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Pipo came up for the Independence Day holiday weekend – he wanted to forget the trials and tribulations of love in the City of Angeles (Los Angeles, for those of you who don’t know L.A.’s other moniker).

With the teeming restaurants of the world class food scene here in San Francisco, we spent a lot of the weekend eating and drinking. On the day that Pipo came over, we had a wonderful lunch at Juban, a Japanese grillery in Menlo Park. Very much like Korean barbecue, but our highlight of that meal was the Kobe Beef sashimi. Yes – raw, Kobe beef that was absolutely sublime!

Later during the day, we headed up to The City (as SF is fondly known to Bay Area residents) and traipsed for a bit along the Embarcadero – catching views of the Bay Bridge – before heading to dinner to my one of my fave restaurants, B44, a Catalan Bistro. I introduced Pipo to the wonderful paellas – especailly my favorite of all – the Paella Negre – a paella blackened by a sauce that uses squid ink as its base, with a dollop of heavenly garlic aoli. Yummmmm!

We spent the entire day in Napa, enjoying a 4-hour ride on the Napa Valley Wine Train. During the 4-hours, as idyllic views of the valley vineyards went past us, we ate a sumptuous 4 course lunch that typified the Napa life of good food and good wine!

In spite of the food and libations (especially the libations) to drown out love’s labours lost in L.A., Pipo couldn’t help but think of his special someone…

As I’ve heard people say…it takes but a second to catch the glint of someone’s eye, a minute to know their name, an hour to get to know them, a day to fall in love with someone, but it takes a whole lifetime to forget them, especially if they’ve made such a huge impact on your life…

So, I was in SoCal this past weekend, specifically visiting la familia in La Habra. Stayed with my cousin, Marilou, and her husband John, and daughter Zoe. Was visiting over the weekend, since I needed to be in Burbank Monday through Wednesday, and the timing was great since her brother, Roland, his wife, Bilou, and son, Gino, were there as well visiting from the P.I.

So, we were traipsing along Hollywood Blvd. in downtown L.A., doing the Walk of the Stars on our way to Mann’s Chinese Theater, when lo, and behold, I come across this restaurant:

So, was down in Burbank last week, and spent the weekend with Samantha. While there, I dropped of her new iMac that I’ve been configuring. (Welcome to the 21st Century, dearie!)

The weekend in L.A. was a blast, to say the least. On Saturday, we went to the Griddle Cafe on Sunset, and got waited on by this young, gorgeous hunky twink! Yummy! Wish I took a picture w/ my Treo, but I didn’t want to be that obvious (much less, look that desperate)!

So, Samantha and I were seated at the counter when who should walk in but Paris and her boytoy for the hour, Stavros Niarchos. No papparazi photogs in site.

I must say – Stavros looks better in person than in the photos. I don’t think he’s photogenic, cause when I first saw his pix, all I could say was “WTF?”

And yeah, Paris looked good, too – but then, that’s what you do when you’re born into all that money.

Hate her, but love the bf!

The rest of the weekend was spent bar hopping w/ Samantha, and seeing all the cute boys and bar tenders in WeHo. We almost hit every bar – The Abbey, Fiesta Cantina, Trunks, Numbers…didn’t go to Here, though it looked like it was rockin’! Had the most fun at Cantina and Numbers – good drinks, great conversation with Samantha, and delectable eye-candy all over. (I’m not much of an Abbey fan – typical L.A., and the drinks are waaaay overpriced.)

We were going to end the night at Cantina, but once we got home at 1:30 a.m., Samantha got a call from one of her chicas – to see if we were interested in going to an after-hours club.

You don’t need to ask the question twice to Samantha. And since I was in a mini-vacation mode, I said why not – who knows when I’ll be down in L.A. again.

I’m glad I want – the music was fabulous, and I had a blast!

Well, I’m off to Burbank again this coming Wednesday, the 15th. Unfortunately, it’ll just be a day trip, so I won’t get to see P. Christie. However, I’ll be there again the following week, beginning the 23rd.

At that time, I should be bringing down Pipo’s iMac. Can’t wait to set it up – he’ll finally be able to join the computer age, do his design work, as well as post to this blog!