Game over, all over again

Let me start this off with a little warning. Usually, the missus writes these blog entries, the reason being that the missus has an English degree and can actually write things that sound official. In other words, things that don't sound totally conversational. See what I mean?

I most certainly don't have an English degree. As a matter of fact, I went to an art school. That should pretty much cover everything you need to know. Go easy on me!

Have I mentioned you all look wonderful today? (Hey, every little bit helps)

After a particularly long week at work, we decided that we'd line up a special Friday evening to make up for it. In our case, a special evening usually means eating out, buying champagne, and watching a movie at home. Actually, that's pretty much our normal evening too - minus the eating out part. Pajamas are almost mandatory once we get home. And despite the fact that you could probably get away with wearing pajamas to dinner in The Haight, we always keep it classy and wait until we get home.

Speaking of classy, what exemplifies class more than burgers and beer? Exactly. Thus enters the Burgermeister. There's one right down the street from our apartment, so it was a perfect setup.

I had a big, sloppy turkey burger, and the missus had a sautéed onion and blue cheese veggie burger. We shared a big pile of curly fries, and washed it all down with cold beer. I don't need to go into too many details here - after all, this is burgers we're talking about. But I will say this: HOLY CRAP THEY WERE DELICIOUS AND THE FRIES OH MY GOD CURLY FRIES ARE SO GOOD AND THE BEER TO WASH IT ALL DOWN AND THE BURGERS WERE SO GOOD DID I MENTION THAT?

After our big dinner, we stopped by a local wine store to pick up a bottle of champagne. We actually ended up getting something we'd tried before back when we weren't writing reviews. Now enters: Veuve Clicquot Ponsardin Brut. ($50)

I'll start off by saying that I was a little biased going into this official review. Veuve is easily my #2 favorite champagne of all time, so I was literally bursting at the seems to have it again. Of course, it didn't disappoint.

It greets you with a light, slightly bready, slightly fruity aroma from the glass. It's a little dry, but not the kind of dry that punches you in the face. And the aftertaste? Forget it! Hints of peach - sweet, deep, and lasting. What struck us while we were drinking this champagne is that we were really having a hard time coming up with things to say about it. It's just wonderful. Perfect harmony - no off-notes grabbing your attention. I guess with champagne you really like, you just drink it and shut up. Fine by me!

Score: We both give it a 4.5

Recommended: Highly. Sure, it's kind of getting into the pricey range at $50 a bottle, but it's totally worth it. Trust us. It is worth every penny, and then some. Absolutely spectacular.

Thrifty Must Mean ‘Wads of Cash’ in Old English

We were under the impression the economy is in the toilet. Times are hard; everyone is tightening their belts and waiting for the ridiculous opulence of times past to return. But if you walk into the Salvation Army in San Francisco, you’d think that even the homeless have found a housing bubble that just won’t burst.

Since we recently decided we desperately needed a new camera for filming our future Academy Award nominated movie, we’ve tried to keep our spending in check (well, mostly in check, since Amoeba is right down the street). With that in mind, we headed to our local Salvation Army recently to see about some inexpensive furniture to fill up our still sparse apartment. Maybe a little coffee table or a cheap-but-functional dresser. But the folks at this store must take the meaning of “thrift” to entirely new levels. What cash-poor individual could afford a $250 dresser? From a used goods store? Was this dresser made of unicorn dust and originally sold for $2 million, making a mere $250 a good deal? We think not. And the store was full of similarly priced items. No piece of furniture was under $200, and yet none of them looked like they would fetch more than $30 at an old-fashioned garage sale. Maybe the bums here really do make a good living. We need to reconsider our careers.

We haughtily left the store as soon as we realized the insanity of its pricing scheme, but we were determined not to let our bus trip across town be in vain. Luckily, there was a BevMo just two blocks away. What better way to forget that we are not even middle-class enough to buy from a thrift store than to purchase swanky bottles of champagne?

The wine we decided to drink that evening, in the spirit of dabbling in the higher classes, was the Moët & Chandon Impérial ($32). This very pale, lightly bubbly wine smelled very fresh in the glass, though not yeasty like most French champagnes. It had an extremely clean, subtle taste with only a hint of bitterness at the end. It was very dry, probably the driest wine we’ve tasted so far, with very little mouth fizz (a technical term). It also had no real aftertaste, besides the sensation of needing a glass of water. But the overall experience was pleasant, fresh, and enjoyable enough to let us look down our noses at those fools buying furniture at the Salvation Army. You could buy eight bottles of this champagne for one of those dressers! The savvy shopper knows which choice to make.

Score: We both give it a 3.5

Recommended: We’ll give this one a solid sure; it’s a relatively affordable, dependable French champagne.

The Call is Coming From Inside the House

As many of you may have noticed, this past Friday happened to be the 13th of August. Friday the 13th! We realized this fact about halfway through the day, and immediately knew what we were going to do that night: watch scary movies, while drinking champagne.

That is the beauty of this beverage, it’s completely versatile. It can be used to celebrate everything from white weddings to black demons. Whether we’re blissfully happy or about to pee our pants in fright, there’s nothing else we’d rather do than take a minute to sip some refreshing, bubbly wine. Raises the spirits and calms the nerves.

The proof was in how much we thoroughly enjoyed both our movie selections for the evening, and our wine pairing. For those who are curious, we started the night with a more

“classy” horror movie, to get on the right foot. A modern, black and white silent movie entitled The Call of Cthulu. And if you don’t believe a silent movie can be scary, we dare you to watch this movie and see if you can even so much as move a muscle until the final credits. If you don’t know about the awesome, tentacle-faced ancient god that is Cthulu, just do a quick Wikipedia search. Yeah, he’s that handsome. Our second movie selection continued with the theme of modern movies imitating older cinematic styles. This one was a freak-out-the-babysitter-style movie that was made recently but filmed like an 80s thriller, called The House of the Devil. And maybe it was the champagne talking, but this movie couldn’t have been more perfect if the lead character wasn’t wearing waist-high skinny jeans and rocking out to a walkman. Incredibly, it leaves out all cheesiness and still delivers a satisfyingly eerie yet ambiguous ending. Perfect.

The wine we chose for our night of chills was the Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs 2006 ($28). The name seemed intimidating enough to stand up to the monsters and demons of the evening. But the wine itself, from California, was actually fairly delicate. Right out of the bottle it smelled intensely like just-risen bread dough. Which, if you like bread dough, is an amazing thing. It was extremely fizzy, and had a nice, pale yellow color in the glass. Once the bubbles died down in our mouths, the flavor was gently tart, but not dry, and didn’t linger long after drinking. Overall, it was a pleasant wine that was easily consumed while clutching our pillows in suspense. And luckily, this time no one peed their pants.

Score: She gives is a 3.5, he gives it a 3.

Recommended: We’re on the fence on this one. We probably wouldn’t go out of our way to buy this again, but it’s definitely a wine that won’t let you down.

How the Classy Kids Recline

Our time living like squatters in our own apartment is finally over (for the most part) – we purchased a new couch! No more meals on the floor, no more camping mat in place of actual seating space. Admittedly, the mat improved our posture, but seemed incongruous with the 42" flat screen TV staring down upon us from the other end of the room. So we ventured out to the Marina yesterday to attempt to buy a piece of furniture without any haggles, headaches, or blatant salesmanship.

And we actually succeeded. This was probably the easiest furniture buying experience anyone could hope to have. After doing our research, we heard of a tiny place with great furniture, good prices, and friendly owners who aren’t desperate to sell you something you don’t need. Sounded too good to be true, but we had to see for ourselves, seeing as our furniture situation was getting desperate. All the rumors turned out to be true, though, and it took us all of ten minutes to walk into the store, fall in love with a couch on the spot, and have the owner offer to drop it off at our apartment that same night. Yes, less than 4 hours later we were the proud owners of an actual couch, which fits perfectly in our tiny apartment and is pretty sexy to boot (designed by the store owner himself).

To celebrate this massive achievement, and our ability to actually recline on cushions while drinking, we decided to stop by a wine shop we had seen on our way to the furniture store and see what kind of champagne they had to offer. Coincidently, we met another extremely friendly, slightly goofy salesperson who found out what we were looking for and immediately steered us to a section of west coast, sparkling wines he thought were worth our while. He seemed like a trust-worthy fellow, especially since he forgave us for mentioning how nice it was outside while he was inside stacking boxes, oops, so we went with one of his suggestions and hurried home to wait for the arrival of our swanky new couch.

The couch arrived a few minutes early (another win for that furniture store, Craig, you are the best), and once in our apartment, it looked even better than in the store. We had high hopes that our sparkling wine would prove equally as satisfying. Settling onto our comfy seats above the floor, we carefully popped open our bottle of Argyle 2005 Brut ($25). This sparkling wine hails from the forested land of Oregon – who knew? – and is a blend of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes. Despite the hatred most Oregonians have for Californians and their general indifference to the rest of the west coast, the experience was pleasant from the start. It has a lovely, deep yellow color in the glass, with a subtle scent reminiscent of really good grape juice. If grape juice could make you giggly. The first sip is the perfect amount of sweet without going over into the land of dessert wines. Once in your mouth, the taste is crisp, perfectly carbonated, and full of flavor. Most of the notes are apple and citrus, but there is a hint of cinnamon underneath. Probably the most complex west coast sparkling wine we’ve tasted, without seeming so. It has a ridiculously smooth after taste that leaves your mouth feeling refreshed. This isn’t a French champagne, to be sure, but for a vineyard from Oregon, this wine is truly impressive [take that how you will, Oregonians]. Today, the salesmen didn’t lie.

Score: A unanimous 4.

Recommended: Yes, one because you have to taste it to believe it’s from Oregon and under $30, and two because it’s just so easy to drink.

Reunited Over Someone Else's Pain

We’re back!

After being reunited last Sunday thanks to an on-time (!) flight into SFO, we decided our first order of business, logically, was to buy a bottle of sparkling wine and forget all other obligations. But, since we knew we would be hemorrhaging money over the next few months in an attempt to furnish our bare apartment, we decided to forgo anything too outlandish and save the fancy drinks for a later date.

With that in mind, we trotted over to the local grocery store and looked for a wine we might have seen a million times and had never actually purchased. We settled on a bottle of Chandon Blanc de Noirs ($20). Confession: one of us might have commented in the store that this vineyard was featured on an episode of Newlyweds. This kind of knowledge should never be shared.

However, unlike the unforgettable train wreck that was the marriage between a ditsy blonde and an out-of-work boy band member, this sparkling wine was a yawn. It had a bitter, alcohol smell in the glass, which carried over upon first sip. The predominant taste was that of bitter apples (or was it sour grapes? Jessica?) It was pleasantly carbonated, with a wet mouth feel. It also had hints of an almost pleasant sourdough bread taste, which diminished the bitter overtones after swallowing. But that was the extent of this wine’s complexity. It is easily the most one-note, bitter sparkling wine we’ve tasted so far. Our overall impression can be summed up as “generic.” Like cut-off jeans on a Texan.

Score: They both agree, this wine is a 2.

Recommended: No, especially for $20 a pop, there are easily better tasting wines in this price range.