River City Brewing Company - Sacramento, CA

River City Brewing Company - Sacramento, CA
Don't bother says Cranky.
I have been going to this place periodically over the last 10 years, and I realize it is TIRED. It used to be a busy place, but the food is the same yet nothing exciting. They must shake it up. Beer is good, but not fantastic. Wait staff, lord, the worse. We chose outside dining, many tables, umbrellas, heaters, and a 3 foot iron fence around a wide area. There was a rash of homeless or beggars there as well and no one from the restaurant kept them out. We were approached twice by people wanting to sell something or just plain ask for money.
STAFF: What service? Immediately seated, the hostess did not take drink orders, perhaps she should. We had water and a little bread right away, then it took 10 minutes, no lie, for the waitress to get to us. By then the bread is gone and the water nearly so. We order beer, the waitress dashes off, and after another 10 minutes we are wondering, what the heck, it isn't like the place was busy, we only ordered beer, how long could it take? The waitress comes back and tells me my choice was "out." Ok, waitresses can't always know that ahead of time, perhaps they just ran out. I dunno, but it took nearly another 10 to get our two pints of beer. Naomi had the stout and I had a Woodenhead ale (from experience, I knew this is one of River City's best). Good thing we ordered food when the waitress brought us the beer, or our wait would have really dragged on. She gave us an excuse about they got slammed and one table had taken all her time - but there were no big groups there, and I didn't see any trouble folks. I don't care, just bring me food and beverage.
DRINKS: The beer here is usually good, but the last few times I have come in, River City was out of at least one of the brews they had advertised as available. The Stout was "thin" but tasty and the Woodenhead was excellent. River City missed a chance to have us consume more beer since it took nearly 30 minutes to bring us our first drinks which arrived shortly before food. We could have drank two over the entire time we were there (about an hour) but...
FOOD: River City must re-ignite the menu. It is old and I've eaten most of what is there. It's good and tasty.
Cranky rates River City a one happy face. Someplace I will only pop into for a brew when I am at the mall downtown Sac, and definately if there is only bar seating.

ABC's 'Commander in Chief' sinking into lame-duck status

ABC's 'Commander in Chief' sinking into lame-duck status
Well, that is really too bad. Seems like only situational TV can offer honest discussion about politics - exploring ethics and morals where real media, and sadly our real leaders fail. This and West Wing were good commentaries on our social / political beings. So long.
What will we see next? Goofy leaders in sitcoms? Or more "Reality" shows that aren't?
(Cranky looking sad)

Beer Menu at Suppenk�che

Beer Menu at Suppenk�che

Ah, beer.... This Easter weekend, my partner and I traveled to my favorite US town (San Francisco - hey I lived there for 14 years and still love and miss it). We met my little friend Charm and her beau for some beer drinking fun at Suppenkuche - German cuisine and all beers either German, Dutch, or Belgian. Mmmmm.
WAIT STAFF: Very busy, but our drinks were never over-delayed. It was Saturday and when we got there around 5:30 pm it was already a full house with only two empty tables in the front dining room.
FOOD: Rich fare - a pork dish with a huge 'dumpling' that was a stuffing ball and sauerkraut. Naomi had a leg o' lamb with kale and onions and mashed potatoes. Hard bread and butter was there as well. We shared a "bee sting" cake that was light, fluffy, and sweet. Sweet always goes with beer, that or salty.
DRINKS: We tried many different kinds of beer, only two in a bottle. Naomi tried the smoke beer and stuck with that, having another one. Unfortunately, I'm not a German speaker and remembering the long name is impossible, nor is it up on Suppenkuche's web site. I started with a Weltenburger Dunkel (Weltenburger is a name and Dunkel means brown), then Charm had one later, while I switched to a Belgian Trappist beer, Leffe. The Dunkel was full of flavors and had a sweet hint. The Leffe was traditional and lighter than a barley wine, but strong flavors. As I like my Chimay, I liked this as well. Charm started with an Optimator, a good standby and Scott had a beer that was a bock starting with a K that unfortunately didn't make the website either. Lastly, Scott finished with a Celebrator. 4 people, 8 beers of 7 varieties. We took the BART and Muni so as to minimize any risks associated with driving.
Cranky will give the Suppenkuche 4 happy faces.

Sushi in Irvine

Mitsui -
Quail Hill Pkwy (off Sand Cyn and I405) in Irvine - while on a business trip, always eat comfort food, for me that's SUSHI. Mitsui is well decorated, accomodating large and small groups. I was with an 8 person group.
WAIT STAFF:
Ethnic, helpful with suggestions, prompt.
DRINKS:
Beer and saki, what else? The usual, Asahi reserve and some nigori saki.
FOOD:
The stuffed tomato, not really a tomato, was one of the most delicious things I ate there. Red tuna, wrapped to look like a red tomato stuffed with crab meat and a scallop atop. Some small amount of sauce (was it orange?) and a bit of tobiko. The rolls were all interesting and good. The nigiri, unagi was all I ordered in this style, was generous.
Price was right - so overall, Mitsui gets 4 happy faces from cranky pants.

Out of Town Eats

Rockin' Baja Lobster
April 13 - in Irvine for business. The training class I was helping train had a night out and 18 of us went out to the Newport Beach Pier area to grab some grub. Now, Newport Beach has great memories for me as I spent a few teenage summers hanging out there. The fondest for me is staying with the Buuck's at the rental they rented each year. OK, I could go on and on about that and them... but, I'm here to write about food and eateries.Rockin' Baja Lobster has quite the theme - and that theme is BUCKETS. Buckets o' beer (6 for the price of 5, about $3.50 each, not bad, actually) and buckets o' shell fish - most of it fried. Fried slipper lobster tails (that would be crawdads on steroids), shrimp fried, the crabs were steamed or boiled, no chips and salsa, all you can eat ceasar salad, and family-style servings of refried beans and spanish rice (no other choices of beans).
WAIT STAFF:Young and helpful, somewhat forgetful about water, but other than that, they worked hard.
DRINKS:Hey, this was business, so I had only one beer, a Negro Modelo. The beer menu was not huge, but some variety. The drinks looked interesting - pitchers of margeritas, but the 3 different mojitos sounded yummy - but I was driving, so only the one beer for me. Perhaps I can come back and have a mojioto.
FOOD:As described above, made to be served fast - but the quantities only sound big. A bucket of shrimp (Shrimp Lover's Bucket) is $16.95, and like all buckets, is half filled with paper, so the food is at the top two inches of the cute galvanized quart-sized buckets. The buckets were pretty much the same with paper and food, except the snow crab, but they are long. I had the Lobster Lover's Combo, a fried lobster taco, which was good, only fried, a lobster enchalada, and a cup of lobster and corn chowder. I got beans and rice with that and the salad and salsa bar. It wasn't so bad, $13.95 is reasonable for lobster. I think the fact that the restaurant is not generous with the ubiquitous chips rubbed me wrong. The best part of the salsa bar was chili butter, smeared on a tortilla was tasty. Eighteen people produced a bill of $463.88. ouch.

Rockin' Baja Lobster gets one happy face on the cranky scale. It would have gotten two happy's except the no-choice of rice and beans and zero free chips was just not generous enough for this theme restaurant. (It must be the tourists who get sucked in, I don't see locals comin' back)

Rate the Hyatt Long Beach, CA

http://longbeach.hyatt.com/hyatt/hotels/index.jsp?src=tig_lgbrl_brand_google
Cranky was sent to a conference in Long Beach, CA. Since the conference was at the Hyatt, I stayed there. Just a few observations:
OVERALL: Nice setting, great rooms.
GOOD: The most comfortable beds, elevators aplenty and fast. And very very clean.

BAD:
Why do all hotels still have the most awful coffee on earth in those little coffee makers in the rooms? Why oh why? When most of them serve a brand name (Starbucks) on site, do the rooms still have awful coffee?
This is a very nice hotel, yet, it seemed like the Hyatt was trying to make money off of every little trivial thing. #1, no drinking fountains, so you have to buy bottled water - just plain everyday bottled water - $3.00 (come on, this isn't a movie theater).
I would also think the Hyatt, being so high end here in Long Beach, would have free internet, WiFi, but no, they teamed up with T-Mobile for the cursed $9.99 a day service.
Drinks at the bar? $6.50 for nothing-to-get-excited about wine.
It was ridiculous the way the Hyatt nickeled and dimed us guests.
*** That said, I would still come back because the rooms were so good and clean and comfortable ***

Return to the Kasbah Lounge

kasbah

More on the Kasbah Lounge.
One good visit deserves another, so we have been back twice more. We brought friends both times, once sitting at a table, the next time in our favorite place on the cushioned bench with low tables.
WAIT STAFF: They were busy both times, yet attentive. On our second return trip, I felt like we were getting our food in a hurry and felt rushed.
DRINKS: Kasbah has been out of their featured Mediterranean beers, with only one available, for the last two months. Too bad. If they could not make it more consistent, they should have had the menu say "ask us about our Mediterranean beers.' Just a suggestion.
FOOD: In addition to the other dishes we already love, we had Stuffed Dates and Kefta. Excellent. The fiery cheese dish is also a hit. The only strange thing was this; the dates were small and seemed to be breaded before fried, and there were six of 'em, on our first return visit. The second time, they were almost tempura style, large, only four. But both times, equally delicious.
The Kasbah still rates all the happy faces Ole Cranky gave it last time. It is someplace I'll take adventurous out-of-town guests to.