Pacific Coast Highway Album: San Simeon to Monterey

Second in a five-part series (see part 1, part 2)

The segment of California Highway 1 between San Simeon and Monterey offers some of the most spectacular scenery in the world. The road is two lanes for most of the route, twisting and turning through mountain passes. This was about a three-hour drive.

Left & right: Not long past San Simeon, there’s an outlook onto a beach where California Seals sun themselves. They didn’t budge during the time we were there, except to spray sand onto themselves with their flippers. We were fortunate to see them, as it was the third week of March, and their beach season ends around April 1st.

Left: I have to assume this is a father and pup. The larger individual seems too bulky to be a female. Right: No seals in this photo, but this is the view at the same stop, just a couple of hundred feet north.

Left & right: The road to Monterey

Left & right: The road to Monterey

Left: The Bixby Bridge, built in 1932. Right: The view beyond Bixby Bridge.

Pacific Coast Highway Album: Hearst Castle

Second in a five-part series (part 1 here)

We left Morro Bay for the 30-minute trip north to Hearst Castle, in San Simeon. William Randolph Hearst’s family had, at one time, amassed some 300,000 acres of coastal property. When Hearst inherited the land from his father in the 1920s, he started construction on Hearst Castle, an enormous mountain-top mansion where he ran his media empire and entertained his friends. The castle was eventually donated to the state, although tens of thousands of surrounding acres are still owned by the Hearst Corporation.

You arrive at a visitor’s center at the base of the mountain. The castle is a long way in the distance. The photo above is as good a zoom shot as we could get. It’s actually a close-up taken from the photo shown at right, which gives an indication of just how far away the “castle” really is. A tour bus takes you up the winding road to the estate.

Four different tours are offered. We took the one recommended for first-time visitors. We had a shade more than an hour at the mountaintop, but allowing for the bus ride either way and the National Geographic film shown at the end, it turned into a 2½–3 hour visit.

Left: The gothic spires of the main house. The grounds also have three elaborate guest houses, which we didn’t photograph. We also didn’t get any shots inside the main house (it was too dark). All of the rooms we saw were decorated in a gothic pre-renaissance style. One can appreciate the artistry of it, but it’s not a style I would choose in my own home. Right: Around the grounds.

Left: Around the grounds. Right: Egyptian statues on the grounds, the castle’s oldest art works.

Left & right: Mr. Hearst wanted his guests to appreciate the view, so we shall.

Left & right: More of the view.

Left & right: The massive Romanesque outdoor swimming pool. It was under repair at the time of our visit. Normally, it would be filled with water.

Left & right: Architectural details around the outdoor pool.

Left: The indoor pool is, if anything, more spectacular, though hard to capture through the camera lens. Oddly, though this pool is indoors, the guests had to go outdoors to reach it, as it has no direct entrance from the house. Right: One last look at Mr. Hearst’s vast lands.

The Payoff: Rosanjin

As expected, Frank Bruni awarded two stars to Rosanjin.

It’s hard to complain about this review. Yes, it displays the usual Bruni foible of dancing around the subject, instead of hitting it straight on. By my count, it’s not until the 15th paragraph that Bruni actually says anything about the food. Once he gets there, he mostly loves it.

But in other ways, I have to give Bruni some credit—which I’ve seldom had occasion to do. Until now, Bruni has mostly been known for smacking down sacred cows, and giving rave reviews to places the foodies had long ago discovered. Unlike the Duke of Plaza-Toro, Frank Bruni didn’t lead fashions; he followed them. What kind of critic are you, if all you do is ratify other people’s judgments? With Rosanjin, you could say he “discovered” a place that practically everyone else had ignored.

I would add that I haven’t been to Rosanjin, so I have no idea if the rave is deserved. But at least Bruni, for the first time that I can recall, actually led critical opinion about something, rather than just ratifying it.

Eater and I both took the two-star bet at 5–1 odds, winning $5 apiece.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$10		$14
Gain/Loss	+$5		+$5
Total	+$15		+$19
* * * * * * * * *
Won–Lost	5–1		5–1

Rolling the Dice: Rosanjin

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, Frank “Samurai” Bruni reviews Rosanjin, the Japanese kaiseki restaurant in TriBeCa. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 3-1
Two Stars: 5-1 √√
Three Stars: 30-1
Four Stars: 15,000-1

The Skinny: As Eater notes, Rosanjin “has generally flown below the radar.” I found only one review. Paul Adams of the Sun enjoyed himself, but thought that Sugiyama was better at half the price. Price, indeed, is the issue. Rosanjin’s prix fixe is $105–150, as opposed to $68 at Sugiyama. (When Adams dined at Rosanjin, he paid $150.)

Sugiyama carries three stars at the Times, dating from a 1999 Ruth Reichl review. Bruni is highly price-sensitive, so he’s not going to award three stars tomorrow unless Rosanjin is considerably better than Sugiyama. Adams didn’t think it was, and Bruni generally follows other people’s recommendations; he doesn’t lead them. To put it another way, it’s highly unlikely that there’s a three-star restaurant in the shadows that all the other critics have missed.

Yet, Bruni usually doesn’t review restaurants everyone else has ignored, only to insult them. For a restaurant at Rosanjin’s price level, anything below two stars would be an insult. On top of that, Bruni’s discretionary reviews — the restaurants he chooses to review, rather than those he must review — are usually two stars.

The Bet: No outcome below four stars would utterly surprise me, but I find three stars distinctly unlikely, and Eater hasn’t made the one-star odds (3–1) sufficiently enticing. Therefore, we are once again making the same bet as Eater: two stars for Rosanjin.

Pacific Coast Highway Album: L.A. to Morro Bay

First in a five-part series

My son and I took a four-day trip along the Pacific Coast Highway (Cal. Rt. 1) from Los Angeles to San Francisco. He took all the photos. I present them here with minimal commentary.

Day 1 took us from L.A. to Morro Bay, a trip that would take about four hours by the inland route, but took us around six and a half along the slower Pacific Coast Highway, with ample stops for photo-ops and food breaks.

Left: All of that L.A. smog you read about is really true.
Right: Scrub brush along the way.

Left: The vastness of the Pacific. Right: Robert and me.

 
Left: Rocky outcrops like this one are common along the route.
Right: So is scrub brush. 

 
Left & right: Rocks and mountains along the coastline.

Left:We arrive at Morro Bay, known for the Morro Rock. It appears to be out in the middle of the bay, though in fact there is a man-made road to it. Climbing the rock is illegal, as it is home to endangered bird species. Right: Boats on the bay.

Left & right: We don’t find much excitement in Morro Bay, aside from the sunset.

We leave this post with one more sunset shot over Morro Bay.

The Payoff: Varietal

As expected, the Brunmeister awarded one star to Varietal. As expected, he found the food uneven. As expected, he found it “a province of aggressive experimentation and eccentric, highfalutin name tags.” (“Highfalutin” is one of Frank’s favorite words to describe restaurants too clever for their own good.)

He was less taken with the desserts than some other critics, which I should have expected. Bruni will lament that avant-garde cuisine doesn’t have much of a toe-hold in New York, but when someone actually tries something, invariably he isn’t enthused. Jordan Kahn’s creations “will definitely get your attention. Your affection is another matter.”

Eater and I both took the one-star bet at 3–1 odds, winning $3 apiece.

	Eater		NYJ
Bankroll	$7		$11
Gain/Loss	+$3		+$3
Total	+$10		+$14
*
Won–Lost	4–1		4–1

Rolling the Dice: Varietal

Every week, we take our turn with Lady Luck on the BruniBetting odds as posted by Eater. Just for kicks, we track Eater’s bet too, and see who is better at guessing what the unpredictable Bruni will do. We track our sins with an imaginary $1 bet every week.

The Line: Tomorrow, His Frankcellency reviews Varietal, the Chelsea wine-themed restaurant with blow-the-doors-off desserts. Eater’s official odds are as follows (√√ denotes the Eater bet):

Zero Stars: 5-1
One Star: 3-1 √√
Two Stars: 4-1
Three Stars: 30-1
Four Stars: 15,000-1

The Skinny: All the indicators this week point to one star. Varietal is primarily a wine restaurant. Frank doesn’t know much about wine, so he is unlikely to appreciate the restaurant’s main attraction. Varietal has white tablecloths, and Frank finds traditional formality a turn-off. The service at Varietal is, as Eater put it, “fussy.” Frank doesn’t like fussy. Varietal is rather expensive, and Frank tends to hold expensive restaurants to a high standard. Lastly, most critics have not been wowed by the food—other than Jordan Kahn’s desserts.

So, why even one star? Only because we think Varietal is the kind of restaurant Frank would simply ignore if he couldn’t find something good to say. Given that he’s reviewing it, we don’t think it will get goose-egged. Desserts will save the day. We do agree with Eater, however, that zero stars is more likely than two.

The Bet: For the second week in a row, we agree with the Eater bet, which in this case is one star.

Klee Brasserie

 

Note: Klee Brasserie was supposed to have closed in July 2011, to make way for an Austrian wine tavern, or heuriger, operated by the same husband–wife team. Instead, they sold the restaurant and will be opening a new, currently unnamed project elsewhere.

*

Klee Brasserie (the first word is pronounced “Clay”) opened late last year in West Chelsea. Many of the dishes, like Chef and co-owner Daniel Angerer, hail from Austria. But Angerer has gotten around, working for Joël Robuchon, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, David Bouley, and others. The restaurant is not purely Austrian, but draws its influences from just about everywhere.

 

The interior make-over is lovely. If only the food were more appealing. Black Bean Soup ($8) was more like bean-flavored water: it had practically no texture, and was over-salted. Swordfish Steak ($26) was dominated by barbecue sauce. Good thing too, as the fish itself was both ropey and cold. The bed of spinach was the best thing about the dish, but you don’t pay $26 for spinach.

My girlfriend ordered the Lamb Shank ($23). She was surprised to find that it didn’t come with any shank. It seemed more like Lamb Osso Buco without the bone. That said, there was nothing else objectionable about it.

I didn’t note the description of the palate cleanser (pictured right, absurdly out-of-scale), but it was better than either of the dishes I paid for.

The wine list was a definite asset, with a nice list of half-bottles available. We didn’t want to drink much, so we had a nice half-bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape at just $27. The bread service was an asset too, with three warm home-made slices served on a warm stone, with a small jar of soft butter, probably also home-made.

Service was mostly okay, but we had a seriously annoying waiter. His leering comment as he dropped off the dessert menus, “Now, let me lead you into temptation,” was typical. It also took him something like ten minutes to uncork the wine, a task that I shouldn’t have thought was that difficult.

Klee hasn’t had many reviews. In a blog preview in the restaurant’s early days, Frank Bruni also found the swordfish cold, so apparently they haven’t solved that particular problem.

This was a restaurant I wanted to like, but it was merely humdrum.

Klee Brasserie (200 Ninth Avenue between 22nd & 23rd Streets, Chelsea)

Food: fair
Service: okay
Ambiance: good
Overall: fair

The Co-op Chronicles: The Mortgage Application

So, I had struck a deal on a 3 BR co-op on Cabrini Boulevard in Hudson Heights. The fun part was over: I had to apply for a mortgage.

Every time I apply for a mortgage—and this is my fourth time—I am amazed at how painful a process it is. A full proctological exam would be more entertaining. Not since I was divorced did I have to disclose my finances in such detail.

The mortgage broker took my application over the phone. I hadn’t expected this, so I was answering questions according to my recollection. She asked for my SSN, and within seconds had my credit report on her computer screen. It was a little frightening to think how easily a stranger could find out so much about me.

The good news was that my credit score is above 800, which is considered excellent. The bad news was that the report was showing me responsible for a bunch of credit card debt, as well as a house in Tampa, that I don’t own. All of that extra debt is almost certainly my ex-wife’s. Our names differ by only one letter. Many of those cards, as well as the home, pre-date our divorce.

The mortgage broker sent the completed application to my apartment by messenger, and it was waiting for me when I got home. There was also a self-addressed stamped priority mail envelope, in which I would return the signed application and all of the disclosure materials they’d asked for. As I had answered questions off-the-cuff, there were quite a few errors. I also saw that, of the six credit cards listed, only one was mine. There were too many entries that would have to be corrected, so I just downloaded a new form and started over again.

I had a week’s vacation coming, and didn’t want the application to languish for that long, so I stayed up till 4:00 a.m. gathering all my paperwork, so I could take it to work the next day and make photocopies. In case you’re wondering, this is what they needed:

• Copies of my last three months’ asset statements (checking, savings, stocks, mutual funds, 401(k), etc.)
• Copies of 12 months’ consecutive cancelled rent checks (front and back)
• Copies of my 2004, 2005 and 2006 W–2’s, 1099’s, K–1’s
• Copies of my 2004 and 2005 Federal 1040 tax returns (and all schedules)
• Copies of recent pay stubs covering a one-month period
  
• A letter from my employer breaking out my bonus/commission income for the last two years
• Copy of official government ID (driver’s license or passport)
• A check or credit card authorization for $750, covering the application fee ($350) and the estimated cost of an appraisal ($400)

Based on past experience, I’m sure they’ll want more—e.g., proof that I no longer own the Tampa home; proof that my ex-wife’s credit cards are not mine; and so forth.

With that, I was ready to go on vacation.

To be continued…

Hawaiian Tropic Zone

Note: As of December 2010, Hawaiian Tropic Zone is closed. For a review of our second visit to Hawaiian Tropic Zone (yes, we did go twice), click here.

*

It was a Saturday night, and I was on my own. Where to dine? How about a place my girlfriend wouldn’t care for. Like Hawaiian Tropic Zone.

There isn’t much Hawaiian in Hawaiian Tropic Zone, except that the servers are all in bikinis. Twice nightly (6:30 p.m., 8:30 p.m.), they participate in mandatory beauty contests, with the restaurant’s patrons voting on the outcome. There’s a huge platform above the bar (see photo) where the girls strut their stuff. The winning server gets $100. Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day, and most of the girls were in green bikinis.

When HTZ first opened, the local serving staff was supplemented with imports from nationwide beauty contests, who were brought to New York and boarded rent-free in “dorms.” None of those interlopers seemed to be on duty last night. My server, who’s from Buffalo, said she has worked at the restaurant since it opened last September. I thought she was easily the best-looking woman there, but she doesn’t have much enthusiasm for the nightly beauty pageants. “They make us do it,” she said. And then shrugged her shoulders.

When I got home, I suddenly realized that I’d seen her photo before. A little bit of googling, and I found it: she was the one featured in a Grub Street post about four months ago. What’s it like working in a bikini every day? “The most common issue is men asking myself and other waitresses if their boobs are real, which puts you in an uncomfortable situation. Mine are, but a lot of the other girls’ aren’t!”

As far as the food goes, there wouldn’t be much to write about, except that a serious chef, David Burke, is in charge of the cuisine. Like a few other celebrity chefs, Burke has spread himself a little thin lately. His flagship restaurant, davidburke & donatella, is still tough to get into, but my last visit there was disappointing. Since DB&D, Burke has expanded to Bloomingdale’s, a Chicago steakhouse, and now the Times Square Hawaiian Tropic Zone. A clone of the Hawaiian Tropic Zone and another David Burke restaurant are announced for Las Vegas.

 
BBQ Chicken Spring Rolls (left); Coriander Crusted Tuna (right)

The menu seems to be a mongrel, with no obvious theme that I can make out. BBQ Chicken Spring Rolls ($13) were lumpy and dull, but thanks to the accompanying barbecue sauce, were at least passable. Coriander Crusted Tuna ($32) was far more successful. The various accompaniments—vermicelli, peppers, scallions, napa cabbage, wasabi vinaigrette—seemed a lot more than were wanted, or needed.

The server recommended the Bikini Punch ($12), made with Bacardi White Rum, Cruzan Coconut Rum, lime juice, passion fruit juice, pineapple syrup, orange juice. It was a great suggestion, and I had two of those. Cocktails at HTZ are a generous size, so that was all I needed.

The décor at HTZ is glitzy and over-done. The clientele aren’t all men; to my surprise, I saw plenty of women dining there. There were tons of empty tables at 8:30 on a Saturday night, but my server said it is usually busier. It was St. Patrick’s Day. She speculated, “Maybe they’re all at the pub.” She wasn’t just a pretty face: service was excellent.

The mainstream critics have pretty much ignored Hawaiian Tropic Zone, except for Bob Lape of Crain’s New York Business, who awarded a rather generous two stars (PDF) in February. I find that Lape is usually about a star higher than all of the other critics, but I suspect HTZ wouldn’t even get one star from Bruni or Platt.

My visit coincided with one of the nightly beauty contests. The emcee said that the result would be tabulated in a half-hour or so, but when I left 45 minutes later, there was still no announcement. There’s also a nightly drawing, with Dinner for Two as the prize. I was the winner, so it looks like I’ll be coming back at least one more time.

Hawaiian Tropic Zone (729 Seventh Avenue at 49th Street, Theater District)

Food: *
Service: *
Ambiance: Vegas-lite
Overall: *