All that glitters is good.....

All that glitters is good.....

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Cha Cha Cha= Yum Yum Yum!

Last weekend we had friends in town and wanted to take them out for good food, so The Mission was the obvious choice. However, I am notoriously bad at planning ahead and making reservations, so the first few places we went to had waits over an hour. After wandering up and down Mission St, we decided to venture into Cha Cha Cha (2327 Mission St, cha3.com). There's also another location in the city at 1801 Haight. The place was packed, but large with lots of tables crammed in so the wait wasn't too bad. There's a long bar in the middle of the restaurant, so we saddled up and ordered a pitcher of the white sangria, which was quite peachy and refreshing. While Cha Cha Cha has some entrees on the menu, it's mainly about the tapas. We ordered the fried calamari, steamed black mussels, sauteed mushrooms, fried platanos maduros and both the chicken and pork quesadillas. While everything was pretty tasty, the black mussels steamed in garlic, tomatoes, fresh herbs and saffron broth was the scene stealer. They were fresh, flavorful and light. We also had a pitcher of the red sangria during dinner. While it was good, I think the white was better just because it was a little different. After hitting up Cha Cha Cha, we headed for drinks at the Beauty Bar down the street. The place was packed, the drinks were strong and the music was great. All in all, a good night out on Mission Street!


Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Movies of the week

Last week I Netflixed the animated movie "Rango." I was excited to see it, as I missed it in theaters and the previews made it look so funny. Well, turns out the movie studio did that thing where they put all the funny parts in the preview. The rest of the movie was bizarre. It was like they were trying to spoof a classic Western, but it went terribly, terribly wrong. I lost interest a hour in. There are very few movies I don't watch the whole way through and this was one of them. I did like the singing owls though, they were the best part for me. And you could definitely tell the lizard was Johnny Depp's voice, but much less handsome than the real thing.

The next movie I saw was "Dinner With the Schmucks." This time I came in with low expectations. This is actually the American version of a French film I had to watch in college "Le Diner de Cons." And it has Paul Rudd in it, who I love but who has also making some questionable movie choices. The preview made it look awful but it was on HBO, so I figured why not. Let me preface this by saying that I'm NOT recommending it, I'm just saying it exceeded my low expectations. I'd give it 3 stars. It made me laugh out loud a couple times. It also made me as uncomfortable as a Ben Stiller movie. And I definitely got a kick out of their weird mice dioramas Steve Carell's character makes.
The last movie I saw was a couple nights ago. It was the recently release "Unknown" starring Liam Neeson, Diane Kruger and January Jones. I really like all three of those actors and in general they all tend to make good role choices. The movie had an intriguing premise (guy wakes up from a taxi accident and no one remembers him, life as he knows it is gone). I won't ruin anything for you, but let's just say it gets extremely similar to "The Bourne Identity." It became so along those plot lines that the movie stopped being exciting and was just annoying. Get a new plot twist people. My boyfriend was bored through the whole movie and a boring thriller has no point at all. All and all, wait for cable to see this one.



Thursday, August 18, 2011

Outisde Lands Recap

You can tell I'm crazy at work when I don't have time to review my weekend until Thursday! I went to Outside Lands, which is a 3 day music festival in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. This year it was August 12th-14th. I've been to Lollapalooza multiple times and I went to Coachella last year. This is by far my favorite fest so far. San Francisco weather means no sweating to death in the mosh pits or suffering from dehydration. The park is gorgeous. Rolling Stone called this the "fest for foodies" which is totally accurate. There were so many delicious options at the rows of food tents. There's a forested part of the grounds that has the "Food Truck Forest" and "Chocoland." Chocoland has a mixture of faux sweets and skulls dangling from the trees, for a truly awesome effect.


Here's my rundown of the music. Day 1 I had to work in the morning so I missed my favorite new band, The Joy Formidable. Apparently they played a 10-minute version of "Whirrling." I made it half way through Phantogram's set and got to hear my favorite songs. I would definitely see them again. We stayed for Ellie Goulding, who I didn't know much about but heard rave reviews about her Lollapalooza performance. The reviews were right, this chick is awesome and did some sweet drumming. Then we waited for Big Boi's set, which was the biggest disappointment ever. He never went on and after an hour Dave Chappel went on to do a couple minutes of super awkward standup. Apparently he was there and was running late because his deejay went to the wrong stage (WTF). He tweeted "They only gave me 20 mins, this was outta my control, I Will " NOT " do a half ass show. Tried to go on after Badu. Not possible. Sorry." Seriously? People just stood around waiting for you! Do a couple songs and do them good. No one said anything about having to do it half-assed. Give your fans something. Ugh, no longer a fan of Big Boi. Finished off the day with a partial show by The Shins, which just felt a little lackluster.

Day 2 started out with a little Bob Schneider, who I haven't heard in forever. We took a little detour to have an awesome dance party in the Heineken Dome, which was so fun and bar far the best branding at the fest.We caught Arctic Monkeys at the main stage, who put on an energetic show that had the whole crowd singing. After that was The Black Keys, which is always a mellow show. They had a cool stage setup. I finished off the night choosing Muse over Girl Talk and I'm glad I made that decision. Muse was amazing and probably my favorite show of the whole fest.

Bu Day 3 I was a little tired. I slept in and missed tUnE-YarDs, who I heard killed it. Their music is a little weird but I hear people like them more after catching them live. The first show I caught was Major Lazer, which was my second favorite show after Muse. So much energy and a total dance party! You could just tell they were having a blast on stage. Caught the Decemberists from afar, which sounded pretty good. I pciked Deadmau5 over Arcade Fire. It was good, but he's just better to catch in a club instead of an outdoor show. The acoustics were a little off and soft. but all and all, an amazing 3 days of music. I will definitely be back next year!


Thursday, August 11, 2011

A book review!

I rarely write up book review on my blog. I think there are so many actual good book review bloggers out there that who am I to compete. However, I just finished a trilogy that I couldn't put down and it is being turned into a movie, so I'm going for it. The trilogy I have not been able to put down for the last couple weeks and stayed up late so I could finish is "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. It's been on all the best sellers list since being released from 2008-2010. The books in sequence are "The Hunger Games," "Catching Fire" and "Mockingjay." I didn't initially read them because the premise sounded too science fiction for me. It takes place in Panem, which is North America in the future after it's been destroyed by numerous natural and man-made disasters. Panem is split into 13 different districts and an area called "The Capitol."  The Capitol punishes the districts for a previous rebellion by making them send one boy and one girl to the "hunger games" every year to compete against the kids from other districts until only one remains alive. This didn't appeal to me at all. But the main girl, Katniss, is a great female lead and at the end of the day, it's less apocalyptic and is basically a love story. Katniss is torn between two different boys, Gale and Peeta. It's action packed and romantic, which is a rare combination, resulting in a total page turner.
The first movie is coming out March 23, 2012. They cast my new favorite young actress, Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss. Peeta will be played by John Hutcherson, the adorable boy in "The Kids Are All Right." Gale will be played by Liam Hemsworth, unfortunately known for being in "The Last Song" and dating Miley Cyrus. Other big names include Elizabeth Banks, Stanley Tucci, Woody Harrelson and Donald Sutherland. This Monday the news came out that a date for the second movie has been set for November 2013. I'm so excited to see how they do with the adaptations and am so glad they're not cramming all the books in to one movie. While this will never replace Harry Potter for me, it's nice to have a book/movie release to be excited about!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

Another comic book movie

Last night the boyfriend and I went to the movie theater to see "Captain America." In general, it was what I expected. There weren't any breakout performances. It was funny to see Chris Pine as a little guy at the beginning. Tommy Lee Jones added a bit of comic relief, playing his usually dry wit, take charge role. The main bad guy was played by the guy who's the bad guy in "The Matrix." There were a lot of cheesy moments. I think action movies need to stop with the slo-mo effect, it's cheesy and it stopped being cool in the 90s. The whole WWII lost mystical artifacts thing seemed to be a little wanna-be Indiana Jones-esque. The best part was at the end, when Samuel L. Jackson pops up to collect Captain America to join the Avengers. If you saw "Thor" earlier this year, you know that Jackson is starting to collect Marvel comic characters for "The Avengers," which will hit theaters in 2012. If you stay through the credits of "Captain America," there's a trailer for it at the end. You can see Thor, Loki, Captain America and Tony Stark from "Iron Man." I didn't make the connection, but I guess they also took Mark Ruffalo from "The Incredible Hulk" in 2008. Jeremy Renner and Scarlett Johansson will round out the cast. The inner-nerd in me is super stoked for this movie!


I love wine country!

While I love the city of San Francisco, I keep being tempted to drive the hour and a half north to wine country. While both Napa and Sonoma are fantastic, I think I like Sonoma a little more. It's a little less touristy and a little more scenic. There's a couple wineries in the Sonoma Valley, a little north of the town of Sonoma, that are quite fun.

The first is Chateau St. Jean. I'd actually had wine from here before I moved to California. The estate is a white French-style chateau right at the base of a mountain. After turning of the highway, you go down a long driveway through fields of grape vines. Right in front of the chateau is an area to picnic, strung up with white paper lanterns from palm tree to palm tree.There's a main building, with the larger wine tasting. There's a shop with all the wine and kitchen paraphernalia you can imagine. There's a long bar, where you can do the wine tasting of two of their whites and three reds. You can sample all of their olive oils, vinegars and mustards. If you like the wine, you can buy a bottle to picnic with. There's also a counter where you can get sandwiches, olives, meats, crackers ad cheeses. There's a purple haze chevre that I love. You can also go to the smaller area and sample the fancier estate wines for a little more cost.



Nearby there's also the Kunde Winery. There's an area outside by a pond and fountain to enjoy a bottle of wine. The main building is mostly composed of a long bar, where you can taste 3 whites and 3 reds fir $10. If you want to sit on the leather couches while doing a tasting, it's $20. If you want to taste these wines at the top of the mountain, you can do that too for $30. There's a free cave tour, where you can go see where the barrels are stored. For you fans of the TV show, "The Bachelor," they've filmed some private dinner dates down in the cave tunnels.


Anyway, if you're looking for a place to visit a couple good wineries, take a drive in Sonoma down Highway 12. But for those of you new to this, like me, tastings usually only go until 4:30pm so start your day early!

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Sushi on Sutter

Last weekend we went to eat dinner at Sudachi Sushi on Sutter Street in San Francisco (how's that for alliteration). When we first walked in, the place was surprisingly spacious (I swear I'm not going to use all "s" words this whole review). They were projecting a soccer game from TV over the sushi bar in the front room. This was probably a good place to watch the USA vs. Japan Women's Cup that just happened. There's also one of those small rooms you can reserve where everyone sits on cushions on the floor surrounding a low table. We were seated at a booth in the back, next to some crooked artwork. In the area we were in, it felt like they were trying to get that urban loft apartment feel. Then halfway through our meal, a deejay started. I'm sorry, but I'm over restaurants with DJs. It just feels like they're trying to hard too be hip.

We started off by looking at the drink menu. They must not have a liquor license because they only offer beer, wine, sake and cocktails made with sake. However, there are very few drinks over $5, which is very cheap. I got the sake sangria for $4 and my boyfriend got a Fat Tire for $2! The sake sangria was a little disappointing. It was served to me a room temp and it just tasted gross. I put some ice in it and it tasted a bit better, but I wouldn't recommend it, too overly sweet. We were a little confused when we were the only table around us not doing multiple rounds of sake bombs. Apparently they're $2 on Saturday nights.

Then we turned our attention to the menu. The first thing we noticed was that it was quite lengthy. Outside of the traditional Japanese appetizers and entrees, they offer things like burgers made with beef bulgogi and quesadillas with chicken katsu. This is where their advertised Japanese Korean fusion food comes into play. We thought this all sounded a little off and kept flipping until we found the sushi. The basic make rolls are amazingly cheap. We got spicy tuna crunch roll for $6 and the spicy scallop nigiri for $3. The spicy scallop is aptly named the scallop volcano, as the spicy scallop mixture is piled on higher than I've ever seen it. What's really amazing is all of the specialty/premium maki rolls available. There were two full pages of them, which is more combinations that I ever thought possible. We ordered the sweet 16, sutter, salmon killer and calamari tempura rolls and sat in anticipation. When they first arrived by boyfriend was ecstatic because the rolls were huge. They were only 6 pieces each, but the width was bigger than I've ever seen. This quickly turned in to their biggest downfall. Now, I have a pretty big mouth (insert joke here) and I still had to eat the largest one in 3 separate bites. I think the best part of sushi is that all the ingredients work in harmony to provide a delicious and satisfying bite. It's hard to achieve that effect when you have to eat it in multiple bites. And one of the reasons they were so large was that there was way too much white rice rolled on the outside of them, which just mutes out the flavors inside the roll. I scraped some rice off the rolls and it made it a little more manageable. We'll probably eat here again, but this is due to the price and that they have late night delivery. Based off it's sushi merits alone, Sudachi is not very spectacular at all.


Monday, August 1, 2011

Movies of the week, so far.

I saw "Cedar Rapids" on DVD with the family. Good movie, but not a family movie. It stars Ed Helms from the Hangover as as naive insurance salesman. I'm not sure exactly how old his character in this movie is suppose to be but he definitely acts like an innocent 16 year old. He heads to an insurance conference in Cedar Rapids and his world gets flipped upside down. Now, I've actually been to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, multiple times. One of my best friend went to college there and I went to see a couple of the plays she was in. I thought the shot of the Quaker Oats factory by the freeway really summed up Cedar Rapids. It amazing how one factory makes the entire town (which is not as small as you would think) reek of hot cereal. Back to the movie, it had it moments but the humor overall was sophomoric. My mom walked out after an hour. John C. Reilly added some much needed comic relief but couldn't save this for me. This film premiered at Sundance and actually got decent reviews. I don't know, maybe I'm missing something but I just don't think it was amazing in any way. And I like a good Midwest shout out. I would probably just wait for this movie to hit cable. 


The movie I saw in theaters was much better. It was "Crazy, Stupid, Love" and it was fantastic. I love that rom-coms are finally starting to break out of the box a little bit. The first things that made this movie so great was the casting. It had Steve Carell as a dad who finds out his wife wants divorce instead or dessert one night at dinner. He's hopeless, he's lovable and you root for him the whole time. This was comparable to his performance in "Date Night." He's coached into bachelorhood by Ryan Gosling, a professional womanizer. As sleazy as his is, you really want to root for him as well. Julianne Moore brings warmth to the role of Carell's wife, who you want to dislike but can't. Emma Stone rounds out the cast. I can't decide if I like her in this or "Easy A" more. This girl is going to go on to make many more excellent films. I also loved the young boy in this, who was played by Jonah Bobo.  I can get easily annoyed with child actors trying too hard to be cute, but this kid was great. Kevin Bacon come in as a small cameo role and is great. I'm so excited that he's showing up in the movies again. Beside making it easier for my generation to play the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, he's hilarious.I love a good rom-com, but I think even men who get dragged to this movie by their girlfriends may enjoy it. There's laugh-out-loud (I refuse to shorten this to LOL) moments and there's a scene or two that brought a little tear to my eye, but in a good way. Definitely catch this one in theaters while you can.