West Side Story redux, dinner at Credo

Twas a dark and stormy night. Really! The weather people really screwed up the forecast by missing this one. I'm home on a Saturday night, in for the weekend, really, nursing a cold to prevent it from becoming something more, watching lightning light up the San Francisco sky during a downtown downpour.

This past Thursday was my last night out for awhile, and Penelope, The Minister's Rebellious Daughter and I went to see West Side Story. Beforehand, Penelope and I had dinner at Credo and this is worth bringing up. I made a 6:00 reservation on Open Table, for which we arrived promptly. Neither of us had been before and the place was packed six deep at the bar with those fi-di/Marina types who think the louder you say something the more interesting it must be. The volume was almost too much to bear for a meal and once we were seated it only increased one decibel at a time. We were going to leave, but then a server mentioned we could sit "downstairs" if we preferred, to which we replied "Please!"

"Downstairs" is a new section for the restaurant, only opened two weeks ago, and is usually where they would have put the loud, obnoxious, private party who were destroying the upstairs this evening (who refused the space and insisted on remaining upstairs).

The good folks at Credo deserve an "A" for effort on accommodating us and others on this night. The food was slow coming (because of the crush upstairs) but it was delicious, the drinks well-made and the staff obviously wanted to make sure everyone was satisfied and made a real effort at it. Bravo.

We just made it in time to the Orpheum to meet TMRD, who for once beat me to the established place. We all agreed Kyle Harris as Tony was poorly cast, with Penelope cruelly comparing him to Howdy Doody. I was less impressed with Ali Ewoldt's Maria  the second time around, who seemed very shrill in the 2nd half, and interestingly the choreography, instead of getting tighter as the run has gone on, has noticeably broken down amongst the female dancers especially, but over-all lacked the dynamic punch of opening night. Joseph Simoene's Riff, German Santiago's Bernardo, Michelle Aravena's Anita remain impressive. The set is even more impressive seen from the orchestra instead of the balcony. The run has a week left and it's worth seeing.

A Serial Killer Harp Teacher and Bratwurst!

Sometimes I like to follow and the Femme Fatale had been itching for awhile to take the lead, so she planned an evening last of places I've never been and probably never would have found out about on my own. We began the evening at the tiny, funky Red Poppy Art House to hear harpist Gillian Grassie. The performance was to start at 7, so I thought "how long can one possibly play the harp?" and figured we'd be out of there around 8 and then on to dinner at a place also of the Femme's choosing.

At eight o'clock Grassie announced it was time for a break. Break? Horrors. I was ready to eat. The Femme however, was not. Nor did I hear anyone else grumbling about this, so I just went outside and talked to a couple of young women who were English majors at Berkeley who were enamored of Grassi so far.  Then it began again, and though Grassie is an interesting and entertaining, anecdote-spewing performer, skilled on her instrument, a two and a half hour performance of music played on a harp proved a bit much for an unfed me. I was grateful when it was over, though it certainly wasn't an unpleasant performance- just a very, very long one.

Afterward, we went for German food at Schmidt's, which was excellent even though they were out of pretzels, there were a couple of large, way too-loud groups, and the waiter totally messed up not only on our drink order but spilled food on my jacket. Still, it was one of those great nights of weird little pleasures in our fabulous City.  Check all of this places and people out, though know that the pics on the Red Poppy site are, um, a bit different than the reality.