Birthday Celebration Observations

1) The pear cocktail at Bar Cento is out of this world good.
1a) The sugar cane cocktail at the same place kinda tastes funny.
1b) With the awesome music playing, I'd happily drink any cocktail that came from the bar there.

2) Whoever is in charge of service at Light Bistro should call a staff meeting. The only employee that wasn't either outright rude (especially the hostess, whose eye rolling when we asked to sit in a certain section of the 40% empty restaurant was so visible I was worried she'd hurt her neck) or bizarre (the 40-something guy with the daaaaark tan that looks/acts like he's waiting for a Hollywood call-back) was the trainee shadowing our server. I've never noticed the weirdness before, but the rudeness seems to be a hallmark of the place. I visited once last fall and it was so bad I left after my starter and walked over to Momocho (which is what I should have done this time, too). The problem seems especially pronounced with the hosting folks.
2a) Whoever is in charge of the kitchen should take away the chef's pork belly privileges. I have dreams about pork belly, I love it so. I couldn't believe I had to ask for a steak knife to cut it. And even then had to put a little shoulder into my efforts. That shit is supposed to be tender, dude. I just crossed "go have lunch at Light Bistro and order the pork belly panini" off my to-do list. That last sentence is seriously not a joke.

3) The gal working the bar at The Flying Fig was unimaginably on top of her game, almost disconcertingly so. Whatever she was on to make her so energetic, I'd like some please.
3a) The casually dressed guy that seemed to be in charge of the front-of-house operations at the same place seems waaaaay too confident of his job security. From all I've observed and read about the talented and apparently conscientious chef Small, I can't believe she has such a boorish dude on staff.
3b) The Van Gogh double espresso cocktail is awesome, the kind of drink you'd expect the Dude to upgrade to if he ended up with wealthy Maude on a permanent basis. And since the Van Gogh blog folks liked my last post enough to comment (and wish me happy birthday), this time around they are totally welcome to ship me a bottle or three as a way of saying thanks for the plug...