bryant and York, and less than a block from my house, was an institution of the southeastern corner of the Mission. Having lived in the neighborhood for nearly a decade, I saw it go through minimal changes. Its lack of high end ambiance was as much of a draw as the food itself -- which was, by the way, consistently fresh, tasty, served within ten minutes and in huge portions at reasonable prices. As its menu stated, they served "treats for the hungry," and you certainly never left with an empty stomach. Reportedly it had been in the family of the owner Maria for generations, and you felt like you were coming into her living room. And she managed to make you feel they way you would were you to drop in unannounced at someone's house expecting a meal. You certainly weren't greeted with a big "Hello, how are you? So glad you are are here!" Save that for Chevy's. The place was usually packed, and you were expected to stand quietly and wait your turn. Were you to commit the cardinal sin of sitting down at a table just as a customer were leaving, you would hear Maria scream out "Don't sit at the dirty tables!"

The place was always very clean and tidy, and you certainly never feared getting food poisining there. Until its last couple of years, it had vinyl faux panelling, paintings on velvet, beer posters and pictures of Teddy Roosevelt. Even more memorable were the hand scrawled signed. "Do NOT bring in outside beverages." "Do NOT lean on the glass counter." "Do NOT touch or take the chips. If you want chips, you can order them from the menu." And, the ultimate rule "Do NOT sit at dirty tables." That one was usually underscored at least twice, often three or more times.

Maria was certainly never outright rude nor would she ever directly insult a customer, but customer service was certainly not her forte. When she brought you a plate, she'd say, "There you go." Or when you paid your bill, it was the same as she handed you your change: "There you go." Never, "And how was everything?" Or, "Please come again!" And in nearly a decade of going there at least three to four times a month, not once did I hear thank you, hello or how are you. Since I never made the faux pas of sitting at a dirty table, we never had a conflict. I think the extent of our conversations were "What will you have?" and "There you go."

All of this would lead you to believe that she had street people coming in and she needed to keep them in line. But 99% of her customers were slumming yuppies from Noe Valley or the Castro, and perhaps they came for the show and thrill of being put in their place as much as they did for the food.

Once, after she decided to paint over the panelling with white paint, I politely commented as I paid my bill that the place looked very nice, she said, without looking up, "Yeah, I thought I'd spruce of the place. There you go." Clunk, as the change went in my hand.

It's not even been a month, and time will tell, but I have to admit the new and remodeled Roosevelt was a bit of a disappointment on my first visit. While the decor is certainly spiffy compared to the old vinyl paneling, The only familiar decor item was a small portrait of Teddy Roosevelt. (The place's incongrous name supposedly comes from what was once the Roosevelt Theater in the next block that is now the Brava.)

The menu was extremely limited -- mainly the place's namesake tamales which is an expected offering, but honestly something I never ordered in the old days. The service set up was a little confusing as well. I couldn't figure if it was counter or table service, and the woman that helped me seemed equally confused. When I ordered, she told me how much the order would be, came back two minutes later and told me that it would be a good idea if I paid before the order came. The food, turkey tamales, was fine as tamales go, but it was not particularly memorable.

I am sure that I will go back and give it a second try, but I suspect nothing will ever equal the memory of the old place. Some of that is just realizing that someone familiar that you took for granted is gone and will never be back to serve "treats for the hungry." Sort of like the feeling when an annoying aunt passes on and you suddenly know how you miss her even more than her peach cobbler at holiday gatherings.

Maria has not left the neighborhood, as far as I know, since she pops up now and then on 24th Street, but the Roosevelt will never be the same without her. Maybe the next time I see her I’ll tell her “There you go,” just for old times sake.

UPDATE OF JULY 20: Tonight I went back for a second run at the place after seeing it packed over the course of the past couple of weeks. I was clearly to harsh on my first trip. There was very efficient and friendly table service. The menu, though not filled with the old standards such as the beloved "treats for the hungry," was as extensive as the old days. The chips were free (!!!!) and some of the best I've had, and the enchilladas espanolas that I ordered were good if not exactly memorable. I am sure that I'll go back, just not every week as in the old days if I want to stay the weight I am aiming for.

And who should I hear at the next table babbling away about the 1980s 49ers, Reba McIntyre, her mortgage and cats, SF politics and how she managed to keep off the pounds by not eating there twice a week. Yep, dear old Maria. She was her same old self, though I must say she has really trimmed down and looked good. It was sort of like having an ex-communicated relative inviting herself to a family reunion or taking pleasure in chilis so hot that one takes pleasure in the pain. I felt as if I'd come home again.