Pancakes: New Morning Cafe Tiburon, CA

My wife and I went to Tiburon, CA this past weekend for a wedding. Where is Tiburon? A lot of people have asked me that. Tiburon is across the bay from San Francisco. In fact, you can see the city and the Golden Gate Bridge on the other side of the water when you’re there. It’s a very small, very quaint, very affluent place. In fact, there are not that many shops or restaurants, or bars there. But, if there is breakfast to be had you’d better believe me that I was going to find it. OK, my wife found it—I was just glad that I was getting my pancakes.

We ate at the New Morning Café. I’ve been to smaller places, but the crowd coming into this place to eat was much bigger than the restaurant could handle. Always a good sign, but then again there isn’t that many places to go here. Now, the first thing I get when I go to a new breakfast place is the pancakes, and I usually try to get some sort of breakfast combo which includes eggs, bacon or sausage, and sometimes potatoes. Almost all breakfast places have such a thing, and this place was no different. The breakfast combo came with 2 pancakes, an egg over easy (just they way I like it), potatoes, and your choice of meat. I usually get bacon, but they had bangers as an option which you don’t usually see, so I had to go for that. I love a good salty bangers sausage—I little Irish flare never hut anybody!

When the pancakes finally made it to the table, they were clearly very fluffy and thick and they looked great. The sausage was looking awesome, the egg was perfectly runny, and the potatoes were a little sparse, but as my wife will tell you that’s not a big deal to me. Potatoes are usually the last thing I eat off my plate. After taking a bite of the pancakes I felt like they were missing something; the pancake by itself just seemed a little bland to me. They could have used a little more sweetness I think--I would increase the amount of sugar in the batter. But all in all they were pretty good. I’ve had a lot of pancakes worse than these, that’s for sure! They weren’t bisquick-y, they weren’t flat, they weren’t mungy, they weren’t small—other than the sweetness factor, I thought they were good. The fluffiness of the pancakes worked well at soaking up the syrup, but never got saturated. The sausage was as awesome as it looked, btw! What a treat to get some bangers with your pancakes!

My wife, who is not into pancakes, got an omelet with apple and stilton cheese—which was awesome! They did have an interesting looking assortment of omelets on the menu…but I am here to talk about pancakes! Check out that strawberry jam though...that stuff was awesome! It was in a jar on the table, and I'm pretty sure that they make that stuff themselves. It had big chunks of strawberries in it too!

All in all, I would recommend the New Morning Café to anyone visiting Tiburon. It was a great breakfast experience!

Video of the Week: Less Than Jake - "Does the Lion City Still Roar?"

From their new album GVN FLA (separate post about the album still to come!)

Thinking About Punk Rock

I still have an affinity for punk rock music although I'm close to being in my 30's. There is just something so wonderful and powerful in a 45 second, super-fast power chord filled rock song. Just seems to get me moving. But, I realize that many people don't listen to punk rock and don't understand what makes the difference between a good punk rock song and a bad punk rock song. As with any other genre of music people have varying opinions about good vs. bad songs, and you will get different answers depending and who you ask. For the benefit of the unknowing, I will give my breakdown here.

Now, I'm not going to go into a diatribe about how in the 70s punk rock rose from the ashes as a backlash to disco, but to fully understand all the things that fans love about punk rock you first must understand the range that punk rock covers, and the different forms the music can take that are deemed acceptable to pass as punk rock. Punk rock can be fun or harsh, it can be silly or angry, it can even be poppy or politically charged. Punk rock can be simply guitar, bass and drums--or it can include other instruments like horns, stand up basses, keyboards, and even the violin. The one thing in common across all punk rock songs is the crunching guitar and fast tempo.

Of course, not all punk rock fans love all the forms punk rock can take, or the topics that the bands choose to sing about. Some prefer the angry and political punk rock bands because they sort of make a declaration of their unhappiness with the status quo. Others prefer the lighter pop punk sound because to them its more fun. Its these differences in each individual that determine what makes a good vs. a bad punk rock song.

Doesn't sound very profound does it? That's because its not. Punk rock is no different than any other form of music when it comes to why people like a certain song or not--it comes down to movement. Not movement in terms of dancing, head bobbing, etc. What I mean is that it depends on whether the song moves people internally, as with any great song. Let's use a classic rock example of a song that is universally accepted as a great song: Hey Jude by the Beatles. Why do people love that song? What is it about that song that makes it so popular? It's because it moves people--the message moves people, the rhythm moves people, the catchiness of the song moves people. It's very memorable; people tend to remember when they first heard it, and when they hear it for the first time in a long time they suddenly remember the words and they have fun singing along with it. Great punk rock songs are no different, but think about the challenge of punk rock bands to write songs considered great.

Have you ever noticed that there are a LOT of punk rock bands out there--so many that even the hardcore punk rock fans can't keep up with all the new bands. That's because, generally speaking, punk rock is easier to play than other forms of music. I mean let's face it, most punk rock songs are a series of power chords repeated at a fast pace with mid to heavy distortion adding such a bite to the music that sometimes it's hard to make out the words. Even if bands screw up, a lot of the time it isn't noticeable. And assuming bands can put together lyrics to lay over the track that sound decent, they can produce a lot of songs in a short amount of time. But despite this fact, punk rock songs have a groove to them that fans like, or don't like. The great punk rock songs have become great because they moved a lot of fans at the same time. Sounds crazy to the untrained ear, but punk rock takes a lot of talent to be good at.

That's what I love about it. In my opinion, the great punk rock bands are the ones that make so much out of so little. I use the phrase "so little" because most punk rock songs are so short that there isn't much time for them to become elaborate expressions of music. A lot of them don't have guitar solo's, a lot of them have a few lines repeated several times, and as I said above typically the music is "easy" to play. The great punk rock songs are the ones that come across your speakers with a synergy that makes them sound like they are so much more than they are. Yes, I do appreciate the rawness in the crunching guitars and the off-pitch vocals. I do get hyped up by the speed of the music. But its the idea of so much from so little that fascinates me about punk rock (its also why I love The White Stripes, but that's for another time). I will not list my favorite punk bands here--rather I will write about them as time goes on. And maybe I'll post about why I believe that some of the best song writers in music today are coming from punk rock and country.

RIP LeRoi Moore 1961 - 2008

The music world suffered a great loss on Tuesday. LeRoi Moore, the saxophonist for the Dave Matthews Band, passed away in Los Angeles from complications arising from an ATV accident. He was only 46.

LeRoi Moore 1961-2008

http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2008-08-19-leroi-moore_N.htm?csp=34



Deepest condolences to his family and friends.

Video of the Week: Zac Brown Band - "Chicken Fried"

Live from HOB in New Orleans.

Dodgers 5, Brewers 3...Dodgers Win!

My wife and I, our friend Bill, and my brother in-law Geoff went to Dodger Stadium on Friday to see the Dodgers take on the Milwaukee Brewers. We are big LA fans and we try to come to as many games as we can--and more often than not the Dodgers lose while we are there. At first I thought it was just because of the Dodgers' poor record, but as time went on I became more and more convinced that it was our presence that was dragging them down. But Friday night all that was put to rest. The Dodgers beat the Brewers 5 to 3 and went on to carry the series winning 2 of 3 games. Manny Ramirez hit a single RBI in the 1st inning to start it off for the Dodgers, but that was 2 less runs than the Brewers had at the end of the 2nd inning. But then Casey Blake hit a 2 run home run in the 4th, Jeff Kent hit a single RBI in the 5th and Russell Martin hit a solo home run in the 8th to bring their score up to 5. Jonathan Broxton came in to close it down. Awesome! LA definitely has Manny fever. Having a big name (and a big bat) like him is good for the team, good for the fans, and good for the players. Pitches are flying and players are hitting more and more! We'll see how much Manny asks for after this season is over--it would be sweet to keep him on the team. It would be nice to seem them actually compete in the post season for a change.

Some random notes from the night: The foul pole we are posing with was one row in front of us on the 1st base side, I ate 2 Dodger Dogs, some nachos w/carnitas , 1/2 a bag of peanuts, and I had 2 beers. Bill is a huge Yankees fan and he showed up to the stadium in full NY gear.

Turley's Red Velvet

Last night my wife and I busted out a couple bottles of Red Velvet zinfandel we purchased last time we were at the Turley winery in Paso Robles, CA. For those unfamiliar with Turley they specialize in zinfandels and the wines they produce are very robust, very rich in color and flavor--and at prices starting at around $50 and up they are not cheap. That is, except for the Red Velvet which is their version of a table wine and comes with a price tag of $10. To put it simply, this is the best $10 bottle of wine I've ever had. Is it as rich and robust as other Turley wines--no, not even close. But, compared to other wines you can purchase for $10 it certainly is. So when you compare this bottle to comparably priced bottles the Red Velvet offers the complexity that great zinfandels have with the ease of an everyday wine. Other bottles around $10 can leave you wanting for more--more taste, more complexity, more everything. That's the worst. Few things are as bad as drinking an inexpensive bottle of wine and wishing you'd have spent a little more to get something you would have enjoyed more. Red Velvet doesn't have that effect. When drinking it you are fully aware of what the wine lacks that puts the price tag at $10, but are never left feeling unsatisfied like you are drinking any old standard cheap wine. Rather, Red Velvet satisfies the palate and makes you look forward to that next glass. I'm not sure if they sell this in stores--you can check with your local speciality wine store. You can also try to contact Turley to see if you can order it at turleywinecellars.com, or you can take a trip to Paso Robles and buy some directly (which is my recommendation--you won't be disappointed!).