Zuni, Morton's, Old Chelsea and the Great American Music Hall

On Tuesday, Brandy took the day off, and we went to lunch at Zuni. We split a Caesar salad, a burger with blue cheese and heirloom tomatoes and an order of shoestring fries. Wonderfully tasty, as always (I do, however, miss the truffle burger). We decided that that is the perfect amount of food for lunch. Especially since...

That night, we went to Morton's for dinner (yes, that's two restaurants in one day). Anyway, if you go to their website, you can find an offer for "Steak and Seafood for two" for $99. Being the frugal pair that we are (ha ha), that was of course why we were there. And to up our cheapskate quotient even more, we brought our own wine. Granted, we brought a bottle that they didn't have on the list: the 2002 Joseph Phelps Insignia (I'm not sure if everyone will be able to view that page, so if not, I'll just tell you that the Insignia earned a score of 96 points and was Spectator's #1 wine of 2005).

Needless to say, we had a fabulous time.

I won't go into the intricacies of the special offer since it's spelled out for you on the website, but we ended up with quite a bit of food to take home (although we did finish the wine), and we thoroughly enjoyed our experience. We'll probably go back before the special ends on September 30.

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In other news, Brandy and I went to see Buffalo Tom and Juliana Hatfield at the Great American Music Hall last night. Great show.

Juliana played solo, which was cool for me since I had only seen her playing with the JH3 and her backing band previously. I'm still quite bitter about being out of town when she came through here on the Blake Babies reunion tour a couple years ago.

Buffalo Tom played their typically high-energy set, and it was cool to hear them rock out a bunch of classics along with stuff from their new album, which sounds great.

If you're reading this today (July 26th) and you live around LA, you can catch them tonight at the El Rey. I would highly recommend it.

Prior to the show, we grabbed a bite at Old Chelsea Fish and Chips, probably as a subconscious way to contrast the previous day's upscale dining. For the uninitiated, OC provides the fish and chips for Edinburgh Castle, one of the dingiest, divy-est, most wonderful bars in San Francisco. Located around the corner from the Castle, OC shares the area's decorating scheme: down market, waaaayy down market. Three tables, a small counter, and a heavy-duty fryer that takes up the entire back wall of the kitchen.

Now, looking at some of the Yelp reviews, I have to question the sanity of the some of the reviewers. Last I checked, fish and chips was not the stuff of gourmet legend. We're not talking about some meticulously prepared, delicate fillet of sole. It's street food, bar food, drunk food. It's supposed to be greasy.

And it is wonderfully so.

Plus, I gotta support Korean businesses, or they'll revoke my Asian card. I married a white girl; I'm already skating on thin ice.