Birthday blowout!

I've never understood the concept of "California Cuisine." I mean, what exactly is that?

I grew up in California. In fact, I'm about a sixth-generation San Franciscan, and I cannot remember anyone in my family ever serving anything even remotely resembling this stuff you see on the Food Network with the swirly sauce and the flatbread and the fluffy greens and all that.

I mean, my grandmother thought arugula was a Cuban band leader.

So normally I steer clear of these trendy nouveau California Cuisine type places. Give me a Crab Louie and a bowl of chow mein any day, you know?

But Tony wanted to go to Lulu's over on 4th and Folsom for his birthday. Very trendy area down there South of Market now. When I was a kid, it was all pawn shops and bookie joints.

So we went to Lulu's, the whole gang.

I gotta say, I was pleasantly surprised. It's more like what I'm used to. Just big food with not a lot of frou frou. Grandma Rita would have loved it. They put bacon in the salad and everything. Not prosciutto. Actual bacon!

I bet if you asked, they'd let you substitute SPAM.

Then we went and had drinks at the Jukebox Marriot. Way up on top they have that bar, and you can look out across the bay and watch the containerized cargo go by.

Well, you can see the bay from our front yard, too, but it just seems more special when you're 39 stories up and drinking an eight-dollar ginger ale.

Kurt "big daddy" True
18 october 2006