note to king feddy

your Highness,

something i forgot to mention in our phone calls last week (and since
monday isn't a dead-lock for me, i wanted to pass it along now).

the oakland opera theatre (http://www.oaklandopera.org/) is doing a
version of duke ellington's only opera, "queenie pie," this month.
interesting in several respects:

* it was never finished. what's been put together is a series of rough
notes, with some additional capping orchestration. (duke's son, "don't
call me 'paul'" mercer did quite a bit of work on the 1st performance
along with the then-still-existing duke ellington orchestra.)

* it's very well acclaimed. robert palmer gave it a super-glowing
review in the new york times years ago (means more coming from him than
probably any other whitey because of his work/near-death experiences in
jamaica with lee "scratch" perry). it's supposed to be an order of
magnitude better than "porgy and bess," which, let's face it, isn't that
hard.

* it's hideously difficult to see live. and it's playing right in our
own backyard in what has to be the greatest city to see it on the west
coast (outside of compton).

i suspect the prince and the toe are too young to fully appreciate it.
but you might be able to convince the trouble and strife to either get a
sitter and go with you, or possibly watch the mutant off-spring in your
stead (although the emotional cost there might be prohibitively high).

i'm still not certain of my travel plans, but i *think* i'll be around
at least a day or two where i could work in a look-see to check it out.

your servant,
b1

p.s. this posted with the super-secret email address from my hiptop. if
you're seeing a post, it works!

Super-Private Letter to King Feddy

{pre-script: i tried posting this as a comment but blogger started puking on the html it wouldn't allow there, but did allow as a main entry. i got sick of editing the offensive code out, so i'm just sticking it as an entry. people who aren't feddy, don't read this. it's private. really. i mean there's sex stuff in here. and kitchen utensils. and recording devices. and swearing. and i call the king a "bitch." seriously. at least one of the things i've just said is true. it's not pretty. don't read it.}

your Highness,

first and foremost, thank you for taking the time to dictate to your scribes (or whatever the hell it is that you do that manages to actually make words up here) and post a "review" in, oh, THE SAME FRICKEN WEEK that we ate. that's mighty big of you.

two small points.

one, i do a lot of things when i write, but one of them is not misrepresenting the way you talk. you swear a lot. i absolutely promise you that when we were talking about i restaurant you either said "who would be so fucked-up as to call a restaurant that?" or "what kind of a fucked-up name is that for a restaurant?" i'm pretty sure it was the first, but it may have been the second. it's definitely one of the two. definitely.

i'm not baggin' on you for it. it was a conversation that we had in private, that you had no way of knowing was going to be published (and before we had talked about "here"), so i put it in for minimal shock-value and veritae.

i like talking to you. i like your language, style and form. i like what you represent. i'm not taking umbrage to your use of the word.

when it comes to using the word "fuck," i barely use it. it's a word *i* use in conversation less than once a month (i do quote it from other people -- in fact that's my most common usage). outside of "extreme personal situations," i think it's a low word used by the stupid and dull. people tend to write much more aggressively than they behave -- in fact it's one of the big problems of the internet and electronic communication (except in my case, of course, where it's pure genius).

i can partially prove my usage. it's safe to say if i was going to swear anywhere, it'd probably be here. if you go back and look at the arch, you'll see i've used the word three times in two-and-a-half years. two of those were semi-quotes, one of them was pure me.

i don't quote someone's usage of it when they're not using it. i don't.

in fact, you pretending little swine, look at what you wrote. IN THE SAME PARAGRAPH you said "WTF?" and that is right. that is the way you talk. except you don't use letters, you use words. (unless you're trying to be funny; which is, in fact, pretty funny, but that's not your style of humor.)

in the opinion that i hold (that you would undoubtedly argue is not all that accurate) you have the memory of a pasta colander. you hold the cooked thought, but drain away the hot water that made it that way.

at some level i can even prove your raw memory expertise.

when you interviewed me at apple ... the day i met you ... you interviewed me with your HEAD AGAINST THE WALL THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW for chrissake ... you were all spun from doing a/ux work ... you didn't want to interview me, neither did the deadman (who was your interviewing partner) ... so rather than interview you just told me what apple was like ... i was absolutely convinced that it was a test ... you guys wanted to see if i'd crack under the weirdness of it all.

now.

you don't remember this event, or if you do, it's only because i told you about it later. (because last time i told you about this you said you didn't remember. oh, but you might not remember THAT. arrrrrrrrrgh. why is it i want to say "fuck" here?) and the event i'm talking about is much less than that.

so when i say that's the word you're using, that's the fricken word you're using. i'll go further and say you have no idea how much you swear. none. (and don't start in on the $5 f-bomb thing you have going at your house).

read this next part very carefully:

i am going to tape the next phone conversation we have that's longer than three minutes.

then we'll either:

a) go back and listen to it and agree that it's what you said and count the number of times you swear.

= or =

b) i'll just post the transcript here.

i suggest blocking my phone number if you don't want to see who is going to end up right. because being wrong's a bitch.

two, your concept of journalistic integrity is both forthright and touching. the fact that you have moral fortitude is one of the things i've always liked about you. it's a peculiar trait to find in anyone in a valley that's otherwise an ethical vacuum.

i'm intimately familiar with the concept and everything revolving around it. remember, i went out for years with a high powered business editor and wrote a regular column for a major publication.

(i have intentionally posted that letter to stick a thumb in the eye of journalistic integrity. it is the reason i posted it.)

ANYWAY.

taking that line gets you no free food.

honestly feddy, if i got a free meal do you think i'd be too afraid to say that or somehow cover it up? you know me better than that.

"i would say that 'the food sucked rhino,' but i was given a free coupon. what's not to like about that? it was pretty damn good."

this is a grander experiment in can-i-get-a-free-meal-this-way? i honestly don't know. (for someone who is as aware and capable in art as you are, you sure don't have a very good feel for the concept of "performance" over-and-above a stump stage.)

AND.

no one is going to read this damn thing for the reviews. they won't. well, they kind of might by freakish google hits, but it's not like this is yelp. so what we say doesn't really matter.

AND.

that's ignoring the much bigger and true fact that almost no one will read this, period. between us we have, maybe ten people that will read it on a "regular" (meaning at least monthly) basis.

okay, so i was going to post this as a letter on the main page, but that seems too overblown. i'll stick it as a comment -- most people don't read these damn things anyway (if i'd waited a week to post the comment, no one would see it except for you, and that is too underblown).

your servant,
b1

iRestaurant

First off, it isn’t “I Restaurant”, it is “iRestaurant”. That is initially what struck me about the place. Apple is nearby, and makes all sorts of ‘i’ stuff - iPod, iMovie, iMac, etc. When we drove by, I thought, “iRestaurant, what does that mean?” Over the next couple weeks we noticed a bunch of interesting looking restaurants, so we decided to try them all and report back. But since iRestaurant was the one that caught my eye first, it became our first stop.

[And once we actually went to the restaurant, and were close to the sign out front, I noticed that the dot of the i is actually a heart, so perhaps it is “i heart Restaurant”? There was also some kanji on the sign, with what looked to me like a very stylized “love” at the top of the symbol, which for me, sort of reinforced my “i heart Restaurant” theory. I didn’t ask though.]

I also need to say that when you read B1, you’re getting a very stylized (and I’d argue not all that accurate) picture of me talking. I read the quotes he attributes to me, and always think, I don’t talk like that, I don’t use those phrases or words or swear that much. So hey, take it with a grain of salt. “Baggin-n-saggin t-shirt outfits” - WTF? I had on jeans and a t-shirt both of which fit. Maybe B1 was baggin-n-saggin, but I sure wasn’t.

As always, lunch with B1 is a learning experience. The Mutant Disco playing in his car had some good tunes I was familiar with, though I mistakenly identified the instrumental that was on when I got in as some Devo or derivative number. I also learned about (and experienced, a pizza hut turn, parking hollywood style, and riding jfk style - yeah.)

I should have taken notes and photos. I’ll figure this out as I go along. My first stop at iRestaurant was the restroom. It had some crazy fancy sinks, and an electric trash can. Why an electric trash can? I’m not sure. Perhaps everyone has an electric trash can these days and I’m just living in the dark ages. It threw me off for a second when I turned to throw away my paper towel. The lid was closed and there was some sort of control panel on top of the canister. Upon closer inspection, there were two buttons, “open” and “close” with what looked like a little LED between them. The LED was off, or blank, or perhaps not an LED at all, but it made me think that the trashcan was off, or not plugged in. “How will I get this thing open if the power is off?” It also crossed my mind that maybe it was a paper shredder (whoa, these guys are so high tech they shred their paper towels), or maybe an incinerator. Eventually I pressed “open” and the lid silently and smoothly opened. I tossed my towel, pressed “close” and went back to our table.

I join B1 at our table. There is a one page, two-sided lunch menu that lists 60? 80? choices for lunch. B1 is going through the dinner? menu, which is a huge binder with pictures. He’s trying to get me to order something insane. I decline. The owner (or at least someone who seems to have some elevated status in the restaurant) comes over to see what we want to drink. B1 goes for a coke, I ask for some tea and a glass of water. I never got the glass of water, which is the only bad thing I can really say about the whole experience. I also ask him about one of the dishes on the menu, but it comes with shrimp (and I don’t like seafood), so I tell him I want to peruse the menu a bit more.

On the one hand, I feel like I should order something I’ve had at lots of other Chinese restaurants, like Mongolian Beef. That way I could compare it to other places and say - the best Mongolian Beef ever, or 7/10 on the Mongolian Beef scale. The menu however, had lots of choices, many of which I’m not familiar with. So I decided to go with something that I’d never had before, but not too far out there. I think it was called “shredded pork with garlic sauce”. It was the first thing on the menu, and I figured that was as good a place to start as any.

As you’ve probably read and seen below, B1 ordered an appetizer of “magic flavored fish”. It turned out to be a plate of peanuts with little fried bits of fish. I like tuna, but not much else out of the water, but figure I’ll give it a shot. Deep fried fish bits might be good. Turns out they’re not. They are nasty. The peanuts look like they’ve got some seasoning on them, so I try a few. The seasoning isn’t very strong, they taste pretty much like plain peanuts. On the whole, this dish isn’t for me. It may have been the most exquisitely made “magic flavored fish”, but I wouldn’t know. It was weird however, and that was good. When I go to a restaurant I don’t want some watered down Americanized version of the food, I want the real thing. I suspect this was the real thing, which just happens to not be for me. (Or maybe it is just some made up nonsense to make people like me think we’re getting the real thing. For all I know the cooks in the back were on the floor in hysterics - “they ordered the magic flavored fish, bwa-ha-ha, what should we serve them? I don’t know, fry up these fish scraps and mix it with some peanuts”) The most odd thing however was the plastic spoon. The restaurant is pretty fancy and nice. The food came on nice china. Why a plastic spoon? Not sure. Maybe the magic is too intense for metal.

Our food showed up shortly after. The lotus root on B1's dish looks cool. Weird. I try one and it tastes like a water chestnut, but with a bit of kick at the end. I though they were great. My dish was good, but not exactly what I was hoping for. The pork definitely wasn’t shredded. It was just little pieces of pork. The sauce wasn’t all that garlicky. It was supposed to be spicy, but it wasn’t. It was good, just not what I was expecting.

There were at least a couple big flat panels playing music videos (the music was either off or on very low - so they weren’t distracting and didn't interfere with conversation). Some of them were corny, or just Chinese versions of some already bad American music video. A few however, were out of this world. Stunning visually, funny, interesting - all with no sound. They were super.

Our bill was $18 something, which on reflection seems too low. I thought each of our lunch specials was at least $6.99, which means the magic flavored fish plus a coke and a pot of tea (and no glass of water) would only be $4, which seems too low. Once again, notes would have helped here. Next time. Maybe you get a drink with the lunch special?

You might think I’d be down on this restaurant, but I’m not. I thought it was a great place. The dishes we ordered didn’t wow me, but I will say that everything seemed really fresh and of the highest quality. I suspect there is something on the menu that will knock my socks off, it will just take a few trips to find it. The restaurant was very nice and the owners seem to being trying hard to create a high quality place. There was a lot of attention to detail at iRestaurant - it is miles away from your typical Chinese greasy spoon.

I don't want your free food

In response to "Open Call for Free Food", let me just say, if you send me a free coupon to your restaurant, I'm not going to review it.  Seems like a great setup for corruption.

I just don't think you can objectively rate a free lunch.  So in the same way that financial reporters disclose it when they own stock in a company they're reviewing, I will state here that I will be paying for all of my meals (and sometimes B1's too).

Open Call for Free Food

If you have a restaurant in the Bay Area (Cupertino, San Jose, Santa Clara, Mountain View, Sunnyvale, Campbell, et al) and you'd like to see us review it some Monday, let us know. You'd be amazed how fast we get to a place when we have a gift certificate.

Open Call for Homies

If you're a pal of b1 and/or the King, you're welcome to join us for a Monday lunch. Feel free to tap Feddy or myself and we'll count you in. But be aware that:

* You follow the schedule we set (meaning time and place), we don't follow yours.

* We reserve the right to say something snotty about you.

In other words: you're the tail, not the dog.

I Restaurant, Cupertino

- or -

A Lunch with a Triple Play


Last week, in fairly short order, the King saw I Restaurant (Feddy: "Who would be so fucked up as to call a restaurant that?" b1: "Crazy Asians. It's gotta be Asian.") and then decided it would be a good idea to start writing about this lunch business. So when I pulled up in the continual car with Mutant Disco pumping, it was an easy choice to roll the few blocks back to I Restaurant.

Due to an over-abundance of high tech (particularly a booming Apple), and having way more money than the city knows what to do with, the streets of Cupertino are under continual modification and upgrade. So it was no surprise that the construction crew forced us to make a Pizza Hut turn at Stevens Creek and Wolfe.

The back parking lot was full, but there was a nice Hollywood spot on the side of the building. I always forget, though -- just like in LA, nobody actually walks in Cupertino. Which means there are no sidewalks.

We were forced across the lawn in front of the gawking crowd of I Restaurant.

As we entered we were quickly welcomed and shuttled to a two spot of our choice. On first entrance, it feels like a pretty nice place, nicer than the baggin-n-saggin t-shirt outfits that the King and I were wearing. But hey, this is The Valley, and here anyone can be a multi-millionaire (in fact, one of us is), so it's easy to look scruffy and get away with it.

The convention center style chairs are covered with cloth, giving it a weird I'm-not-sure-we-should-be-here feeling. I've only ever seen that once before in my life -- at a (good) Chinese restaurant in Bangalore's Hilton Hotel.

The six million people in the Bay Area have an interesting ethnic breakdown. If you bunch the broad ethnic groups together (which I don't, but census types do), the majority of the people here are Asian, followed closely by Hispanic, with whitey being a close third. There are no black people, although we do recognize them when we see them. Or in other words, if you're white, you're outnumbered more than two-to-one by everyone else.

I like it for two reasons. One is I grew up in Colorado in a neighborhood that was so white that "minority" meant you were Catholic. I felt then as a kid, and much more strongly now as an adult, that that type of upbringing doesn't give you a good feel for the world and its potential.

The other is it gives you spectacular food possibilities. Before I moved to California (over 20 years ago now!), I had eaten Japanese food once (pretty crappy) and Chinese food twice (almost passable). But out here I get "ethnic" food all the time. Multiple times a week. And it's good.

I have two jingoist rules of thumb when it comes to eating "non-American" food. The best places will:

A) Have very few (or no) whiteys eating there.

-&-

B) You should feel a little uncomfortable while there.

So I'm already happy. Because the seats feel more dressed than I do, and looking around everyone looks like they're part Mao's next revolution. Counting the two of us, there are only three non-Chinese in the place -- the other being an Indian customer (dot, not feather) who must have taken a wrong turn or something.

Feddy goes to the bathroom giving me time to fumble with the cheapie lunch menu as well as the super-huge dinner menu. As I peruse the offerings, I get approached by a super-cute waitress, twice, figuring that I can probably ask her out on third pass.

Unfortunately that all gets blown up right about the time the King returns. My cute waitress has suddenly been relieved of her table duties by a kind-yet-scary man (who looks suspiciously Filipino). Feddy's super-excited about the trash-can-that-appears-to-be-a-paper-shredder in the men's room, but I'm still fuming over my date being blown.

To put things back on level I politely explain to the King that he's buying the fricken lunch since I paid for the b1andtheking.com domain registration and order "beef with lotus root in XO sauce" (not having any idea what XO sauce is, but hoping it might mean I get the old waitress to give me a hug and a kiss). Somehow that didn't seem quite risky enough so I tacked on an appetizer of "magic flavored fish."

And a Coke.

I try to get the King to order "soya pig feet" or maybe "chicken with bones," but instead he opts for shredded something. I never listen to his food orders anyway because he runs distance races, treats his body not only like temple but a machine, has a knock-out wife (who in turn treats him like a mental patient) and as a result, he always eats healthy.

Oh, and he's a fussy eater.

Or putting it another way, we have nothing in common.

Feddy: "What the hell was that you ordered? Magic fish?"

b1: "No, magic flavored fish. It's illegal to serve magic fish. They're endangered. You think a restaurant like this can serve magic fish and stay in business? No. Magic flavored. They only taste like magic fish, but they're not."

Feddy: "Oh. So what's magic flavor?"

b1: "Hell if I know."

Feddy goes into a long discussion of how his genetically modified and blood doping son, Prince Feddy, has set (another) new course record in running and as he does I act like I'm listening as I take in the decor. Very roughly speaking, I Restaurant has the same aesthetic sensibilities as the aluminum Xmas tree I had begged my parents for (and loved) as a kid. There's a small chandelier in the ceiling that has rotating colored lights around it and like a car accident, I'm having trouble taking my eyes off it, although I know I should.

On those rare moments when I do, my eyes are drawn to a big flat screen playing Chinese karaoke. There are several dramatic scenes going by, my favorite is one where a woman is in a hospital listening to her lover playing a heartfelt rendition of something striking on a piano over a cell phone he has laid on the soundboard. At the end she sheds a tear and I think she dies.

So come on.

What's not to like? Feddy's payin'. I've spoken to a cute Chinese girl several times (without even having to jam quarters in a box to keep the window open). And I've seen enough Taiwanese weirdness to last me to the Olympics. And the food's not even here yet!

I'm loving it.

The food comes pretty fast.

The magic flavored fish turns out to be cuttle fish with peanuts. If you think "squid jerky Cracker Jacks" you're on the right page. But give it a salty bias, not sweet. I eat a few and, when Feddy averts his eyes, I'm able to levitate the plastic serving spoon with my mind. So they're certainly magic enough.

Our main courses come on big three-portion plates. Feddy points at his food, "Does this look shredded?" No. He's disappointed.

He won't be. He hasn't looked at the karaoke screen yet.

On my main course, the salad is good with a non-descript dressing. The greens include dandelions which I always find funny because I never thought of eating them in the years of my youth when they clogged our yard.

I chose brown rice and it was toothy and fine.

The lotus root I had was a tad old. Fresh stuff should taste like a very "bright" water chestnut and these were dialled away from that a notch or two. The beef was just a bit tough. XO sauce wasn't a hug and a kiss but rather something closer to a soy gravy.

We plow through it and talk. I steal a piece of tofu off King Feddy's plate. It's easily the best thing on the table.

For me the food as a whole is certainly acceptable but unremarkable. What's making the whole experience is the this-is-what-Venus-is-like-in-China ambiance.
Oh, and time with the King, of course.

At 14:00 sharp they turn off the change-y lights and deliver us our check. The tab is something like $19 and the King lays down $23. The check came with a customer comment form, which I always fill out, but, ahem, we have no pen.

So we talk. Feddy finishes his meal as we watch the second greatest video of the set so far -- it's Chinese people staging Shogun warriors (I know, I know) with the occasional spinner in modern day hot pants being thrown in for no apparent reason.

Feddy takes his time. Always. (Unless he's riding with me and I'm coasting to a traffic light, which freaks him out.) So after awhile the confused wait people bring us back the change, thinking that we're idiots and have overpaid a bill and change is the reason we're not getting our collective asses off their shrouded seats.

Uh, no.

But I do get a chance to ask for a pen.

At that point, the proprietress sees I'm going to fill out the form and just launches on us. Did we have a good meal? Did we have a good time? Do we like the decoration? We need to invite our friends. Dinner is better. You should come back for dinner. She was super-friendly and very pleasant. Dare I say "cordial."

AND WOULD YOU LOOK AT THIS: The first question on their evaluation was "Did you receive a cordial welcome?"

Why yes, as a matter of fact we did. We give them high marks all the way down and tell them there will be a review up here about the experience.

On the way out every damn person says goodbye, but in a good way, not in that yell-y, scream-y way they do it at Japanese restaurants where you think they may suddenly go all Pearl Harbor on you.

To complete the Pizza Hut turn, Hollywood parking triple play, we drive Kennedy style on the way back. Feddy comments how Asian the area has become. Noting things like the Charles Schwab across the street being in Chinese. "It wasn't this far gone in the 80's was it?"

"No, Feddy, but this isn't the bad spot." So, under his initial protest, and then delight, we take a detour to the Ranch 99 area near Homestead and Wolfe, going to the slowest possible roll through the big business parking lots there.

The King is impressed.

On our procession we see a spot. He points and I nod.

"That one. That should be our next place."

And it probably will be. But hey, you don't want me to spoil the surprise, do ya?

{But wait, there's more! Do you want a taste of the I Restaurant experience without getting off your lazy ass and actually doing something? Of course you do. Check out the Web site they had on their menus. It's probably the closest I've ever had to having the feeling of a place. I Restaurant}

All about Here

Hi there and welcome to "B1 and the King."

The King and I have been having meals together for over 20 years -- determined mostly by whether or not we were in the same country at any given moment. Last week he suggested that we start reviewing the places we eat and writing about the experience.

I don't know if that's a good idea, but I do know that 'blogging hasn't been anything close to the bad/stupid idea I originally thought, so we're going to give it a shot. And hey, if worse comes to worst, the "delete" button is only one click away.
For the time being it looks like the context will be meals on Monday -- in the immediate Cupertino, CA, USA area. Don't be surprised if we run geographically further afield, or intellectually away from eating.

Although the primary reason we're doing this is something closely related to self-gratification, we're certainly glad you're along for the ride. Comment if you feel inspired, lay back and cruise if you don't.

Thanks for reading.

P.S. If you ever see a post that is formatted all crazy, it's because b1 is posting from his hiptop to the super-secret email address. When he does that, blogger pukes a thimble-ful. B1's too lazy to make it any better.