Panthea "Just Visiting" J.'s Profile

Love this place.  Definitely defies description.  Pearls?  Leave 'em at home. Not exactly coal, but it's a diamond that's rough.

I can't believe I'm writing a review of Macy's, but I'm considering it my good deed for the day.  

We're coming up on that time of year when girlfriends all over the country are starting to plan their holiday girls weekend to NYC, some for the first time.  I'm not going to tell you not to go to Macy's. You will not be dissuaded and, I agree, you have to do it once. Maybe even once each holiday season. However....and here's where I can help...get a tetanus shot, update your vaccines and do NOT plan a day or even an afternoon or anything longer than 20 minutes around your visit.  

In the interest of full disclosure, I hate Macy's in an city, however, this Macy's is a filthy, crowded, petri dish of a tourist trap.  Two stars because: It's the "original" Macy's and the first floor and window displays are legendary and beautiful during the holidays. You can appreciate both of those things in 20 minutes and move on.

Fortunately, Nizario's only serves pizza pie.  No humble pie.   A few weeks ago, I publicly poo-pooed Luke A's love of Nizario's pizza.  Do not feel bad for Luke A.  He was immediately and rightfully consoled with ROTD for his Nizario's review.  The review was really great.  It didn't give me a stomach ache the next day at all.

The other night I had an urgent need for pizza.  In keeping with my thoughts on the other location, that Nizario's is the pizza of last resort, I called two other places that had already closed before breaking down and calling them.  When it finally got here, I have to admit, I was in extra cheesy heaven.  There is the possibility that one of the stars could be the winning beneficiary of circumstance.  

I'm hoping that Luke A does not request that they add "crow" to the list of toppings.

No better place in SF to get your Doppelbock on when you're celebrating the 20th anniversary of German unification!  

Don't feel like actually chewing your food?  This is like bread in a glass.  It's how monks survived fasting during Lent.  I'm serious. That kind of sounds like cheating. I wonder what they did to get around not having sex.  Oh, wait....

The only thing better than not being sick is not having to get out of bed to see a doctor when you are.  

When you're sick the last thing you want to do is leave your bed, brush your teeth (optional), put on clothes, hail a cab and then spend a few hours sitting in a room contracting things you didn't have when you got there before you're seen by a doctor who will spend all of five minutes taking your temperature and writing you a prescription for antibiotics.

Dr. John is amazing.  He answered the phone himself when I called.  No answering service and then wait for a call back. He talked to me for awhile about my symptoms on the phone (the ones related to my fever and chills)  and was at the apartment within the hour.  He was more thorough than any doctor I've ever been to, asked lots of questions and then listened to my responses, stayed for over and hour AND he brought drugs with him. He even called the next day to check on me!  *insert dating joke here, I couldn't pick just one*

You don't need to change out of your bathrobe and slippers on Dr. John's road to recovery, but I'm glad I brushed my teeth.

Frank's did a great job repairing the scales that were starting to lift on my 60 year old alligator skin clutch.  It's the kind of clutch that holds your lipstick, not your foot when you're shifting gears, so I was in the right place.

Why does clutching the skin of dead alligator sound so much worse than clutching the skin of dead cow??  I didn't kill it.  Yeah, I know, I killed that plant from Plant Warehouse, so I have kind of a history, but it takes exactly zero effort to kill a plant.  Though I've never done it myself and not many have, I feel sure that if you asked a Bulldog, a Seminole or a Volunteer, they'd tell you it takes a lot of effort to take down a Gator.  

It's fall.  That was another football reference.  It'll stop in January.

Nizario's is great, "makes me think back to my college days," pizza.  HOWEVER, as much as Luke A loves Nizario's and as much as I love Luke A to cheesy pieces/slices, I think there's only one hour a day that you should eat your pre-hangover pizza at Nizario's.  Between 1-2:00 am Mon through Thursday after your vodka to air ratio has been inverted and Marcello's is closed.  I like Marcello's better, but Luke A is still the sauciest!

I choose Chinese restaurants the same way everyone does, based on who has the best fortunes in their cookies.   If I'm ordering for two people I make sure that there are two cookies in the take out bag.  If I'm ordering for one, I tell them I'm ordering for two (my "insurance cookie" just in case the first fortune's a dud.)  There's a tiny place in the Outer Outer (not a typo) Richmond  who gave me the best fortune ever and I'll go all the way out there on a day I need a good one.  Cheaper, faster and easier to read my horoscope, you say?  I don't believe in them.

There's even a ritual, lest the fortune not come true.  Men who wear the same hat to every baseball game for good luck should not be rolling their eyes right now. No cookie until after you've eaten, the cookie gets broken in the middle and you have to eat the cookie no matter how stale it is.  We have to read our fortunes out loud and if I think your fortune was meant for me, I get to have it.  Or we can share the good fortune.  If you're one of those people who crush the cookie into tiny pieces just to extract it's treasured fortune I will judge you harshly and think you probably club baby seals too.

This was my fortune at Chans, "The person who can move a mountain can begin the cleanup."  What??  That's not a fortune!  That's  punishment or at the very least an admonishment not to move mountains which is a bad fortune even as a metaphor!  Especially as a metaphor! If I were reading this fortune in California, I *might* think that it was an educational fortune about the environmental perils of erosion and the consequences of mountain moving.  But I wasn't.  I was in a state that drains swamps and then seems surprised by the alligators in their backyard.  

I am aware that some people do not choose Chinese restaurants in the same way that I do.  To them I say, "The food sucks, too."

On any other street or at any other spot on 16th Street, K & D Market wouldn't warrant a review or even a mention.  So what's the big deal?  It's just a hole in the wall, but it's a hole in the wall right across from Pakwan.  

Again, the big deal??

K & D sells a solid selection of beer (for a convenience store) which you can pick up while you're waiting for your order to be ready at Pakwan.  When you walk back in to eat at Pakwan with your bundle of joy, swaddled in a brown paper bag and nestled peacefully in your arms, Pakwan will great you with a bottle opener and let you nurse your new addition at the table.

Mazel tov. Or Shabh Kamna.  I think.

Does this mean "Springfield" is now "Uptown?"  I love the miracle of marketing and this new market is a neighborhood miracle.

My favorite part...before ordering that delicious smoked ham, brie and apple panini you can buy a bottle of wine in their shop to drink with your meal for a tiny $5 corkage fee.

Corkage?  But wait, I thought they only serve breakfast and lunch.

Yeah, enablers are everywhere.