The Sac Rag

I find very little fun involved in cooking my own dinner at a restaurant.  Let me clarify that:  I find very little fun in cooking my own entree at a restaurant.  Cheese fondue as an appetizer?  Fine.  Chocolate fondue as dessert?  Even better.  Dipping bits of raw meat into a caldron of potentially digit-mangling, molten liquid; avoiding cross-contamination between raw and cooked morsels like some sort of hazmat-suited CDC flunky; then navigating a Pantone color-wheel of sauces just to wind up with boiled meat on a stick?  That’s where I draw the line.  

When it comes with a three digit price tag, I draw another line, extra-thick, with permanent marker.

Melting Pot- 15th and H, Sacramento

Food * Atmosphere** Service **

Everyone has one, at least everyone that lives outside the grid.  We trade them like currency in some market of social oneupsmanship.  We fill whole dinner parties with them, laughing, crying, shaking our heads with amazement.  I speak, of course, of the Bel Air story.   Anyone who has shopped at a Bel Air market knows that they are well-stocked, high-quality friendly markets, sure, but it wasn’t until recently that I realized almost everyone who regularly shops at Bel Air has some customer service story that boggles the mind.  (This also includes Raley’s, but I’m not going to write Bel Air/Raley’s/Nob Hill Foods every time so just assume I’m speaking collectively when I say “Bel Air”)   I’ve heard tall tales of stock boys chasing down trucks to get an extra box of something that a customer wanted, myths of clerks missing an item when checking someone out and rather than ringing up the item separately just giving the item to the customer for free, legends of bag boys and girls braving gale force winds or sub-Saharan temperatures to load groceries in the back of cars.  The universal thread that ties all these stories together is a customer service attitude that seems almost masochistic in its generosity, trustworthiness, and flexibility. Continue reading “The Bel Air Story”

Some quick notes about eats to brighten your Thursday:

Gaylord Indian Restaurant, despite its lengthy resume including outlets in Beverly Hills, Milan, Atlantis, and the Sea of Tranquility, doesn’t appear to be doing so well.  The newish joint on 14th and O appears to be patronized mostly by empty chairs during the lunch and early dinner hours when I’ve walked by.  Also, a former employee of the ‘Lord told me that, even though he had severed the employer/employee relationship weeks ago, he hasn’t seen a dime of his last paycheck.  Hmmm, empty chairs and unwillingness to pay back wages, not a good recipe for business success, or nan. Continue reading “The Flaming Gaylord and the Crying of Lot 33”