Always befriend the bartender

A tip for the lonely traveller ;-)

Having failed for the second night to get even bar seating at the Swinging Door, I wandered further down the waterfront in SF, past La Mar, to the Waterfront Restaurant. I'd noticed it during the day's long walk. They have a lovely simple menu: several kinds of fish, grilled or roasted, with 4 kinds of sauce. Extras are extra. I started with a heritage beet salad, on a bed of arugala and frisée, then went for the Ahi Tuna, grilled, with grilled asperagus on the side. It was perfectly cooked, and the lime-cilatro mayo was a nice counterpoint. Being Sunday, I started with a martini made with a local SF gin called 209. Worth the premium price. As a wine I had a brilliant Sangiovese from Pietra Santa Winery in the heretofore unheard of Cienega Valley. It was full bodied, with a nose filled with black fruits and spice. Wish we could get those in Canada.

Oh, and the bartender... he was generous enough to top up the glass of Sangiovese and, apparently looking for conversation, offered a few complementary glasses of a Frog's Leap sauvignon blanc just to clear the bottle. As he said: "All good."

San Francisco find

A happy discovery in San Francisco: La Mar Cebicheria Peruiana. I had been trying to go to the Slanted Door for new wave Vietnamese, but it was lined out the door even though past 9 when I got there. No loss: La Mar had wonderful fresh fish, clean flavours and nice spicy aji amarillo peppers. I had half orders of a couple of kinds of cebiche (criollo and nikei) and a causa limena (crab, potatoes, aji amarillo, quail egg, and lime -- see pic.) sitting at the bar. Excellent food, and though the service was quite slow, the room is lively, and the cooks behind the bar friendly (willing to put up with painfully unpracticed Spanish) and actually from Peru!

Kickstarting the Montreal economy

Spent the weekend in Montreal with friends from Singapore, Mexico and Washington helping to keep the local economy healthy in these tough times. The restaurant industry in particular benefited. The outstanding place was Laloux. The meal there was great! For openers there was albacore tuna just seared, zucchini and cress salad, with a spicy lemon purée. A couple of mains were outstanding: arctic char, du Puy lentils, caramelized salsify, crispy lardoons for one, and seared scallops from Côte-Nord, white beet, black trumpet mushrooms, chiogga beet salad with lemon confit. Lots of words, but wonderful. Dessert, which I usually don't bother with, was just too tempting. Ever heard of anything like a ''Candy Cap'' mushroom panna cotta, ''Paula Red'' apple sorbet, topped with pecans and rosemary? Completely amazing. And for wine, a lovely 2004 Marsannay, Les Champs Salomon, Domaine Bart.

Also good, though not quite the same standard was Leméac, on the Plateau. I had some lovely

grilled calamari and zucchini, lemon and balsamic vinaigrette to start, and a main of roasted black cod with fennel and potato purée. Others had the salmon tartare and duck confit, and thought they were pretty good.

Finally we managed to fit in a visit to l'Express for lunch. Don't try to resist the duck confit en salade, but the house made ravioli are pretty good too!