Monday, June 4, 2018
Breakfast at home: yogurt with blueberries and chopped almonds, half of an almond croissant. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. Styling work. Sprint standup. Microsites work: NMR, Craik, and CPT followup. UCSF shuttle from Laurel Heights to Mt. Zion. Lunch at Presidio Pizza Company: artichoke hearts pizza slice, side kale caesar salad, ice water. I hadn't been here in a long time and really enjoyed the light, thin crust which had a tasty tomato sauce. Stopped at the gift shop at Mt. Zion where a woman said I could have an eyeglass case for free even though I intended to pay for it. "We have extras." So nice! UCSF shuttle from Mt. Zion to Laurel Heights. Styling work: image credit minor adjustments. Rode Uber Pool to Bar Agricole. Met Patrick for dinner. This dinner at Bar Agricole was one of the worst dining experiences we've had in a long time. We arrived 10 minutes early for our reservation. There were six or so people at the bar and the restaurant was almost entirely empty. We were asked to wait at the bar before being seated at a table. We waited a really long time before the sole bartender greeted us. We waited a really long time and watched him make many drink orders before he took our order: two glasses of the wine special for $5 each. Meanwhile we had been watching as people who entered after us were being seated at dining tables. It was hard getting the attention of any host since the one that greeted us initially had disappeared. Several minutes later—and 12 minutes past our reservation time—we were finally seated. On our way to the table I told Patrick, "Watch—they'll charge us the non-happy-hour price for the wines when it appears on our bill." We shared a $20 hamburger (medium) and a chef's selection of four charcuterie items for $29. Bread and butter was an extra $5. The food arrived in a reasonable amount of time. The burger was prepared as ordered, was lukewarm, and had no lettuce, no tomato, no pickle, and was accompanied by pickled vegetables—none of which was a pickle. It tasted fine except for the low temperature. This entree is in no way worth $20 even in San Francisco. The charcuterie items tasted fine but seemed extraordinarily expensive for what you get. Are four two-millimeter-thick slices of salami worth $7? For dessert we had molasses cookies ($6) and two scoops of housemade strawberry swirl ice cream with olive oil and salt ($8). Both desserts were tasty but nothing special. I laughed repeatedly at one of the dessert items on the menu—a bowl of cherries and Triple Delight blueberries with whipped cream—because I can make that myself at home in about five minutes. A long wait for Jennifer for the check; she had disappeared for a long time. Eventually someone who was not our waitron delivered our check, and I noticed that the two glasses of wine were missing from the bill. Another long wait to get someone's attention so that I could point that out. They took the check away. I went to the restroom. When they returned they had told Patrick that they took one of the glasses off the bill because we were honest. But they charged us $6, which wasn't quite one glass off. The original price of the glass of wine was $12. The happy hour price for the same glass was $5. We couldn't figure out how what they said made sense with what we saw on the bill. At this point I said to Patrick, "Nothing makes sense in this restaurant!" and I paid and we were quite relieved to leave. We walked across the street to Oasis where we had VIP tickets to see Bob the Drag Queen. Upon entry Patrick asked about the reserved seating for VIP ticketholders and was told "We aren't doing that tonight." He pulled out his phone and found evidence of them advertising that VIP ticketholders would have reserved seating and showed it to the ticket taker. Again she said, "We aren't doing that tonight." It was at this point that Patrick decided he will never return to Oasis following our previous bad experience on May 31, 2018. For our last show at Oasis, Bob the Drag Queen told jokes and funny stories and lipsynched to tunes picked by the audience. Rode UberX home. Troubleshot and resolved internet problems using Anakin's pod racer solution.