An Inadequate Homage to F. Scott Fitzgerald: "Forget the Menu -- Look at the Specials!"
Mar 05 '04 (Updated Jul 30 '04)
The Bottom Line Frisco gigolo Norman Pfunk meets his desirable match, when he takes heiress Clarinda Lambkin to the Czars Club, a Russian-Italian restaurant so exclusive you and I haven't eaten there.
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"Forget the Menu -- Look at the Specials"
A Satire by Macresarf1
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"Well, Norman, I finally found it. Your directions were so confusing!" giggled Clarinda, breathless and twenty minutes late, hurrying toward me along the bar through a well-dressed crowd. "The limo driver kept getting stuck, turning around between those dreadful Persia and Russia Streets."
I stood up, in her patrician-like presence.
"Orders from the Ohkrana," I said, enigmatically, amusing myself to camouflage my tension.
For her part, she braced herself at attention in front of me.
"Is our reservation all right?"
"It's a good thing I have incredible pull in this place," I said, savoring what I fancied was a return of my initial power over her.
Way out on Mission, in the Excelsior of San Francisco, one of the last unspoiled, old-fashioned neighborhoods of our romantic City, lay hidden The Czars Club -- so extremely exclusive, neither ex-Mayor Willie Brown nor parvenu computer millionaires knew about it. For over a hundred years, this Romanovesque, tutto di tuti Sicilian restaurant had provided exotic Russian lunches, dinners and late night suppers, "prepared with an Italian flair," for robber barons, China traders, White Russian counts, escaped Nazi war criminals, Presidents, generals, admirals, (just recently) pnacs, and, of course, their companions. When my Second Wife, Trilby Manzonni, by right of her well-received book on Faberge Easter Eggs, was admitted to membership, and shared her treasure with me, we kept The Czars Club to ourselves. In fact, that membership and $1200-a-month in alimony was all I retained from our divorce.
"I'm so glad," Clarinda sighed, straightening my tie.
"Of course, no trouble," I responded, touched her shoulders with my fingertips, kissed her barely on the temple, knowing already how she hated her outfits or makeup disturbed. "I had a word with Jules. He is going to make room for us."
Actually, my growing tab this evening at the Czars Club was heavier by fifty bucks, but it would be worth it.
"Well, I should think so," she said, pinching my nose between the knuckles of her fore and index fingers. "The neighborhood is so dreadfully rundown, Norman."
Clarinda Lambkin, newly moved to the City from Glenwood Springs, Colorado, was the younger daughter of C.R. Lambkin, CEO of the famous lambkin industries.org.
"I'm dying for a Demeter," Clarinda sighed, adjusting herself on the stool; she leaned close to me, giving off the heavy bouquet of "Opium."
I motioned to the head bartender, resplendent in a high collared, full -sleeved blue shirt with gold studs: "Gregor, the lady would like a . . . a -- What was that, Clarinda?"
"A Demeter," she said, gathering her Silver Fox jacket closer to her throat, and turning a wide bright smile on Gregor. "You do Demeters, Greg-gor, do you not? They are so-so . . . BALKAN!"
"Would that be the Demeter served at the old Sasha in Sevastepol?" asked Gregor, bowing slightly to her, and darting a glance at me. "Or the Dragul Demeter, perfected by Oscar of Dubrovnik?"
"Wel-l-l, all I know is that it's made with Fris Danish Vodka, pomegranate juice and a healthy squeeze of lime."
"Of-f course!" roared Gregor, tossing his massive head back, stroking his gray mustachios with the back of his hand. "The modern Demeter -- Balkan, as you say. You will want genuine Anatolian Limes, hand rendered, and may I suggest for Madam a garnish of Croatian Black Winged Butterflies?"
Clarinda turned her large violet eyes, in admiring astonishment, toward me, and then pinched Gregor on the ear.
"That sounds ultra-cool, Gregor ."
Because the 20-year annuity (provided by my blessed Albanian mother) ran out two months ago, Clarinda had me worried, for a moment. Aside from painting watercolors, I knew how to do nothing but write restaurant reviews for the Nob Hill Gazette, which didn't pay a lot. For a 46 year-old unsuccessful windmill power design specialist, Clarinda Lambkin was Main Chance, perhaps my last chance. This was no time to f*ck-up over a fancy cocktail.
"I so love Demeters," she said, beaming as Gregor crushed a tiny lime in each of his bare hands over chopped ice, and then delicately eviscerated a velvety black butterfly. "I used to love them at the Zodiac Club before it closed. They are the drink of my birth sign."
"Demeter was the Greek goddess of fertility," I suggested, in hopes of warming her further.
"No, silly!" She laughed. "A Demeter is some sort of law in physics that Daddy patented to make awesome vacuum tubes and guitars. That's another reason I like them!"
Everyone who pays close attention to the Internet knows that Daddy, C.R. Lampkin, at age 18, took out a patent on the Okombo Drive, a microprocessor which made Ebay possible. He then sold half his manufacturing rights on the invention for $18, 000,000,000, moved up in the Rocky Mountains to raise his young family, and in the next twenty-five years, self-financed Lambkin Industries. In addition to perfecting vacuum tubes and guitars, the company raised itself to the edge of the Fortune 500, when it took freshly harvested Western, especially California produce, and turned it into freeze-dried or irradiated dishes with a guaranteed shelf-life of at least 12 years. C.R. is now considered genuinely wealthy by the World, even by his social set, down in Woodside, where he hangs out when in town.
"I'm a Pisces myself," I volunteered, to change the subject, looking down at my third drink. "Gin and a splash of water is my cocktail call."
"I know!" She pulled a mou. "I saw it all on your driver's license."
I had met Clarinda, I recalled anew, after too much wine, at a charity lunch in Pacific Heights, given on behalf of the Australian-American Orphan Society. I had bought a giant stuffed kangaroo for my daughter from her and had badly overdrawn my American Express Card, as a result. At the time, it seemed like love n' money -- at first sight.
"Very clever of you, my dear Clarinda."
"I had decided, on the spot, to make you my Man of the Month," she whispered, raising a huge Martini glass filled with an India red substance, the tail and one wing of the butterfly peeking over its rim. "Here's to Australian-American Orphans!"
At 26, Clarinda had been married four times, for reasons not immediately in evidence, and was rumored a bit of a problem for C.R.
"Well, Norman Pfunk, you humanitarian, you!" she said, and swallowed half her cocktail. "I have to go to the Little Girl's Room and make a phone call. Don't go away, Norman."
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Three Demeters and a gin/water later, we were seated snugly together in a banquette, which faced across the candlelit room toward a huge gilded and bejeweled Imperial Russian Double Eagle coat of arms. We were having a wavering discussion about how entrepreneurs and managers in society create 80% of American wealth.
Fyodor, our waiter, kept stalking past, and nodding to us.
"Norman, it's so unfair," Clarinda repeated to almost anything I said; or, "Norman Pfunk, I love that name."
I would say, for instance: "We have to be careful, after 9-11, all these wars we're fighting. Interferes with the entrepreneurial spirit."
"Norman, it's so unfair."
"Well, over 600 service people killed. And -- "
"Norman Pfunk, I love that name."
"A pal I have in the CIA tells me the other day, 30,000 guys and gals in total casualties," I said, rattling the ice cubes in my empty glass toward the patrons as though they were all veterans. "Lots of missing arms and legs, mysterious maladies, suicides. Think of all the benefits we'll have to pay with our taxes for them and their children. I mean Oil is important, but -- "
"All those welfare mothers sponging off us," she muttered in response. "Norman, it's so unfair. They're not even Australian sluts, who have good bloodlines, having these little bastards."
I gazed down at Clarinda, whose face was nearly next to mine. Her fox jacket had fallen away from her shoulders, which were bare to the bodice of her red cocktail dress. Her eyes were slightly glazed. A modest meal, a Chef Salade a la Russe for two, perhaps, and then home to bed. Well . . . maybe not quite yet. It was our third date, but the first two didn't count because they were at IPO receptions in the financial district; and she might be conservative.
I stared past Jules the Head Waiter, toward a middle-aged trio at the table in front of us, perhaps people I had known years ago, or had seen in a restaurant I'd reviewed -- but if so, none recognized me, not here in San Francisco, where a new hyped place opens every week on the site of a defunct old favorite. When the larger of the two men excused himself, to wash his hands, the florid man who remained gestured to his resigned-looking companion. "Why did you drag me to The Purple Privy, of all places?"
"Dear, that was The Purple Priv-ETT," the woman said. "And that was last week."
"I don't care what kind of damn toilet, it was," replied the man, pounding his fist in his hand. "We should have gone to The Flaming Archers -- that new "Lord of the Rings" place on Telegraph Hill. My boss could have used his expense account there. It was listed in Conde Nast! The waiters are Slovenian, and they have the best Broiled Hare en Slivovitz Brochette in San Francisco!"
"But this is The Czars Club," the woman emphasized. "Mr. Boomer has taken us to The Czars Club, dear. You've never been here before."
"Oh, really?" The man stared around, bewildered. "The Czars Club has a great reputation. I wonder if they have Leg of Kamchatka Moose?"
"Are you ready to order?" Fyodor asked us, finally.
Clarinda sat up.
"I'm so hungry, Norman," she said, shaking her head madly, "I could devour a bear."
"We usually have Breast of Uzibek Brown Bear, very tender, on the menu," said Fyodor, leaning on tip-toe, pointing with a gold pen at a blue silk ribbon pasted on the large doubled parchment sheet, splayed out between us, "but as you see, it is out of season."
"That's a pity, Fyodor," I commiserated, contemplating the embossed portrait of Alexander II, at the top of the page, knowing the dish would cost at least $100. "Per chance, we should satisfy ourselves with the Chef Salade for -- "
"But on the Specials," Fydor interrupted me, "perhaps Madam would like ________ and for you, sir, _________."
"What exactly are -- "
Because the Specials were listed in black Cyrillic on a gold leaf card, attached to the main menu, and Fyodor did not translate their Russian titles, I didn't know what they were.
"Oh, yes!" Clarinda almost shrieked. "Fy-o-dor, those vittles sound divine."
The trio across from us looked up from their Fillet Nicholas II Russe-Italiano, startled, as if they were witnessing a public sex act.
"Yes, Fyodor. Naturally," I said, not wanting to call more attention to ourselves. "We'll have the . . . the -- I've heard they're both excellent dishes."
"If you like Russian Bear, there's none better," agreed Fyodor.
"And Fy-o-dor -- it is Fy-o-dor, isn't it?" Clarinda said. He bowed slightly and smiled. "Might we have this 'On the Menu'?"
"You wish the full dinner?" he said, biting his tongue and writing rapidly. "That will be Caviar with sour crema and blini, Borsht a la crema reduction St. Petersburg, Friti Misti Siciliano. The entrees. Salade Russe to follow . . . in the French fashion. And a samovar of tea. Anything else to drink?"
He swiveled his head from me to her.
"Let us have a bottle of your Georgian House wine," I said, already appalled at the expense.
"And a bottle of Champagne!" Clarinda chimed in, enthusiastically.
"Krug, 1984?" Fyodor remarked thoughtfully. "Perfectly aged, nicely toasty? Very good!"
Clarinda smiled at me, sliding effortlessly, surprisingly, from the banquette.
"I have to go to the little girl's room again, Norman," she cooed over her shoulder. "And make another phone call."
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It was not quite ten minutes later that the florid man across the way, alone now, interrupted my gloomy survey of the bottle of vintage Champagne in its silver vermeil ice bucket, and the mountain of Sevruga Caviar surrounded by rye flat crackers, plates of steaming blini, and pots of sour cream, on a blue and gold porcelain platter: "Hey, pal, your babe is having quite a party."
"Pardon?"
"That fancy gal you been getting sh*t-faced," he said, raising a flute of Asti Spumante. "Here's to our Economic Recovery! My wife says your lady was sharing Blow with everyone in the Ladies."
"What?"
"Yeah, Cocaine. The good stuff. That's where wifey and my boss, 'Ole Boomer, have gone," he drank down his sparkling wine. "You must be doing all right, too."
At that moment, Clarinda returned with Mr. Boomer and the florid-faced man's wife. They were all laughing hilariously.
"Little old Billy Boomer, over there, claims we ordered the wrong stuff," she said, retaking her seat, snuggling up to me, and waving three fingers at Mr. Boomer. "He told me we should have gotten the Siberian Yak Steak with Sardinian Seaweed Sauce. And he should know. He hunts tethered yaks with a bow and arrow at his estate in Skeskatchuan."
"Saskatchewan," I rudely corrected her, feeling a vague remorse about the many deceptions in my life rising within me.
"That's what I said: Skeskatchuan."
"Well, Clarinda," I said, "I'm sure these Bear dishes will be very satisfactory."
She snapped her head around at me, as if she had smelled an unpleasant odor: "I want a glass of Champagne!"
Alexie the Sommelier was immediately at our side, with a salute to his tall Astrakhan, and soon we were toasting each other, Borgia-style, with the superb golden bubbly. I enjoyed the Caviar, but Clarinda only pushed two canapes into her mouth, licking her thumb, before she asked Fyodor for a doggie bag. She did empty two soup bowls of Borsht, however, before taking on the Friti Misti with the last of the Champagne.
Jules came over and gave a full bow from the waist, as he told us, "Our patron ruler, Alexander the Second, Czar of all the Russias, dined on this very dish before he was blown up near the Winter Palace in 1881."
"How interesting. Would you bring me a doggie bag for the rest of mine, " said Clarinda, poking little calamari into her mouth, head back. Staring down her nose at Jules, she polished off her final drop of Champagne. "I thought this dish was . . . Sicilian."
She made the remark sound both a question and a criticism.
Waving his little finger toward Fyodor, the always discreet Jules looked around, and then with his finger to his lips, he said under his breath: "The Ohkrana warned the Prime Minister it might take place. Nhilists. Even then, terrorists were everywhere. They created the Black Russians."
A bit confused, and being a third Sicilian myself, I was about to rise to that remark, when two pairs of waiters, one each holding aloft a torch, carrying our entrees on gold platters, danced in on their haunches. At the same instant, a waiter whipped away our flutes, another replaced them with Burgundy Balloon glasses, and the Sommelier was pouring amber Georgian Kakheti 2002 into our glasses.
"Let's have another bottle of Asti Spumonte over here," Mr. Boomer was shouting, half standing, swaying toward Jules, who stood off at a distance.
Her dish, I recognized, was some form of sweetbreads, with small tomatoes and roast potatoes, but mine, which I did not recognize, consisted of a large piece of meat, like a Cornish Game Hen, almost covered in a bed of pilaf, surrounded by a medley of winter vegetables, with a large roast parsnip on top of it all.
"Norman . . . Norman, do you -- " Clarinda sipped the Kakheti and made a face. "Do you think he's right?"
"Who?"
"Fyodor -- or was it Alexie -- silly!"
"About what?"
"Sommelier!" She suddenly motioned. "Would you bring us a bottle of Rubicon? This Georgian stuff isn't very good. My as well stick with the simple local wines."
I started to protest.
"I'll pay for it," she said with an angry scowl. "Do you think I'm a pauper?"
"No, it's just -- "
"Do you think the other people in this room are Sicilians? Anarchists? Mafioso?"
It was too much. I erupted in laughter, spraying bread almost to the other table.
"I'm serious," she shouted, waving her fork. "I think those two dark men over there may be Al Quaeda. Daddy Emailed me recently that they may kidnap me. Living my life of charity and good works among the bohemians of San Francisco, it is just what I might expect."
"Now, now, Clarinda," I said, getting control of myself. "It's more likely that The Czars Club here tonight is full of CIA and Homeland Security people. You're consummately safe here."
Clarinda surveyed her plate.
"I want to trade."
"Trade what?"
"I'll take your plate, and you take mine,"
"Clarinda . . . "
Alexie the Sommelier returned with a bottle of 1996 Rubicon and presented it for my inspection.
"If we don't trade, I'm leaving, right now! Besides, I like parsnip."
Morosely, I watched the wine ceremony.
"Well?"
We exchanged plates, and I wearily forked into my sweetbreads.
"Cheapskate," she muttered, sulking, as she plunged her razor sharp knife through the parsnip into the bear meat.
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Between more trips to the back of the restaurant, Clarinda ordered additional doggie bags for the remains of her . . . whatever it was, her share of the Salade Russe, and now some of the Tbilisi Cakes brought with our Samovar. We had eaten almost the entire meal silently.
"Do you ever watch Stargate?" she said, abruptly.
"What?"
"Stargate SG1. It's on TV."
"No, I don't watch much television."
She swept the entire room with a pointed finger.
"All these people look like jewel . . . ghouls -- a -- Gaouls. I can never say it."
Jules, having returned from fifteen minutes in the front of the house, saw her gesture, and marched over.
"Ah, sir," he said to me, clenching his fist and raising it slightly, "did you enjoy your "Oysters of the Steppes"?
"Oysters of the Steppes?" I repeated, beginning to examine the bill. "Morituri te salutamus."
"What did you guys say?" asked Clarinda.
"Those of us about to die, salute you, Clarinda," I said, "It's Latin."
"Bear Balls, baked in the scrotum," Jules whispered, behind his hand. "Good for the male stamina,"
"Bear Balls!" cried Clarinda, standing, the Silver Fox tumbling upon me. "I heard that. You people had me eat Bear Balls!"
The remaining diners in The Czars Club gaped at us; then began to titter.
"She said 'Bare Balls," shrieked a staid matron. "I saw her in the other room. I'm not surprised."
General laughter followed.
Clarinda snatched up her jacket and raged out of the room, snarling at me, "I'm going to get a real drink at a place Billy Boomer told me about."
The bill came to $1250, plus tax, and tip. My American Express Card was rejected.
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Half an hour later, having satisfied Jules, Alexie. Fyodor and Gregor, after a fashion, I staggered up to Mission Street and began to check bars. Amazingly, I was worried about Clarinda, felt responsible for her. Somewhere west of Persia, a round sign emerged from the drizzle. It was, "The Drs? Bar and Grill."
"Yeah," said the jovial bartender, keeping a careful eye on the four other patrons, "your lady -- red dress, fur wrap, a looker -- she met three other people who were waiting for her. A big white stretch limo pulled up about ten minutes ago, and she took them off to a party in North Beach. Tosca's. Jeanette Esteridge's place."
"Jesus!" I said.
"She said that she had a date with Sean Penn."
"Jesus!" I said.
"You can't trust what people say though."
Jimmy, for that was the bartender's name, gave me cup of coffee and eventually sold me a copy of a police procedural, Mounted in the City by the Bay, the work of the Bar's resident writer. "We put out a pretty good feed here on a Thursday ourselves," Jimmy boasted, which I found later to be true. "You shoulda come on over the way from that place on Russia Street. Our plate du jour is $9.50 a plate, pal, tout compris. We even throw in a beverage."
I thanked him, crossed the street, and went back toward Persia. Just beyond Russia Street, past The Royal Bakery, I caught a cab.
"Bear Balls!" I muttered.
The cabbie said that he would take a cheque.
The End
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Dedicated to the anarchic spirit of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "A Diamond as Big as the Ritz."
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