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My weekend was throttled with some of the most exquisite restaurants to spring up in the Bay. Two are very new, including Bong Su in downtown San Francisco, which just opened in May. They will most certainly deal with growing pains for a while, but they'll quickly define the complete taste of Vietnam, with their representation of all three styles of cooking (northern, central, and southern cuisine). A group of us hungry carnivores took Weldon to Sino for his birthday, a restaurant on Santana Row, already past its growing phase and into prime time fusion delights! Weldon and I also grabbed dinner at Sumi in the Castro. That's "Sue Me." Sue me in the Castro. Nevermind.
You know where to find my reviews of these sanctuaries of taste, and if you don't, well you'll just have to dig through my blog a little. There are so many developments to cover in upcoming entries, but for now I thought I'd offer a quick and dirty blogger Q & A session. The questions I'm asked most often are answered below. Hark, I'm sure these will just spark more questions than they answer!
Q: What the hey does ABloggingHorse mean, and why did you pick it for your Xanga name?
A: Embarrasingly enough, when I first created my Xanga account, I thought I was typing ablogginghorse into the password field. My intended name was "Gyla," but my password took the stage instead. Oops!
Q: I never see you out on the town. Why don't you go out clubbing or dancing?
A: Because I'm the most mysterious and obscure Aquarian you shall ever meet!  Catch me if you can.
Q: Where in hey did you learn all about classical music? How do I get into it?
A: Piano lessons from age 5. Just come with me on my next visit to Virgin Records, and step into a larger world!
Q: Whoa dude, how in the hey did you manage to get an office right on the corner of Ground Zero?
A: I was experimenting with entrepreneurship, and I needed an office. Voilà!
Q: You can't possibly tell me that you've abstained for 12 months. Everyone needs sex.
A: I have, and I'm the healthiest I've ever been as a result. But you're right, I can't hold out much longer.
Q: Why have you been single all your life?
A: I'm probably one of the most independent and experimental argonauts on this mudball we call Earth. I say again, catch me if you can!
Q: What's your middle name?
A: Lee.
Q: How old are you?
A: Beyotch, you must be joking. It's too easy.
Q: Are you a corn-fed Midwesterner?
A: I did not appreciate corn, and I always sought gourmet foodstuffs instead, especially German-Amish food and rhubarb pie.
Madleo75: What is that stain on your Henley?
A: Peet's coffee. I have a drinking problem. 
NanYu: What's the most challenging music that you ever had the delight of learning to play?
A: Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin. I still have to master all SIX movements!
Xevious10: What made you decide to learn how to fly?
A: I was a space cadet from infancy and always fascinated with aircraft/spacecraft. Luckily, my local Western Michigan University offered one of the best aviation programs in the country, with a very safe and well-maintained Cessna fleet. How could I say no to the best in the Midwest, right down the street?
While we're on a roll, leave a question as a comment, and I'll grow this Q & A list with the answer!
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | See the 1 comment | comment here)
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I've been reviewing everything that crosses my path for years, but only recently have I discovered Yelp. When I worked for Everythingwecouldthinkofster.com, I was instructed to create an account on Yelp to investigate all of their competing features, especially since Yelp had a friends network. Direct competition. Ironically, I now use Yelp much more than my ex-employer's site! Most bloggers are familiar with Yelp, but if you're wondering just what you're missing, then for God's sake get in there! Leave a private message on my Xanga with your email address, and I'll invite you. Review some good and bad restaurants and also remember to add your fellow Xangan Yelpers to your friends list.
I mention Yelp tonight because a friend and I just ate at a restaurant in San Francisco, and it was one of those rare occasions where the heavens opened up and dropped perfection upon our table. I issue only one 5-star restuarant review per year, so when it finally happens, it's worth mentioning. Let me share the experience with you. After the review, inspect my ratings for many other restaurants in San Francisco. Then lastly, get your bum on Yelp and get your profile in gear!
Luna Park was ripe with awe tonight. The fun began with reading the menu, one of those satisfying moments when you know you've picked a damn good restaurant. The appetizer of choice was obvious... the Moules Frites, a kind of working-class mussels and fries. The fries were so exact, they didn't need a single condiment (even malt vinegar)!
We added Luna Park's house sangria to the table to start washing all of the food down. Then the meal of the year arrived. They called it "Pot on Fire," a deep and hearty stew of beef brisket, golden potatoes, leeks, heavenly turnips, and tender carrots. It's a composition based loosely on German hunter's stew or Irish boiled dinner, but everything went right, and all those root vegetables left me more nourished than I've been all year.
My dinner mate, whose steak was made precisely to order, shared his side of macaroni, broccoli, and cheese. Again, they outdid themselves here. Another American embarrassment turned gourmet again!
The dessert. We had already decided no, but after learning of the do-it-yourself S'mores with fondue trays, there was no resistance. It came out as a married fondue set. Pressing the brown roasted marshmallow and dark chocolate into the homemade crackers transported us right out to a campfire in the mountains at night.
The uncomfortable wooden seats and lightweight tables seemed odd at first. But the packed-like-sardines style is a sign of the times in California, and I learned that it was intentional expressly for this reason.
Regardless, no other restaurant could do all of this to us, and we concurred that this was the jewel of Valencia Street.
Daniel's Business Ratings on Yelp (daniel.yelp.com)
AMC Metreon 15
Asqew Grill
Avenue Winds
Bagdad Cafe
Baladie Gourmet Cafe
Banana House
Basil Thai Restaurant & Bar
Beard Papa's Cream Puffs
Bilbo's Pizza In A Pan
Blue
Blupointe Raw Bar Bistro Lounge
Central Computer Systems
Cha Cha Cha
Chakka Cuts
China First Restaurant
Cioppino's
Cliff's Variety
CompUSA
Crave
Curl Up & Dye
Dolores Park
Entrust Administration Inc
Equinox
E*Trade
Firewood Cafe
Gold's Gym - San Francisco
Henry's Hunan Restaurant
House of Nanking
Jillian's At Metreon
La Mediterranee
Luna Park
Macy's San Francisco
MaggieMudd
Malacca
Max's Opera Cafe
Mezzanine
Morton's of Chicago
Muni
Niji Japanese Grille
Osaka Sushi
Platanos
PPQ Dungeness Island Vietnamese Cuisine
San Francisco Badlands
San Francisco Soup Company
San Francisco Symphony
Shimo
Silver Marcia L
Stelline
Subway
Taqueria Zapata
Teuscher Chocolate
Thai Osha
The Edge
The Epstein Group Attorneys
The Institution of Marriage
Valencia Pizza & Pasta
Western Michigan University
Yelp
Yelp Mobile
Yokoso Nippon
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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Note: Not work-safe. The last two R-rated photos are buffered with a few paragraphs of general ranting, and a photo of my new gaming system. Proceed with discretion!
Airline Avoidance
My vacation was a success, based on what constitutes an ideal vacation: I accomplished almost nothing, I used very little brainpower, and I did the things I enjoyed the most. And am I the bomb or what, choosing VERY wisely to stay in San Francisco as opposed to booking airline tickets to every corner of this mudball! What horrid nonsense I would have faced at the airports this week. I would have lost hundreds of dollars of moisturizer, hair goop, and sunless tanning lotion. And (ahem) expensive lubricant. But of course this is immaterial, considering that transatlantic flights were in danger. I am very proud of Pakistan for helping the British government to thwart this terror plot.
Daniel the Pro-Zionist
How disappointing. Another terrorist plot emerges, just I was just beginning to make sense of the violence in Israel and Lebanon. I have been pro-Zionist for well over 20 years, having studied passionately the history of Jerusalem. And even though I am almost enraged at the actions of Hezbollah, I am also now very disappointed with the atrocities that the Israel Defense Force has committed, in the name of Israeli policy. I will always be pro-Zionist, as my personal standpoint refers to history spanning over 3,000 years. But the indiscreet targeting of civilians— by both sides— is a shameful example of two forces locked in a cycle of mutual retribution with no way to come to terms with their past and tolerate each other as neighbors. I am looking forward to Monday morning's cease-fire, as I won't have much time to follow this conflict when I return to work again.
The one thing I did accomplish during my vacation was to construct a mean gaming machine. I bought a decent PC with plenty of memory and a dual-core processor, then I topped it off with one of the toughest graphics cards on the market— a GeForce 7900 GT Overclocked. View the two components below. I specifically bought this to play a new PC game released this summer, and I will be discussing it in detail in the coming weeks. My blog will transform itself to the theme of the game's saga. Until then, you might be able to guess what this PC game is that requires such an extravagant hardware investment.
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The Beast Awakens |
Bondage Teaser
And lastly, the two photos depicting me in bondage from Van Darkholme's book. Again, these are the tamest in the book and are rather vanilla to many S&M practitioners. Honestly, I'd rather not look quite as satyric as the other subjects in the book. Click both photos for in-your-face enlargements!
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Fence Noir |
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Praedicamentum |
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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Teo
August 6th, 2006 at 06:22 AM (4055 reads)
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| Teo Prepares for Puppy Heaven |
Traditionally, dog owners would resort to visual guides and written pedigrees to identify the breed of a dog, especially if the dog is a crossbreed. We adopted a puppy from Buenos Aires, Argentina and named him Teo. He's a crossbreed all right, and we're still trying to correctly identify his primary and secondary breed. DNA testing of pets is too expensive, so I thought I'd open the breed puzzle to the internet.
I cannot ascertain his exact mix, but I postulate that Teo is a cross between a golden shepherd and a yellow labrador retreiver. His white paws are really throwing us for a loop, and since Teo has white paws and a white chest, it's also possible that his other breed is a Bernese Mountain Dog.
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| Teo Enjoying the Sweeping Vistas |
I walked Teo around Dolores Park this afternoon, and it should come as no surprise that he loved every second of the visit! Teo runs laps around any visitor, and he often likes to spin in circles, so it's pretty obvious that he has a long herding career ahead of him. This would reaffirm the mountain dog breed in him. But he also befriended every single dog that came up to him, which would suggest a labrador breed.
I'm sure there's some professional breeder out there (don't worry, that's not a gay joke) who can instantly identify the two or three breeds in Teo's genes. I have no doubt that the puzzle will soon be solved!
Here's a dorky trivia question for everyone to guess: Who is the first blogger to meet Teo? (besides me)
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| Post-Dolores Exhaustion |
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(By Daniel Culveyhouse | No comments yet | comment here)
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