First off, I thought I would report on our Saturday meal at the Acme Chophouse at PacBell. I’d classify this place as a classic tourist restaurant, in that all it has going for it (relative to the general excellence found in SF) is its location. It’s much like the parade of crap Italian along Columbus in North Beach. Chris estimates the food was overpriced by 50%; I’d agree. The food wasn’t horrible, just nothing special and not in proportion to the price. Also, the waitress was disaffected and unable to look us in the eye and had no knowledge of how to pour wine. In the end, I enjoyed the meal due to the company. My friend Ceballos and his girlfriend Clare are in town on the 24th and we’re headed to Dosa, so I’m pretty fired up for that meal–a real contrast from Acme Chophouse.
Speaking of Chris, he has a large head. But not as large a head as Bruce Bochy, the Giants’ new manager. I love the headline of this Chronicle article: “NEW HEAD MAN: San Francisco’s 16th Manager Owns Reputation To Match His Cap Size.” Which, if you’re wondering, is claimed to be a size 8.
iLounge is a great resource for all things iPod-related (and apparently iPhone-related and Apple TV-related, too, based on their pre-release coverage). They have a 4-part (I think only 4) guide to headphones up that’s worth reading, especially if you haven’t started reading the gospel according to canalphones. I’m very happy with my Etymotic ER-6s, have had them for almost three and half years now. Once the pair inevitably breaks, I’m not sure whether I’ll get another set in the $100 to $200 range, or ante up for something even better. The rational choice is the former.
And to close, here’s some baseball/Michigan football news spotted by Correspondent A.Bo from the wilds of Central America: “White Sox minor-league pitcher Clayton Richard hasn’t been sacked since he was a Michigan quarterback in 2005. That almost changed Sunday. An errant Richard throw struck Sox closer Bobby Jenks in the neck as he was warming up in the bullpen to pitch in a ”B” game and almost sidelined Jenks for the day. Jenks had to be restrained by minor-league pitching coach Curt Hasler.”
A couple responses:
First, the Richard/Jenks story reminds me of getting nailed by an errant John Griffin pitch while he was warming up in the bullpen. Getting hit with a 78 mph pitch hurts more when you have no idea a ball is even coming at you. I heard a hollow thud in my chest cavity before I realized it was caused by his wildly inaccurate throw.
The other thing is that I was comparing notes with Blake re: Acme, and he had a better experience there. I’m not sure whether he’d give it an over-price factor (I can’t remember). But he had a good experience there with the regular ribeye on the menu (mine was the ribeye dry aged special, which costs $20 more than the regular one). That’s not to say I’ll be returning there any time soon, but suggests that perhaps Acme isn’t always as crappy.
Here is the Chronicle review (which gave Acme 3 stars out of 4 for their food), although it was written over four years ago, so probably not relevant at this point (though it does mention a problem with service, which is consistent with our experience): http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2002/05/26/PK181608.DTL&type=food