Starry Wisdom

Last night I saw The Polyphonic Spree at the Great American Music Hall in SF. Wow, what a show.

For those of you who don’t know, the Spree is the biggest band possible, with 24 members on stage. To help keep you sane, they wear uniforms. The current uniform is a black pseudomilitary garb, which plays on their new album title, the Fragile Army. It looks kind of starfleet-esque to me. Their traditional attire is white robes.

Anyway, before the show, I ate at “Thai Stick 4.0”, a block away, on the suggestion of ronebofh. It was quick, cheap, and the pineapple fried rice was fairly tasty. I recommend it for a quick bite before a show at GAMH, or if you go to the Van Ness AMC theater which is right there too. But I digress.

The opening act, Jesca Hoop was fine. A bit weird, but I guess you have to be to open for the spree. It was enjoyable enough for an opening act. Plus she’s rather cute.

Then the real fun began. The spree played a 1 hour set and a 1 hour encore. A long show by any measure. But their show is so ludicrously high energy that it’s really amazing that they went on for so long. I Know I was pretty drained just from being in the audience by the end.

Basically, if you can get a chance to see the Spree live, go for it. It is an amazing and strange and awesome show.

Saturday I went to the farmers market and bought blueberries, corn (picked that morning in Brentwood) and pickling cucumbers. I went home and put 2 quart of pickles up to ferment. I put the jars in my storage closet in the carport. It’s nice and dark, relatively cool, and not in my apartment, so I don’t have to smell them as they ferment.

Then it was over to Erin’s place, so I could continue to help her prepare for her move early next month. I turned the big L shaped desk into 2 normal sized desks by swapping out leg parts. I also helped her throw away and donate many pounds of stuff. It was very tiring.

Later on I went home and made blueberry cobbler. I brought this over to stega‘s, where we ate it and watched The Thomas Crown Affair. Amusing movie, but somewhat implausible!

Saturday I went to Green Apple Books in the Richmond district. I visited all three storefronts, and got 8 books for about 46 bucks. Most of them are hardcover or trade paperbacks.

<nyar> speaking of brains
<nyar> soon i get another MRI
<oreganoxp> oh! next time yu have head surgery…
<nyar> no
<nyar> no next time, please
<oreganoxp> ask them to remove your brain altogether and put a large squid in there instead.
<nyar> oh ok!
<oreganoxp> and your head will be all squirmy all the time
<oreganoxp> that would rock
<oreganoxp> and when you go to a bar
<oreganoxp> your pick up line will be
<nyar> i am going to post this story
<oreganoxp> “listen to my skull”
<nyar> hahahah

Tomorrow is only friday but I feel like I’ve already had a very busy week.

Tuesday – saw “Transformers”. 6.5 out of 11 rabbit turds. It was worth the price of my ticket (work paid). It was very commercial, but I suppose that is expected.

Wednesday – went to the The San Francisco Photography Meetup meeting. This was actually very interesting, and there was a diverse group of people with different interests there. I will go to some more of their meetings and events in the future, I think.

Thursday – Summer Canning: Grandpa’s Pickles and Grandma’s Jam class at the San Francisco JCC. This was really cool. I am going to try to get some pickle cucumbers at the farmer’s market this weekend to make sour dills. YUM!

I can relax some on the weekend :)

Last Thursday was my brother’s 28th birthday. I was in town (Chicago) at the time. So I went with to his birthday dinner at Topolobampo. This dinner alone was worth the trip to chicago.

We got there really early for our reservation, so we bummed around in the bar until they were ready to seat us. Unfortunately, I’m still not drinking.

Once we got seated, it got really interesting. The menu was just phenomenal. It changes all the time, so this link will get stale, but I will copy the text of things of note for posterity. It was seriously hard to pick my food out, so much of it looked good.

I started out with a half dozen oysters. They were fresh and succulent. A perfect way to start out the meal.

Next up:

Crema de Espárrogos ~: creamy soup of Mick’s Michigan asparagus studded with thick shreds of smoked heritage turkey, wood-roasted poblano chile, crunchy cucumber and fresh cilantro

This soup was just phenomenal. The soup was so light and tasty. And the condiments really added to the experience, without overpowering.

As a side note, I was really sad that no one ordered:

Camarones en “Horchata” ~: flame-broiled Hawaiian king prawns served in warm, cinnamon-scented, toasted almond horchata sauce; steamed camote (white sweet potato), pasilla chile and Three Sisters Garden greens

It looked so good, but I didn’t want the shrimp after oysters. And no one else at the table seemed to be in the mood for that either. Sad, because it does sound tasty.

My main course:

Pollito en Mole Negro ~: Gunthorp heritage rock hen in classic Oaxacan black mole (made from chilhuacle chiles and 28 other ingredients) with black bean tamalón and pickled chayote-jalapeño salad

This was wonderfully delicious. The mole actually tasted almost identical to the one at Vive Sol, my favorite Mexican restaurant in the bay area. But the whole plate was tasty, the sides and hen and sauce going so well together. Fresh corn tortillas were also served with the main courses. They were warm and soft and delightful.

Sadly, the dessert menu is not posted, so I can’t post exactly what I had – a strawberry & key lime tart. This was a great dessert, it was subtle, not overly rich or sour or sweet. A perfect end to the meal.

Everything that everyone ordered from the menu was fantastic. There were no low points to anyone’s meal. My brother, sister-in-law and dad found a spanish white wine that they liked a lot. I drank some sparkling limeade which was mighty tasty. My mom got drunk on a Margarita at the bar.

If you ever have an opportunity to eat here when you are in Chicago, do it. Also, a special note – you can order the food from the Topolobampo at the bar which is shared with Frontera Grill. You’d lose on atmosphere, but might win on convenience.

Here are some pictures.