Terry and I went to a new Vietnamese restaurant last night. It was included in the San Francisco Chronicle special section on 100 best bargain eats in San Francisco, so we thought we'd give it a try.
It was the worst meal we ever had.
I'm not going to name the restaurant. We liked the people, and maybe they had a realy bad night and some lousy substitute cook that kept taking out the rubbish cans through the restaurant while we were eating.
Whatever it was, the meal was simply inedible. I'm a bit of a finicky eater, but usually will do my best not to complain. I could not eat it. The awful smell rising from the steaming plates was just too much for me. And Terry, who will make an effort and usually eat anything, forced a few bites then pushed his plate away. Slimy, watery, rubbery, unbelievably bland and horribly salty. Even the plain rice sucked. And that's saying something.
The funniest thing is that I was a bit embarrassed and felt guilty to leave the plates full. I didn't want to offend the cook. :) I even suggested that we take the rest home (read: throw it in the first rubbish bin on the way.) But, Terry wouldn't hear of it, rightly so. We're not guests in someone's house, being careful not to make them feel bad about their inedible meal by hiding food in our pockets.
We had a slice of pizza on the way home. Plus, I don't think we'll be testing out any more of those "100 best bargain SF restaurants" recommended by SF Chronicle.
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I started reading "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro a while back. I remebered wanting to read it when it came out several years ago, but it somehow got pushed way down on my list. Well, now that the movie is out I wanted to read it before we see the movie. I'm a very slow reader as the only time I actually read is half an hour before bedtime and occasionally at the coffee shop. I was half way through the book (library copy) and was starting to really get into the story and its atmosphere when the time to return it came. I couldn't renew it as there is 71 people on the waiting list. Usualy I would just keep the book until I finish it and pay the fine but I felt so guilty and and sorry for that 71st person on the list that I had to take it back without finishing it. I'm sure that's not the only library copy, but still. Crazy but I can't handle that kind of guilt. :) I could always buy the book, I suppose, but I think I will wait for the movie to become available on Netflix.
Hey, what's with my guilt thing? I feel guilty about the oddest things.
Btw, I just requested Great House by Nicole Krauss, and I'm 180th on the waiting list. There you have it. What good karma?
Here is my library confession (perhaps it'll get me pushed ahead on the list.)
I'm terrible about returning books on time, and have paid so many fines that I could have already had a significant library myself. I also have a couple of books which have never gotten returned (from my teenage years) and somehow libraries have forgotten about it (I suppose when they crossed over to digital cataloguing my records miraculously disappeared.) A while ago I found some old books in my family home from the 1960s with "library copy" stamped on them. I think my father had the same "library illness." :) I'm much better now, I promise.
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We saw the latest Neal Jordan movie "Ondine" a few nights ago. I would deffinitely recommend it, the story is quite lovely and unexpected. The movie has this magical, ethereal, wonderfully sea-like quality about it. I felt like we were underwater, entwined in seaweed the whole time. I'm not going to tell you much about it accept that Neil Jordan has adapted an old Irish Mermaid myth into this movie and that it stars Colin Farrell as the rugged troubled Irish fisherman. Enough said. {I have some movie stills for you at the end of this post.}
And, Ireland is mighty green!
I liked Farrell in "In Bruges" very much. What a great movie that was! There, another recommendation. Oh, and what about The New World? Now, that was a magical movie. B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l-l-y made and so atmospheric. Also, staring Ferrell. You should see all three, seriously.
A friend of ours works in a pre-school in LA where Farrell's son attends and she is just smitten with how nice he is and says he's very sweet and friendly and calls everyone "darling" with that soft Irish accent. Makes one want to do him favors. Lots of favors.
We also saw "Tetro" by Francis Ford Coppola. This was the worst movie I've ever seen. (It seems like I'm compiling my everything worst list this week.)
Yes, Coppola made "Apocalypse Now," wrote "The Godfather" at the back table of our local Caffe Trieste (the same table my husband wrote the best parts of his amazing book "The Bone Man of Benares" years later.) Yes, he is a great filmmaker and that is exactly why I will not cut him any slack. Tetro sucks. I want to pull all of my hair out and jump through burning hoops into jaws of a mad lion sucks. Sorry, I just had to vent.
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There is this great paragraph in "The Three Weissmanns of Westport" by Cathlen Schine:
"As for Annie, she had never looked youthful, always so serious, her dark eyes taking everything in and giving nothing back. He could see a faint line of gray where her hair parted. She watched him anxiously. What could he do for her, his sad little girl? Decades ago, in his youth, a man in his position might have handed her some bills and told her to buy herself a hat to cheer herself up. He imagined her in a little velvet cocktail hat, inclined rakishly to one side. The incongruity of it made him want to shake her."
I don't know why this touched me. The easiest way I can explain it is by saying: You know what I love about old movies? It's how everything is so uncomplicated. Solved easily. Like, you go out and buy yourself a hat to cheer yourself up. Problem solved. Nobody takes themselves too seriously. Nobody goes to therapy and talks everything to death. No, wait a minute, that's exactly why I love Woody Allen's movies so much. Because they talk everything to death and go to therapy. But, there's humor. Yes, humor is the key.
xoxoxo
And, for your viewing pleasure, some wonderful stills from "Ondine" - do click to expand.
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xoxoxo
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