L'Amour Shoppe: yes it is owned by a man named Steven Weiner

 I wrote a piece on L'amour Shoppe that got killed by the publication. It makes sense, it is a conservative publication and the article is frank about sex. 

My favorite part of writing this was my time interviewing the very charismatic worker, Anthony. This piece would have been different (more freewheeling, dirtier) if I hadn't been writing it for this pub, but nevertheless I feel like it should see the light of day. I feel bad about the 2 employees taking time to talk to me  and then not knowing why they never heard anything else about it.

Also, I did not include that two workers were murdered in robberies in L'Amour Shoppe in separate incidents in the 80s. Well, one was actually the friend of a worker who filled in while his friend took a break and was murdered by a robber. Very sad.

L’Amour for Sale

Forbidding on the outside, with blacked out windows on which the extensive hours (9am-1am every day) are scrawled, the interior of L’Amour Shoppe is a cheerful, well-stocked oasis of sex positivity.

On the day this reporter visits, that vibe is emanating from salesclerk Anthony Chiaramonte, who has worked for the L’Amour Shoppe for seven months, after a long career in retail working for other adult shops –but also selling everything from marijuana to solar panels. With the long, straight hair of a rocker and elegantly tapered nails, Chiaramonte explains that selling sex toys is not that different from selling anything else, except that the goal is not a new pair of sneakers, but “orgasmic pleasure”.

As for why in this era of one-day Amazon Prime deliveries, folks still come in to purchase an item that might cause some a bit of embarrassment, he enthuses, “It’s all about that old school touch and feel and to put it in my hands really familiarize myself with what I’m getting…the people who come in here for the first time, they’re walking on eggshells and ready to ask a ton of questions but don’t know where to start. I’m definitely that person to ask…this is sex it should be FUN, and it should be pleasurable, and it should bring a smile to your face so let’s talk about it and see what’s out there and let’s talk about the possibilities.”

One such couple, seemingly in their early 40s, enters while he’s being interviewed, with the female in the couple sending the man in first to scout out whether it’s safe inside. She says, “The front is so 1980s, I was like, ‘I don’t think they have anything in there honey. And he said, ‘I’m just going to go look.’ Then he comes out and he says, "It's just normal: normal people, normal stuff.” Within moments, Chiaramonte has them relaxed and laughing giddily, as he says, “I’m like a marriage counselor and a sex therapist and your best friend all in one” as they browse.

It may be the personal touch (and free batteries, for toys that require them, although most these days are USB rechargable) bringing folks in to L’Amour Shoppe, and the market for sex toys is only growing. According to a market research firm, US sex toys sales (the US accounts for 33% of all sales globally) reached 12.6 billion dollars in 2021, and are projected to grow over 7% by the year 2026. Further, this firm concluded that the association of masturbation with wellness and self-care, the lessening of stigma around male-focused sex toys, and the increasing acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community are some factors behind this increase in sales.

As he gives a tour of the merchandise, Chiaramonte’s observations back up this research. He said some of the top sellers for women are brightly-hued, silicon-coated clitoral suction toys that are a variation on the rose-shaped toy that went viral on TikTok in 2022. Sex toys have gone so mainstream that this shape of toy was reviewed on the NY Times Wirecutter product review page; a suction-type toy is also sold on Gwyneth Paltrow’s trendsetting wellness website Goop.com.

Blunt, but never vulgar, Chiaramonte says from his time working in similar shops since 2004, he has seen the most increase in one genre of toys, “Butt. Twenty years ago it was so taboo, you were part of the butt club or you were not…That’s where I’ve seen the most growth in terms of technology and interest, especially hetero couples."

Chiaramonte shares staff theories about the history of the building, including the thought that it was a Chinese restaurant at one point, but a search of newspaper archives reveals that the building was built in the 1930s and was initially Hewitt’s Grocery Store. After that it was Fancy Shirt Laundry, which became Fancy’s Adult Books and Things in 1978. The first record of L’Amour Book Shoppe is in 1986 (a year in which the city shut down their peep-show booth, as well as four others in Sacramento). 

L’Amour Shoppe is more accurately termed L’amour Shoppe #7: the owner, Steven Weiner,  owns 6 others throughout the state from Santa Clara to Modesto, and other sex shops as far-flung as Texas. He declined to be interviewed for this article.

Winona Fulgencio manages L’amour, as well as Weiner-owned Intimates and Adult Bookstore in Lodi. She left the medical field, saying she needed a “mental break”, and started working at the Lodi store early in the COVID-19 pandemic. Within 3 months she was a manager there and then became the manager at L’amour in late 2021.

She does research to find the hottest new toys and also relies on friend’s recommendations, she says the job is “rewarding…it’s a good company to work for.”  

As to the forbidding exterior, she said that COVID stalled a planned facelift, “Corporate is trying to figure out a way to revamp…make it a little nicer.”

Asked to sum up her message for new customers who may be wary, Fulgencio echoes Chiaramonte in saying that there are benefits to seeing a toy in person, “A lot of people complain that when they order a toy off of Amazon it’s not what they like. They throw it away and come see us. They can test out the toys and see what they like. Or they come for lube or lingerie, and remember that we helped them…we’re trying to instill that we’ve changed management and we can provide customer service.”

Kru

 I'm almost embarrassed to admit how long it's been since I've been to Kru. I think 2019 yikes. I mean, there was a whole ass pandemic. But also, I put it into the category of places that are hard to get into and I forget about those places. But with Sac only having a double handful or so of date night restaurants I need to go more often.

We started with one bite of a warm scallop with teeny shrimp chips and a sauce made with roe of some kind. Then I got various nigiri, including uni and ikura, two faves. I hadn't realized that their cocktail list is so extensive, with multiple pages. I had what they were billing as a Japanese negroni but I just don't like negronis. It had a shiso leaf, and Japanese gin, and I fell for it because they said it had Japanese vermouth but it was still too syrupy for me. Then I ended the eve with pluot sorbet and a classic highball. Very nice night with some little luxurious extras sent out.

Being alive

 

Went with CH to see my first live Sondheim last night. I really enjoyed it although I don't know why Broadway shows are all so loonnnnnggg. I won tickets through my work. 

I knew a lot of the songs and I wasn't sure why, except for Being Alive being sung by Adam Driver in the Scenes from a Marriage remake (which I did not like). But then I realized that the thrilling DA Pennebaker Sondheim doc is on the making of the cast album from Company.

You should watch this doc! It's on Criterion. It's less than an hour and it's a fun glimpse into the creative process. The best part is Elaine Stritch struggling with Ladies Who Lunch.

I think I kind of got the Sondheim thing last night, the lightness and depth. It's very old-fashioned feeling, though. Company came out in 1970, so it is literally old. This new productions does a gender swap, where the protagonist is a woman. That gives it a bit of modernity. It's about whether to marry or not, and in 1970 probably no woman would even think of it as a question. 

Onibaba: Demon Hag

 

Well hello. Blogspot was a total fail as a way to announce the Halloween show and let people call bands. Oh well, I was looking forward to a Heckasacassance that did not happen.

That's fine, let's just blow the dust off and hawk tuah this thing amiright?

Let's see, Zelda's went under. I had already pre-grieved as they said on Succession. Going back to five years ago when Zelda's son, who had a Trumpy vibe, talked about wanting to sell and move to Reno I thought it was not long for this world. RIP Zelda's. You ruled!

I just turned in a thing I wrote about German food and beer and culture for Comstock's. This one was a slow burner. I first pitched it in June, but the editor said it would be ok closer to Oktoberfest so I dilly dallied. I got to tour secret parts of Turn Verein and nerd out on German food and beer so that was very fun.

I also just turned in a thing I wrote on Onibaba for the Dreamland zine, I'm very excited about that. It was a joy to write something where I could let my mind roam free. As much as I appreciate the business mag work, it's very constrained. I got to do research for Onibaba too. And then I watched another Shindo movie last night, Naked Island, which was a silent movie (music, no dialogue) about a family with a very hard life and one of them dies. Grim!

What about that Halloween show huh? Still on kind of  a high from it TBH. Shoot it right into my veins. Glad we are having another one in spring. 

Gotta go to Corti Bros now, nice checking in! Leave a comment but I know blogspot makes you do some BS stuff like pick out pictures of traffic lights or answer the Sphynx's riddle or something.

It's Baaaaaaaack!!

Kanye in Sac

 My experiment to link Heckasac to Instagram did not work at all, it got me banned from following anyone or posting on Instagram! Either Instagram hates Blogspot or for some reason this blog has been dubbed obscene. Sigh, the modern world.

I'm listening to The Daily podcast, the NYT one, and they are talking about their in-depth article on Adidas and Kanye, and I love that Sac is in that pop culture pantheon for being the place he went on his 17 minute rant and canceled the tour. I will never forget booing so hard that I just about lost my voice the next day, and then how we left the arena fast enough to see his black SUV stop in the road, him pose with a fan, and speed off. And then how everyone was just roaming the streets, looking for somewhere to hang. I don't remember where we ended up. They mention him canceling but they don't mention how fucking late he started! And I remember folks going nuts when Kid Cudi joined him on the floating stage.

He sold so much merch that night, I just saw someone at Pizza Supreme rocking one of the long-sleeved tees the other day. 

Vollman talk

I am fasting for a "medical test" tomorrow (she's so discreet!) so you may be treated to a series of weak and increasingly unhinged posts. If you know me you know I usually never miss a meal!!!!!! 

True Anon podcast interviewed William Vollman. I had never listened to True Anon but I know of it as a well-known edgy podcast and the host Brace Belden is a friend of a friend. I knew of Brace who got a lot of news coverage a few years back when he went to fight in the Syrian civil war. 

Brace and Liz Franczak, the cohost, came to Sac recently to interview Vollman, who has a studio in a barbed wire compound in Alkali Flat.

Vollman says he heard a story that the first mayor of Sacramento was murdered by a homeless man in Alkali Flat but that he doesn't know for sure. The only reason that's a bit curious is that from my understanding of his nonfiction writing, he's done in-depth histories, so finding that out seems like no task for him, but maybe he prefers not to confirm. Googling reveals the first mayor was William Stout, who served 3 weeks. Where's Bill Burg when you need him?

Vollman's place has been broken into a lot, he's injured right now because of it, or maybe he also has had a car accident? I'm not clear on that. He mentions Loaves and Fishes, as a place that many people hate but I somewhat take issue with that. I think back in the day Loaves was a little more controversial but it's so obviously needed now. I'm sure he means businesses but businesses there have either been there forever and know the deal or who the hell would move a new business into that area not knowing what you are getting into?

They are ostensibly there to discuss his wonderful article in Harper's (please read!). It about homelessness and grief, and is set in Reno. I love it even more because he mostly interviewed the guys in the Cal-Neva, so I can picture the setting easily. Sadly, the Eggs McNeva do not make an appearance. 

The podcast interview is free-ranging and engrossing. I've only listened to part 1. I need to read some more Vollman, I've only read non-fiction short pieces, but of course he won the National Book Award for fiction (famously, the same night other Sacramentan Joan Didion was honored). But I have to finish fucking Middlemarch first!!!!!!

RIP Phil

RIP to a real one, Phil Isenberg. He died unexpectedly last week after a short illness. He and his wife Marilyn were and are my absolute role models for dynamic aging. In addition to his accomplished political career, he was a strong supporter of the arts, including Midtown Monthly. I met them through MidMo, and through my food writing. He was an early champion of Vampire Penguin and once gave me a gift certificate for it. Looking back through old emails and can see him sending me encouraging notes (like a "Good for you!" when I first wrote something for the Bee).

Until I just saw the  emails I had totally forgotten that I once met them to attend a UCB production of the play The Old Woman starring Baryshnikov and Willem Defoe. 

We dined out together, shared many amusing emails and would always chat at art openings, etc. We lost touch during the pandemic and never fully reestablished our hangouts, although I last saw him at Verge a few months ago.

 I remember one time, I think at the opening of Terminal B, which has an artwork that depicts cranes (you never see it because it's in international arrivals, which are rare in Sac, right?) and I mentioned I had never seen a sandhill crane. He responded with his typical bemused reaction, eyes sparkling, and recommended I make sure to slate in a viewing. Only later did I discover that the viewing area/reserve in Lodi is called the "Phil and Marilyn Isenberg Sandhill Crane Reserve". D'oh!

I absolutely loved running into them, just a wonderful, wonderful man. My thoughts are with Marilyn in her loss.

Where the chefs eat

The new Sactown mag has a fun cover story on where chefs eat. By the way, did you catch that Sactown bought Sacramento mag and then Sacramento went under? That's insane. I guess in the current publishing climate we can hardly expect to have 2 print publications on our dinky town but it was nice while it lasted. Quibble about quality, but I'm a fan of more writing (except sometimes in the case of fascist rag Inside East Sac, well and even then).

The chefs' top pick is Nixtaco (coincidentally to the last post) and after that Binchoyaki and Kru are neck and neck. Ravin Patel picks OBO lol.

It's interesting that Kelly McCown (who I interviewed in 2010 when he was chef of Ella before I learned the trick of ending pieces with a quote rather than a pat statement) picks Mother and also picks Bangkok Thai on 65th and Stockton saying he's almost reluctant to share it. I haven't really eaten any good Thai food since my Thailand trip; this looks like it might be another Thai/Lao place but hey, I love Lao food so I will try it.

Did you see my silly thing I wrote for Comstock's about all the businesses with "good" in the name? I still need to eat at Good Things To Eat Sacramento. I don't think Good Bottle is open in my hood yet. I think they are having some problems.

Nixtaco and Denios - Roseville blast

I hadn't changed my header image in forever, but that pic is from a recent trip to Seoul, to the top of the Seoul Tower, which unexpectedly had a toilet in the sky.

If you can believe it, I had never been to Nixtaco. I had had Nixtaco's food at events such as Baconfest, but I really make it a life policy to avoid Roseville if at all possible. I just associate it with some bittersweet (mostly bitter) memories of growing up. Such as working at #1 Gelato in Roseville in a rather dreary time of life. The only way to soothe the pain was pumpkin gelato mikshakes (which probably had about 3000 calories) and sweet, sweet whip-its in the walkin.

Anyway, so it finally felt like time and Smiller and I decided to go. We got there about 10 minutes after opening and it was already maybe 1/3 full. Right away you could tell it is an efficient operation which means, sigh, QR code menus. They do offer paper menus and we should have done it because theirs is voluminous.

I saw tacos gobernador, which I had to get. This is a style near and dear to my hears from spending a lot of time in Mazatlan. The origin story from the 80s is that some chefs in Maz invented these shrimp and cheese tacos to impress the Gobernador of Sinoloa, hence the name. These usually have gooey melting cheese, such as Oaxaca or Chihuahua. This version had a kinda grainy, runny white cheese sauce, like you would make for a mac and cheese. And bacon. The menu says Oaxaca cheese, but this is def a sauce. I was not a fan of this taco. Why mess with simple perfection and who needs bacon? But to each his own, I was looking for something traditional and nostalgic here.

Short rib barbacoa. This taco was SALTY. I am a salt lover so a taco has to be really salty for me to remark on it. This is guisado-style, messy and soupy. Good taco but slop-dawg and had to eat some with a fork.

I'm pretty sure the QR menu said smoked chicken (online menu doesn't echo this) and anything smoked and I'm like: Schwing. Chile verde, queso fresco. This was my favorite one.

The tortillas are obviously high-quality masa from look and texture but the corn flavor was not strong. All of these were good, Smiller liked his. I would come back when I am in the area and really want to try the octopus taco but so far this is not a destination taco for me.

Then we were on to Denios. If the below song never gets stuck in your head did you really grow up in Sacramento?

I had not been to Denios in FOREVER. Was it still fun? Does it suck now? 

Answer: Still fun, still has weird stuff. Aliens everywhere.

The farmer's market area was really exciting mostly because of the breadth of Mexican produce, herbs, fruit, etc. that is more than any local market you will find. I love these coconut-stuffed limes, I know I've gotten them in Mexico, maybe in Mexico City. The key is that the lime peel is shaved really thin, no bitter pith, no pulp, and then it seems like it's lightly candied. And the coconut is sweetened. They are 2 bucks a pop I ate 2 so fast and wish I had bought more.

A dude there had a fun trippy booth with lots of alien stuff.

I made this extra large so you can see the ominous slogan. I mean, I feel like MAGAs tell you what they are going to do before they do it so this pretty much says it all. We are in for a shitstorm. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised to see that all the crazy Trump crap was concentrated in one insane booth.

Salami burps and other gross-outs

 I'm guessing other people have this challenge of being more grossed out by crowds post-COVID? Before COVID I had no qualms about crowds and in punk spaces I've been in some of the sweatiest, stinkiest, shoutiest rooms known to man. I can still handle crowds but now I think more about people's respiration and clouds of mingled breathing. Smiller would tell you that I'm extremely sensitive to scents, especially artificial scents, not like they give me a headache or anything. I just obsess on lingering scents and get something akin to a panic attack if I can't escape one. A laundering experience in Thailand led to nights of poor sleep. I carry my own Dr. Bronner's because I would rather eat with dirty hands than ruin a restaurant meal with soap smell. I am shocked and appalled by how many upscale, well thought out restaurants have smelly soap.

Which brings us to not exactly an artificial scent but a phenomenon I've suffered through TWICE recently: someone near me having salami burps. The first time was at a show, smiller is going to have to help me out here which show, I know I mentioned it to him later. The second time was at David Cross at the Crest last night (he was pretty good, very anti-Christian and his digs at Sac were the funniest part to me).

More grossouts after the jump and also food stuff

Gadget alert!

 RIP to Bay Area artist David Lance Goines. He did all the Chez Panisse art I'm sure you've seen his stuff. And the Acme Bread logo with the little girl and baguettes. I always have thought that this Harbor Winery print I have was done by him but now I am doubting myself.

"She loved a good pickle plate" could be a contender for my epitaph. Cheese plate? Meh. Pickle plate? Helllloooo! Kodaiko has one that is consistently great. The top are slightly sweet mushrooms, you've got Billy's recipe kim chee which is dynamite and then some cucumber action. I got this on a stupid day when I went to Kodaiko just to get a special Filipino-influenced special ramen, then I didn't see it on the specials chalkboard and instead ordered something I didn't really want and didn't end up being into. Frustrating, but the pickle plate was the high point. Ya know what? I like their new Japanese subway-type signage too. Pozole after the jump

Lodi is for Lovers

 

I've been to Guantonio's in Lodi twice, and I'm a super fan. I'm not alone! Me and smiller went on Saturday to celebrate V-Day. The restaurant opens at 5:00, we arrived at 5:10 and our wait was an hour to be seated (outside, near a heater). I would advise, you either need to get there at 445, or come around 7 and you won't have much of a wait. Definitely 530 or 6 is a bad time to arrive. 

Waiting is not too bad, because you can get an excellent brew or bottle of wine and stand at tables outside (also by heaters). Folks tend to chat amongst the tables. It's very friendly. We heard another table from Sacramento who was really making friends, and we talked to a Lodi couple about restaurants they like in Sac. We got a tip from those locals that the Lodi Airport cafe (only open M-F for lunch and Sunday brunch) has really good food. The motto is "eat. fly. skydive." but I would def subtract "skydive" due to the safety record of that skydiving business.

We were seated slightly after 6, which is not late to eat so it was fine. We got a bottle of an Italian red blend. The owner seems to come out to open every bottle and discuss it, so that's a pro tip if you want to give compliments to the chef.

Guantonio's has a very exciting menu. I will often look at a menu and feel pretty meh about everything, but because of the creativity of the app menu at Guad's, I usually want to get just about everything. This time we chose a deep-fried hardboiled egg. It has a breadcrumb shell and was served with house-made chive mayo and topped with trout roe. That's honey on the plate! Crazy! Nick G. loves honey, if you get his pie "Nick-style" it's a roni pie with ricotta and hot honey.

I love a winter salad! So if I see some pretty-ass chicory on a salad I WILL be ordering it. This one had yuzu AND grapefruit AND crunchies (in the form of peanuts) AND miso AND dukkah and like a true salad master (sadly rare) it all came together to make this salad off the chain. My only note: maybe pistachios instead of peanuts? I should not be giving a genius notes tho.

 On to the pie. It had Olympia Provisions mortadella. It just goes to show how hard charcuterie is that some of the best can't be found any closer that Portland (there's Molinari for closer), but anyway I really should be eating more mortadella (doctor's orders) so this was a natural to choose. Also, hot peppers. The pizza is quite good, it lacked a crunch or crisp or chewy factor, not talking middle sog, but edge crust, which was a little more crust than I need. It's so hard to write about pizza, as I found when I briefly worked for Slice (RIP to that website). There are many pizza styles in the world, but  my partiality to Masullo's pizzas colors my perception of this type, which I won't really call Neopolitan but I guess wood-fired.

We even got dessert, which we never do, but eff it, it's Valentine's Day. Buffalo milk vanilla and salted caramel soft serve.  We saw a lot of takeout orders leaving with "Noni's canoli" so those are probably good. I think his dad and mom were working the kitchen, so perhaps Noni was there. 

Later that night we went to Dancing Fox Winery, which has a very interesting beer list, and then in the morning we went to Charro's Birriera, which I had clocked the day prior.

You know I'm gonna get stoked when I order birria and they ask me if I want goat or beef. The answer will always be G.O.A.T.

OMG so good.

Here's a taco made from my soup.

Smiller got a birria taco and a quesabirria taco, so his breakfast was ridiculously cheap, got a little bowl of consomme too.

My check was expensive because I got the full soup and a Michelada too! Hair of the dog for the wine and beer at Guad's the night before

Conclusion: Lodi is rad (in some ways!)

Still craving Taiwanese food and tried Betty

After that pork belly bao I was still thinking about Taiwan best mart, so I went back on Saturday lunch with Smiller to try dining in. It only has two tables and both were full but within a few minutes of ordering both opened up. While I was waiting for a table I poked my head in Osaka Ya. There was a line of people for the mochi, but I noted that Osaka Ya is looking careworn. Using this word made me look it up and it means "tired and unhappy because of prolonged worry" so I am somewhat using it incorrectly. I guess I mean "worse for wear". They have that broken window that's been boarded up for a long time. Anyway, wondering what is going on and hoping Osaka Ya is thriving.

At TBM I ordered an oyster omelet. It had 5 or 6 big oysters in there, strong-tasting ones. I would describe the texture with the gravy, and rice flour out-muscling the eggs as "gloppy". It's my first oyster omelet and I ordered it due to being bummed to not have the opportunity to order an oyster omelet in Thailand, so for me it was swing and a miss but interesting! I'm sure it is quite different from a Thai oyster omelet so I think my ordering motives were not pure. 

One of the main dishes commonly associated with Taiwanese food is beef noodle soup. I have had tastier versions, including at Yang's (RIP) but this was good. The seemingly house made noodles were the best part. The bok choy was too chunky to be able to get good bites of it.

Smiller got sesame noodles with the same noodles above and he purported to like it, that dish is a bit plain if you don't add anything to it.

It was fun to eat there, and I am very stoked on Taiwan Best Mart and trying more of the dishes. 

I know you are marveling that I posted this here rather than saving for the Gram. This is like Instagram gold right here so feel privileged. This is the back patio at new Southside wine bar Betty. I hesitated to go in because I am ride-or-die on Good News and I always feel like I should spend my wine money there. A friend said Betty was really cute so I had to go. It is indeed, cute as hell. Smiller was wondering aloud who created the wine bar/store as pantry/larder concept? Who was the first to decide that a wine bar should sell foodstuffs such as drum roll please....tinned fish! I know Ordinaire has been hugely influential on natty wine stuff but they pretty much focus on wine, so it's not them.

I respect the vibe of the Betty selection, particularly in the store part. It's tough to order a glass when a place picks one wine for each category (like one white, one rose, etc.) because if I want a white wine but not the one they have on offer then what the heck do I order? But I loved the classic Euro feel of some of the picks on the shelves. I feel like it is respecting the greats and has lots of natural wine but is not trend chasing. It has such a female feel to it, due to the name, the owner being female, and the crowd when we were there being 80% female, so it's like the antithesis of natty wine bro. 

Due to the limited selection, I had to order an Italian orange wine (shudder), this is an orange version of a pinot grigio and it tasted mostly just like a glass of white PG. I am kinda kidding when I say shudder but I find orange wine to often have off flavors and mouth textures (didn't say mouthfeel) that I don't enjoy. For my first glass I got an Italian white,

Betty is a cute (did I say mention it's cute?) new addition to the "scene" and hopefully Sac is big enough for all these places to find their niche.

Happy Lunar New Year I ate some dumplings

 I still want to post more about the food in Thailand, but I wanted to do a quick post on recent food "adventures". I have a new year's resolution to lose weight (I know) but also to eat more Asian food (in general and specifically in Davis when I am at the office) and to do more fine dining this year (trying out some fancy places is actually smiller's resolution but I am in favor) so those resolutions are really at odds!

Dating back as my time to SNR as food critic, I get news releases from people. A lady who flacks for Black Angus sends me stuff (I don't have the heart to unsubscribe, I guess I'm like what if I'm the last person left on her list who has not opted out of news releases with the subject line BLACK ANGUS STEAKHOUSE LAUNCHES NEW MOBILE APP), and also Paragary's related places. So I got an announcement that Centro is having crab month. That has set me on a seafood craving path. I def do not eat enough seafood (I mean if I see food....right?) Centro is really close to our house yet I never eat there. I was determined to go there for CRAB MONTH. I made this happen and these are Dungeness crab tacos. We discovered that they now have a tomatillo salsa with the free chips and not the pico de gallo we all remember. I got an excellent Oaxaca margarita with mescal. This food was very bland (I mean duh it's Centro). This made me realize that it may have been these specific black beans that made me think back in the day that I did not like black beans. They just tasted like salt. Now I know that black beans can be very rich and delicious and are the backbone of some regional Mexican food, like in Oaxaca. But when I was  young (days of yore) this was my intro. Also this rice is just...white rice, with maybe a little oil. No seasoning! We had a great time and don't worry Centro is exactly the same and was crowded on a Tuesday.

A friend (CH) recommended I try these juicy pork buns from Tasty Dumpling (Crocker Village). I was skeptical because some of these dumping chains seem really meh. She said it was not a chain, which seems to hold up upon Google research. Their specialty seems to be XLB soup dumpling; their menu is very interesting. She warned me that these juicy guys are squirters, and indeed they are! Make sure you let them cool before you get your juice bath. I put on an apron, but some juice squirted on my phone. They are a two-bite dumpling. They come with chili oil and vinegar. I will be back to this place! I got takeout but would like to eat there because the bready wrapper was steaming in the container and had collapsed

As part of the aforementioned resolution to eat at a fancy-ish place once a month, we ate at Mulvaney's. I def have affection for and support these people behind this restaurant but boy was this a disappointing meal. The entire cute main restaurant was reserved for a private event (I had made reservations for "dining room", which I assumed was the restaurant), so we were in the other area, which has kind of a warehouse feel. Not bad, but not cozy. I won't belabor all of it but it was an off night. We ordered this app, smoked salmon and brown bread, which is a Mulvaney's classic. It was good, although the onions were a bit strong and plentiful. But it's not like they can control the onion strength, I just avoided them. Although on second thought I do control the strength of red onions by lightly pickling them :) Our food all tasted good, but the beverage choices were not exciting.

DUDE LOOK AT THIS BAD BOY. I already knew Taiwan Best Mart was the bomb from semi-regularly getting their rice bowl with stewed pork, pickle and stewed egg. But today I thought: I should try something new. I saw this gua bao for only five bucks (it's about the size of a fist): pork belly, pickled mustard greens, cilantro peanut powder on steamed white bun. DAMN SON this is just as good as the one I got at cool guy LA spot Pine and Crane. I'm excited as you can tell. Fine dining is hard to deal with price-wise, because it's rare that anything you get for say, $38 is as delicious as this was, IMO. Here's an article on why fine dining is unsustainable in its current form. Many think pieces of this kind are coming out now due to Noma's announcement of their eventual closing.

I also got Zha Jiang Mian which they describe as zha-jiang (ground pork, beacurd, edamame, sweet flour sauce and bean paste) on noodles with cucumber and scallion. The noodles stuck together (this would be a better dine-in dish) but the zha-jiang was nicely salty/savory.

Beef noodle soup and roti

This beef noodle restaurant in Chiang Mai (Rote Yiam) is famous, and is in the Michelin guide. It had many pics of Thai celebs with the owners.

You pick your meat assortment, I got meatball, tendon and steak and you pick the type of noodle too. This was a delicious bowl of soup, especially the tendon. I would not have minded more pieces of it. Portions in Thailand tend to be small by our standards, which is kind of nice when you want to hit up multiple restaurants.

This is the big pot at the front that they mix your soup up from.

This pic above is from a roti shop in Chiang Rai. Remember how I said yesterday that my fancy hotel was right near tons of good restaurants? This Roti shop was less than ten minutes, and it was a fun walk down residential streets. I ended up talking to 3 little girls while they showed off their various cats to me. You can see pots of curry, with fried fish there in the middle and beef at bottom

Wiki reveals that Thailand is 5-10% Muslim and you see quite a few women in headscarves. So there are halal restaurants and some of them specialize in roti. Dessert roti booths are ubiquitous at night markets. The roti is fried up fresh and filled with nutella, bananas, what have you. I got a banana egg one that was bomb. Above is a beef curry soup and roti. Both were pretty small and since they were so good I also got...

Chicken-and-egg stuffed roti. I could eat this all the time. 

A great Chiang Rai restaurant Lab Sanam Keela

 I did a trip by myself to Thailand recently. Some people asked "why Thailand" and my answer was that I already knew I liked SE Asia, having previously visited Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia (just Phnom Penh), and that post-COVID I was feeling unsure about how travel would be so it seemed like a good idea to go a heavily touristed country. Of course the food was on my mind, and the question of what it would be like there vs. the Thai food in Sacramento and what I grew up eating.

I don't think I ever, or rarely ate Thai food growing up. Moving downtown in the mid-90s Amarin Thai (now called Bangkok@12 Thai and frequently crashed into by cars) was the jam, I can't remember why. It was one of the few on the grid probably. I remember getting curries and Tom Yum soup. Working in Davis for almost the last 20 years, there are so many Thai restaurants (many have closed and the popularity of Thai with college students has maybe waned in favor of Chinese, especially boba chains) and coworkers always wanted to go to Thai for birthdays etc. I always kind of groused about that internally because I thought the food was bland and often too sweet, and never liked that kind of pounded out breast meat that was what you got when you ordered chicken as the protein. Sophia's of course is still going strong in Davis, which at times has served as a fun venue and which Davis loves for their sweet cocktails.

My knowledge of Thai food barely progressed past that really. I got into Laotian food from learning more about it at Hmong New Year and there's a definite overlap there but my curiosity to find good Thai food in Sac wasn't really piqued. I ate at Kin Thai once with KW before the pandemic (if memory serves) and then got takeout there once or twice during, and once the ordering process went really wrong so although it's walkable from my house and I could tell it's really popular I didn't eat there often.

Anyway, although I posted lots of IG-bait pics of temples to IG while I was gone, I didn't post as many food pics, so I wanted to do a whole post on the food. I'll start in the city where I ended my trip, which ended up being my favorite place I visited: Chiang Rai. Chiang Rai is far north and kind of equidistant from Laos and Myanmar, very close to both. I still know nothing about Myanmar food, but I def had food in CR that I think of as Lao style.

I'll start with the first meal I ate when I arrived in CR (it was 4 hours via swank bus from Chiang Mai). I had decided to splurge on a 4 star hotel ($130 a night for White Lotus vibez) and I was a bit concerned that it was outside the city center, but I figured if that was annoying to get back into the center that I would just stay at the hotel a lot and maybe eat lame hotel food. But on the tuk tuk from the bus station  (10 minutes) we passed multiple crowded restaurants that were 5-10 minute walk from the hotel. I was so psyched. I checked in, gawked at the room/pool etc and right away headed to a very close place that specializes in larb, called Lab Sanam Keela. Their pork larb is pictured above. It has bits of liver, skin, unknown bits in there but was not gamy or particularly strong tasting, just delicious. It was warm and a bit saucy. Sticky rice seems more common in northern Thailand, probably the Lao proximity influence, not sure, and look at those herbs! The herbs were the real draw, and also cabbage and mustard greens to make wraps. Dude at the table next to me was eschewing implements to ball up the sticky rice in his hand and use it to scoop etc. so I did the same.

I isolated some of the interesting herbs. This one had an incense-like flavor. I just spent about 15 minutes browsing Thai and Lao herbs to try to find what it is with no luck. Even a reverse image scan didn't work.

The one above was slightly bitter and very sour and I made a joke on IG "it me". Pause for laugh.

And then you have fish mint, which I recognized from Vietnamese dishes I've had.

Here's what it looks like from the outside. I liked it so much that I went back for dinner the next day. The first day I went for late lunch, the restaurant only had a few others, the second time I was at prime dinner time and it was quite crowded, many big parties. Traveling alone and not being Thai I stood out and this visit was a bit awkward. I felt self conscious as a weirdo, and then they sat me directly in the entrance so then I'd be the first person that every party coming in saw so the awkwardness just kept rolling on but oh well.

On my prior visit I saw this dish at a table and the roasted squash sold me that I had to try it. It was not on the English language menu, but I looked up a pic from online reviews of this place and screenshotted it for ordering. There was some concern from the server about me ordering it, to the extent she brought someone out from the kitchen about it, but the language barrier just couldn't be overcome. I assured the kitchen guy I would not send it back. It was completely not spicy or unusual to a Western palate so I'm not sure what the concern was. Anyway, it's a mild green chili dip and veggies. Great!

This fried fish dish is a show-stopper, it's on many tables and the dip is the real story. Really heavy on the lime and so good. All the puffy bits on top of the fish are whole garlic cloves, deep-fried, some with a bit of papery garlic skin still on. The meat is filleted and fried and is resting on the skeleton of the fish. I think initially some of the concern is just that I ordered too much food, and true that, but I knew this would be the last time I could ever eat there so I had to go all out.

I wanted to capture this tableau because the best way to drink watery beer in a hot climate is of course on ice.

One last thing that was a little bit funny was after I had been served, the guy from the kitchen who had earlier tried to dissuade me from the dip plate brought me this little bowl of pork belly soup to see if I liked it. I feel like he was trying to get a feel for if it pleased a Western palate and I assured him it was great. You can see that it has cilantro, the varietal that's stronger tasting, and you don't see cilantro super commonly in Thailand in my eating experience in my limited time.

So that's that restaurant, probably my fave place all around that I ate but true to the awkward and experimental nature of travel not always easy and comfortable at all times.

First post since Valentine's one

 First post since Feb due to 1) desire to avoid whatever the hell is going on on twitter 2) in office and it's kind of a quiet day and I have many projects to avoid

This profile of the playwright Will Arbery is gorgeously written. I am excited that Capital Stage is staging the only play of his I've seen (online, early pandemic) "Heroes of the Fourth Turning". 

I recently returned to CapStage for (I think) first time since pandemic, unless I am forgetting a play. I went to see Gloria, which I knew was about a New Yorker-style workplace and I was like "right up my alley" but then there is also a workplace killing which shocked me. I had not seen the prominent "this play contains gun violence" sign at the entrance. It was an ok play, and now I have seen 2 OK plays by this same playwright at CapStage (the other being Octoroon). Octoroon featured an audience participation slave auction so that was one of the cringiest moments I've maybe ever had in live theater besides when my phone range during The Seagull.

I won't post too much about movies because that's all I ever do but I'm pretty excited about all the movies that came out today. I think I'm going to see The Menu today, but I also want to see She Said, Armageddon Time, You Resemble Me, Bardo, and Banshees of Inisheran. Of those I expect I won't like Armageddon time and Bardo, but WE SHALL SEE.

I'm excited that there's another Magic Mike next year and it's directed by Soderbergh. 

Where are we all at with remote work? While I would jump at the chance for 100% remote, I have reluctantly returned more often to the office lately and I'm adjusting. The chance of some WFH makes it more bearable, and I think my workplace is never going back to that mindset that you sit in your office from 8-5 so that people know you're working. So the flexibility that offers (for instance, working from home for a bit in the morning, then heading in) helps as well. Little things make a big difference. It is ridiculous how much satisfaction I am getting from having set up a tea area (with vintage tablecloth) and that some of the students I work with are using it. I'm still just mostly zooming from my office though, but trying to not think about how it's silly that anyone cares where I do that from.

I like to text NH when I'm up very early reading the comics. I know she will always be up before me and will appreciate anything comics-related. This comic is disgusting on (at least) 2 levels

Not dying, indeed living, if not your best life, A life, is excellent, but one consequence of longevity is that you live to see things die, fail, go away etc. And one such thing is the motherfucking print edition of Parade Magazine noooooo!!!! Where will I go for my mild celeb interviews? For the advice of the smartest women in the world (TM) Marilyn Vos Savant? Founded in 1941. I will not be seeking it out online. This is sad. 

This is the horrible creep that home-invaded a neighbor and she is still trying to bring him to justice, vigilante or otherwise. If you see him around for real call 911 and you can hit me up for more info. He deserves it, he tried to home invade her neighbor as well. Boulevard Park area. At least text me with info on his whereabouts if you don't want to call the police. His name is Jesse. Yes, that is the awesome flier I designed before we knew he had actually done the main crime. Graphic design is my passion.