PPDD

Think of the times when traveling abroad you’ve come across fractured English menu items. I recall Beef in Wild Battle, Grilled Moose Bleeding, Lower Bowel Stew, Naked Crab. And how about other fractured English? I once bought a T-shirt proclaiming, “Inmutation is your sweetness: US difference of information!” I wore it proudly here on the streets of Saigon. I saw another traveler wearing the message, “Put your main thing here.” Now... Read More

G&T

The day was beastly hot, not long ago. I had been stumbling through the narrow alleyways (the hems) of “The Pham” keeping track of all the continuous changes and deciding if they’re good or bad. It’s part of my job as a self-appointed arbiter of taste. I was sweating bullets and much in need of blessed relief. Now if you’ve lived long anywhere in the tropics you know that there is a great and universal constant that offers such relief. It’s... Read More

San Francisco Noir

Aunt Charlie’s Around the glitzy tourist hotels and fancy eateries of downtown the Tenderloin district wraps itself. This smarmy sea laps up against the shores and flows into the bays and inlets of the central city wherever high priced real estate is lacking. Its currents run round the islands of prosperity and its waves slam smack into the breakwaters of Hilton and Renaissance. From the towers of those two hotels you can look straight... Read More