Category Archives: Lush Life

review o’ the day: how to pick a restaurant for an illicit affair

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A romantic dinner at the cafeteria 

This puts me in mind of the old Tatler reviews, back when it was…interesting. Or even readable.

They’d pick a premise for their reviews, then hunt down the very best restaurants related to that premise, no matter how whacky, and I loved them for it. I may never go to La Tante Coffee, tea, or the woman in the Edwardian gown?Claire, but thanks to one of their columns I know that’s where to take someone so incredibly rich and decrepit that they can not only pay a typical worker’s month’s wages for the bill, but also cannot actually chew. I believe that roundup was called “Where to Take the Wrinklies” and the premise was that you shouldn’t make them do any unneccessary mastication, both out of courtesy to said denture-wearing wrinkly and also so they’d remember you fondly in their will.

There was also “Best restaurant ashtrays for stealing” and “best loos“. Always wanted to do a loo roundup, myself; I’m quite the Balzac of the bathroom, if you check through my old blog. Or is that the Proust of the potty? Whatever…

In any case, the Observer has sent a couple of reporters out into the wilds of London to find the best places to take that special someone who shouldn’t technically be special to you at all, you naughty thing, you.

Glamorous romancesAfter having read the whole piece a couple of times, I can only say that it appears either standards of what constitutes an actual “affair” are much, much lower in London or the restaurants are much, MUCH livelier.

Behold the title:

Has the restaurant become the new hotel bedroom?

[His side:]

From my observation, there follow nine practical commandments for naughty-noshery (no seventh commandment – work it out).

1. Beware of sod’s law. If you choose a restaurant within a three-mile radius of your place of work, it’s water-cooler gossip before the day’s out. My favourite restaurant in my home-from-home town, Los Angeles, is Citrus, on Melrose. It’s harder to find than a brothel in the Vatican City. [although it seems to me that going all the way to LA is a bit too much effort, although it is likely to get you laid; have you met any Angelinos? You needn’t even bring a partner, just pick one up on the way from the airport].

2. Following on the above prudential strategy, make up a list of restaurants with high-wall leather booths. They make for an atmosphere of intimate, padded privacy in which conversational liberties can be safely taken. Or even an under-the-table fumble. [see what I mean about lower standards? I guess we just go crazy up here in Canuckistan; terribly reserved, these Brits]

3. Affairs tend to progress through the discovery of a favourite new restaurant (recall Greene’s The End of the Affair). Tip generously from the first. You want to be fondly remembered and always given your table. Leave cash on the table (not on the card receipt) so she knows what an open-handed fellow you are (there’s no Dutch in your soul – Frog through and through). [oui; and the waiters will know immediately that you two shouldn’t be having dinner together. Anything over the standard tip, particularly an even multiple, means soembody’s got a tan line on their ring finger]

4. If you’re a budget-price (let’s be honest, ‘cheap’) cove, avoid Italian restaurants. They love clatter. And a splodge of bolognese on the shirt is a real passion killer. Indian restaurants are quiet (all that sound-absorbing flock wallpaper) but those dreary raga-loops (Punjabi girls wailing glumly about their lovers) are a downer. Indian waiters are also rather censorious and prone to the chilling side glance. Chinese restaurants serve too fast and are obviously interested only in the foreign devils’ money. Thai restaurants tend to have such exquisite waiters that you feel Shrek-like. Not good. American themed beef joints have heavy-pumping Muzak. Go French if you can afford it. [got to disagree; very difficult to do anything lively after seven courses, all of which have butter and cream in them. Not to mention that a spot on your clothing is just an incredible opportunity to double-entendre your way to nudity. Try some weird raw foodie place; there is always that reputation that wheatgrass has, and you can suggest trying it out. Seafood also good, for the same reason. Duh.]

5. Following on the above, remember it’s the conversation that gets the relationship fizzing. So even if it’s French, you don’t want one of those nouvelle cuisine places with course after course that demands a running commentary on the grub. You’re a philanderer, remember, not a food critic. [it’s “conversation” is it? What makes me think this man is a better talker than a lover?]

6. The best (budget-priced) conversation restaurants in London are those on top of Waterstone‘s in Piccadilly and the NPG in Trafalgar Square. Sumptuous views, incredibly dilatory service, dirt cheap, and surrounded by thousands of objects that raise the cultural tone well above what you have on your mind. [Well actually, proximity to getaway isn’t a bad quality, and these put unneccesary roadblocks in your way; this is why a picnic is best, because it’s already included the getaway part]

7. See the book of Deuteronomy.

8. Make a list of restaurants with good conversation pieces around the table. L’Etoile in Charlotte Street, London, for example (cinq coqs), has faded photographs of French celebrities covering its walls. Do a reconnaissance meal first, and bone up on who’s who (‘My God, Moreau was beautiful, wasn’t she?’). [oh dear. This is known among women as the “breadstick conversation.” As in, “uh, gee, we both like breadsticks. Amazing, isn’t it?” and so we return to that whole “conversation” point above. This man must be either very rich or very, very good-looking]

9. Avoid lettuce and spinach (green-tooth curse), garlic, and coarse vin rouge (black-tooth curse). [Fanny Brice said “alcohol is essential: a little for you, a lot for your entourage”]

10. Have a discreet snack before the meal to dampen the ravening appetite. You want it to be evident that you’re more interested in her than the food. In Las Vegas, the police recommend that (male) punters masturbate before going out on the town. Think about it – you want to appear cool and collected, not hot and sweaty. Just a suggestion. [I think that was Chris Elliot in There’s Something About Mary; but it’s perfectly understandable that a rich, handsome English conversationalist would confuse him with the Las Vegas Police Force]

For her (more anecdotal) take, go to the site.

Ah, romance!

Hunting and Gathering: The Only

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from the Archive:

Wednesday, September 04, 2002

Have I told you about shopping for food in my neighborhood? Of course I have, and here I go again, but this time we will have no naked people (haven’t had any in quite some time, but nevermind) we will have no Italians. We will have diner burgers. And where will we have them? At the Ovaltine Cafe and Vic’s Cafe and we will have a good Yuppie bouillabaisse at the Cook Studio Cafe. In fact, I think I will go have one right now to refresh my memory and also check out all the hot uniforms at lunchtime, subsequent to which I will update the blog.

Love that word, blog. Blog, blog, BLOG! cool…

Back from lunch. Alas, Cook Studio Cafe closes at 2, just before I got there; story of my life, born a month late and trying unsuccessfully to catch up ever since. Went to mosey down to the Ovaltine or Vic’s but felt guilty I was ducking my work, so decided to eat closer to where I had to work today. Somehow that made me feel less irresponsible.

Ended up at the Only, The Only Seafood Restaurant, the oldest restaurant in Vancouver. It’s in a hellish stretch of Hastings amid pawn shops, storefronts that have been boarded up for twenty years, and really last-chance social agencies. The Only has been there since the early part of the last century, 1912 to be exact, and is now run by a nice Chinese couple. They got a very nice writeup last week in Malcolm Parry’s social column.

If you are one of the sorryass losers who goes to a seafood restaurant and orders beef you are SOL here, bud. There is nothing, I mean nothing, NOTHING on the menu but seafood. Halibut and chips, cod and chips, oysters fried raw stewed two ways, clams, mussels and/or chips. And there is nobody here except almost-geezers with ballcaps on their heads and windbreakers on their backs who all look like they just came in from a round of golf or maybe a suburban barbeque. As soon as you sit down the woman shoves half a loaf of bread and a platter of butterpats at you, along with a half-quart of water in the kind of glass that can take a bullet and remain standing.

It was the most expensive lunch I’ve had on the Downtown EastSide, which is to say that it came to $10 with the tip and pop. But then, my oyster pepper stew (half order) was yummy, and so thick with oysters that it really should be called Bowl-O-Sters With Some Tomato Sauce. There were three fragments of vegimatter, God knows what it was, but there was about a half-pound of oysters, all cut up. You know, when you cut them up like that they look kind of like jelly rolls with tentacles on one side and it gets you to wondering what all the different colours are made up of. A friend of mine went to high school out here and they made her dissect clams, oysters and mussels and now she can’t eat shellfish anymore because she looks at it and knows what’s the liver, what’s the pulmonary apparatus…I’m glad I went to school in Ontario and I’m glad I don’t eat at restaurants that serve fetal pigs or frogs, though I’ve heard some very expensive ones do.

But about the stew: never mind what it looked like, it was nice and peppery, with the true dinery flavour of Campbell’s Tomato Soup hiding in there somewhere underneath the tsunami wave of pepper. Yummylicious. And this is definitely a place you can dunk, so it was Dunk City for my lunch and I got through most of the bread.

The place is filled with mirrors: one long one running the length of the left-hand wall, and one huge, got-to-be-expensive one that makes up the back wall, about 8’x15′ or so. I’d be very surprised if it weren’t one of those that you can see through from behind. The kitchen is along the right-hand wall, behind a half-wall, and the counter comes out from there and makes two loops to the left. There are no tables. Ceiling is way up there, maybe 20′, and covered with either Lincrusta or a real old pressed tin ceiling. Very Edwardian. Along the top of the left-hand wall above the mirror runs a very sixties mural of fishing, all in pastel marine greens and oranges, like the sort of thing Toni Onley might have done in Grade Nine.

Adding to the atmosphere are the snippets of conversation, screams, and shouts coming through the completely clouded-over front windows. It’s like flipping though channels if only cop shows, Alfred Hitchcock, and Permanent Midnight are on tv. Ever seen Da Vinci’s Inquest? This is the kind of conversation that preceeds the arrival of the coroner. And the nice thing is: it’s OUTSIDE!

looking black for Conrad

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But they're easily confused

All is not well in Conrad Black‘s heart of darkness.

Possibly Canada’s most literate alleged criminal, Black has just successfully defended himself from an attempt to revoke his bail and stick him in the pokey. He was less successful, however, in his attempt to prevent charges of tax evasion from being added to the sordid mix.

The CBC has the story:

On Aug. 10, a U.S. judge raised Black‘s bond by $1 million in cash to $21 million US, saying the toppled media baron had misrepresented how much he was worth.

The Canadian-born 61-year-old is scheduled to go on trial in March 2007 on racketeering and fraud charges, accused of looting millions of dollars from Hollinger International Inc. when he headed the media empire.

Judge Amy St. Eve of the U.S. District Court in Chicago, who is overseeing Black‘s upcoming trial, agreed with prosecutors that Black had misstated the worth of his assets, but denied their request to revoke his bond and jail the 61-year-old.

In related news, he’s filed a revised “oops, forgot about those millions” statement listing additional money his wife has loaned him since his income stream became uh, became uh, constrained. Relatively speaking.

AccountingWeb (whodathunk there’d be such a thing?) has his number:

A revised affidavit, filed last month, says that his wife loaned him $2.3 million between January and April of this year. “Essentially, it appears that whenever Black needs money, his wife (or at the very least, her corporation) stands ready to provide millions of dollars in cash without so much as a promissory note,” prosecutors said in court papers filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. “The Blacks have a unique financial arrangement into which the government and this court have little or no information.”

Now, Barbara Amiel-Black, known previously as Lady Black Barbara Amiel Blackof Crossharbour and before that simply as Barbara Amiel and, around Toronto newsrooms as a bit of a femme fatale, is a journalist. She’s a columnist. Sure, being Conrad Black‘s wife didn’t hurt her when she was out knocking on doors, asking papers to carry her column (like Chicago, where she was not loved). But it must be admitted that very few journalists, not even Polly Toynbee, are so vastly overpaid that they can loan out $2.3 million at will. Maybe she’s taken some of those rocks she’s so fond of to the pawn shop.

Between 1999 and 2003, according to the Hollinger International report, Amiel Black received more than $1.3 million in salary, director’s fees, bonuses and payments for columns written for Hollinger papers. Yet according to the report, “she performed no meaningful work in return…”

But the report — prepared by the company’s special adviser, Richard Breeden — mocks Amiel Black‘s own description of her duties, describing them as “nothing more than euphemisms for ordinary activities such as reading the newspaper, having lunch, and chatting with her husband about current events.”

The report cites a wide range of personal expenses the Blacks allegedly charged to the company, including $2,463 for handbags and $3,530 for silverware for the Blacks’ corporate jet. Amiel Black is said to have charged the company for tips she gave a doorman at Bergdorf-Goodman, an expensive Manhattan clothing store. In 2000, Hollinger International paid $42,870 for a “Happy Birthday, Barbara” dinner party at New York’s La Grenouille restaurant. Guests at the $212-a-plate party included Oscar de la Renta and Barbara Walters…

and there’s this:

Timson also recalled the time Barbara was walking along Toronto’s Bloor Street with a friend when a man passed by, smilingly acknowledging Barbara. “Who was that?” the friend asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied, “but I think it was my first husband.”

I must say, however, that he has lawyered up in quite an impressive manner indeed. It may never be the same attorney twice, but they all seem to be a dab hand with the snappy quote:

Black’s attorney Ed Genson told the Sun-Times: “They ought to start filing their pleadings like lawyers and not short story writers.”

Very nice. When I’m down to my wife’s last $2.3 million, I want Ed Genson in my corner too. Mind you, it must be maddening to work for Black; by the time you’ve gotten back from giving your press conference, he’ll have faxed you a complete, footnoted and annotated list of where you could have improved and the changes he’d like to see for next time.

welcome to *$. Asshole.

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Starbucks, yo! And don't gimme no sheeyit: Howard's my homeboy!Re-posted from another forum. Sorry if you’ve already read it; go on to All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us or Chad Vader, Day Shift Manager, Part One or Part Two.

Never come between addicts and their caffeine. Working seven years at *$, I learned this well. They really do believe in the happy, smiley customer service, and it runs deep in that company, but sometimes you just have to say no. Even though it could cost you your job.

One day some eedjut was making fun of us behind the counter.

“I bet your moms are proud of you, pouring coffee for a living, har har!” etc etc, AT LENGTH. He’s treating the whole weekday morning lineup to his hilarious routines, oh god, he is a real Jim Carrey of the Latte, this one. On and on he goes.

Until he gets up to the front, and he says, “Just gimme a big, strong coffee. You aught to be good at that, since that’s all you do with your life.”

At that point I poured the coffee and, without approaching the counter, spun around.

“No,” I said. “You don’t understand. You don’t get this coffee unless I give it to you.”

Pause.

You could have heard a quark drop in that place.

The staff couldn’t believe I’d pull this, and neither could Eedjut here. The customers in line new better than to interfere when a drama was unfolding right before their eyes, so they were silent, too.

“Naw, seriously. You gotta give me the coffee.”

“No, seriously, I don’t.” Pause, during which a dawning realization lit up his face. Would I give up this sale? Yep.

“Who’s in charge? Who’s the manager?”

“I am,” I lied, smoothly.

Pause.

“Oh, okay. I guess I look like a jerk, eh? Sorry, can I please have my coffee?”

Honest to god, he tipped, too.

Once in a lifetime, boys and girls.

Is it relevant to note that during a job review, when it came to the “Interpersonal Communications” section, the manager giving me my review said,

“Given the difference between what you could say and what you do say, I’m giving you ‘outstanding’?”

some Mount Pleasantries

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Mount Pleasant Community CentreFrom the Archive:  
  Saturday, September 28, 2002

Would you think there could be a place of such hubris as to call itself “Mount Pleasant” even if it is not a mountain at all but just a big enough hill to be really intimidating to cyclists and rollerbladers and maybe the odd wheezy geezer, though great fun to roll down, though it is devoutly to be wished that they repair the damn cracks in the road before I end up eating pavement? I think not. Where were we? Oh yes.

Mount Pleasant is another in this blog’s cast of characters; the neighborhoods have names, but the neighbors don’t. Actually, for a Vancouver neighborhood it’s really pretty neighborly and low-key. The Gucci quotient there is quite low, and the one and only time a Ferrari was parked outside the Starbucks it turned out to belong to Barry Neidermier, a skank who was making a living off smuggled cigarettes and smuggled 14-year-olds. One of the teenaged whores refused to testify until the cops went to her pad and rescued her teddy bear. No lie.

But most of the people around there are from the deeper end Dysfunction Junction shopsof the gene pool. Mount Pleasant runs south along Main from Dysfunction Junction at Broadway right up to the peak of the Mount itself, which up around King Ed, in Queen E Park. Broadway is actually Ninth avenue and King Ed is twenty-fifth, but nobody calls them that; it would be like calling John Wayne “Marion.” It’s a nice, working-class place with neat little old houses, maybe in need of a coat of paint or two, and big, rambling Victorians with truly elaborate gardens and lowrise apartment buildings full of Filipino immigrants and poor families who all gather on the patio at the cocktail hour for a little ballroom dancing. It’s quite a sight, I tell you; looks like a really, really casual wedding every single night. Jeans and sweats are good enough for most, and some of the youngest have been known to waltz in Speedos, at least when the sprinkler is going on the lawn. The middle-agers are the best dancers, but the expression on their faces makes them look like radio-controlled evil clones or something; lighten up people!

The centre of this little universe is not the Community Centre, though it’s lovely. It’s not the general store, there are too many. It’s not even the yoga studio. It’s the Starbucks.

But wait, you say, Starbucks is a synthesized, mass-produced global fast-food organization. Sure, you’re right, sometimes it is.

But sometimes it isn’t.

Sometimes it’s something else completely.

Mount Pleasant hippie benchThey say if you stand at the door of the Ritz-Carleton long enough you will see everyone on earth pass by. Well I say if you sit at an outside table at the Mount Pleasant Starbucks long enough you will see everyone in the neighborhood at least once, and probably at least one person you haven’t seen in twenty years, no matter where you’re from. It is the centre of the cosmos, at least on a very microcosmetic scale. There I learned all about how Pugs aren’t the snotty little wretches they seem to be; a woman tied her tiny FooFoo to one of the tables and the little critter was so game and friendly that it dragged the table thirty feet around the corner so it could say hi to everyone. Remember, this thing is the size of an ankle boot.

Once, I was there with my sister from back east; doesn’t matter where, it’s all “back east.” Could be Paris, could be Plum Hollow, it’s all just “back east.”

So there we were, so of course we went to the Starbucks. They hadn’t landed back east yet, so it was a new experience for her. We got in line behind a couple of cycle cops, also an unfamiliar sight to her eastern eyes.

“No doughnuts? What’s up with that?” she asked, incredulous. I believe in Ontario you aren’t allowed to sell coffee unless you sell doughnuts as well. I think you get three years.

The cop ahead of us reached the head of the line. He was still wearing his helmet, along with the military-geek shirt and the spandex shorts they wear. He asked the barista, “Is that bran muffin low-fat?”

No, it was not.

“Okay, then I’ll have a multigrain bagel, dry, and a tall non-fat latte.”

My sister turned to me and asked, “What the hell kind of cop is that?”

Victorian Houses in Mount Pleasant

I walked in one day, having the kind of day where everything seems to be going my way for no reason at all, which is one of my favorite kind of days. I think I was going to get some coffee, though come to think of it there may have been snacking somewhere on the agenda, but just in a really casual sort of way. I walked in. I listened. Oh, oh, it’s one of my favorite songs! I turned to the barista and asked, “Steve! Is this the Committments tape?”

Steve, a musician when not baristicating, gave me a look of unutterable scorn, the kind of look a pediatrician would shoot Goebbels, and he said:

It’s ARETHA!

I so white.