The More Things Change. . .

i On San Diego

NO, DON’T CHECK your calendars. We’ve bumped our annual Best Restaurants issue up from August to June. That much is new. Everything else remains pretty much the same. Each year, as a coda to our readers’ ballot, we ask for your gripes and comments. In essence, you love the food, but you pine for better service. And this year, you’re feeling the crunch of some of the highest dining prices in the country——especially for wines. Lily Politz, who’s taken to carrying a small measuring cup in her purse, says she paid $11 at a bayfront restaurant for a glass of “average California Chardonnay” that measured a parsimonious 4 ounces. “It was, however, poured into a large and lovely glass,” she says. Joseph Stubbs, who believes in correctness, gripes about “San Diego natives who wear shorts and flip-flops to nice dining sites. Dress the part, San Diego,” he scolds. “We are the only top 10 city in the country that possesses zero in terms of being cosmopolitan and chic.” But it’s not just the customers. “In lovely and expensive restaurants,” says Ellen Leslie, “the wait staff calls us ‘you guys.’ It happens constantly.” Pat O’Donohoe considers our Best Barbecue category moot. “If it ain’t Texas or Memphis,” he says, “it ain’t barbecue.” And Adam Welled sings a familiar strain: “San Diego restaurants don’t stay open late enough.” Joan Goodwin is having a terrible time out there. Her hit list: “Bottled water by default; wine lists with nothing under $45; neglectful servers on quiet nights; over-intrusive, over-friendly servers; and pepper grinders grinding before you’ve tasted.” And then comes Linda Wolcott with an uncommon complaint: “Too much food. Causes weight gain. Need smaller portions in most places.” Feel your pain, Linda. I can’t put my fork down, either.

AN EYEFUL: While undergoing his annual physical, Superior Court Judge David Szumowski wondered why the nurse practitioner was standing so close in front of him for so long. When he finally asked, she said she was checking the pupils of his eyes for reaction to the light. That might take a while, the judge told her. While he was an Army lieutenant in Vietnam, Szumowski’s tank was hit by mortar fire, and he lost his sight——and eventually his eyes. The new blues manufactured for him were good enough to fool an expert.

SO THEY SAY: In January 2004, we picked Candice Wiggins and Charde Houston as “People to Watch.” We predicted the two local basketball stars would someday play in an NCAA championship game. We came close. On April 6, with 25 points from Wiggins, Stanford beat Houston’s Connecticut squad, 82-73, in the Final Four semifinal game . . . Former Chargers quarterback Ryan Leaf was back in the news this spring during the NFL draft. No, of course not good news. Leaf, the second player chosen in the 1998 draft (by the Chargers), earned the distinction of topping ESPN’s list of the 50 all-time busts in NFL draft history . . . The little jewel of a La Jolla restaurant that started life as Fresh, then became Fresher, seems to have hit its stride. Now called Wisknladle Bistro & Bar, it’s one of Condé Nast Traveler’s 105 best new restaurants in the world.

BEFORE PLAY: A few days before the U.S. Open tees off this month, one lucky winner (among 57,000 applicants) of Golf Digest’s U.S. Open contest will be playing a round on the Torrey Pines course for an NBC-TV special to be taped for airing before the tournament’s final round. The winner doesn’t have to play with the pros, but there’ll still be some pressure. Rounding out the foursome: Matt Lauer, Tony Romo and Justin Timberlake.

LIKE NO BUSINESS: It may be a shortage of new properties for Broadway, but two musicals spawned in San Diego have managed to pick up a few Tony nominations, despite less than enthusiastic New York reviews. After its La Jolla Playhouse premiere, Cry-Baby, the musical version of the 1990 John Waters film, was compared, unflatteringly, to the Waters mega-hit Hairspray. And A Catered Affair, the Harvey Fierstein musical remake of a 1956 Bette Davis movie, launched by our Old Globe Theatre last year, came up even shorter. Quoth The New York Times’ Ben Brantley: “In musicals, there has to be some largesse——of spirit, of style, of originality——to make an audience care about those singing strangers onstage. In A Catered Affair people are seldom big enough to pin your feelings on.” Cry-Baby copped four Tony nominations, including one for best musical. Affair’s Tom Wopat and Faith Prince won best-acting nods.

ROLE MODEL: Next time you have trouble smiling in the face of adversity, think of the ragged, shoeless, homeless man, holding his sign aloft at West Point Loma Boulevard and Nimitz: “WE DON’T ACCEPT AMERICAN EXPRESS.”

BOTTOMING OUT: With all the spectacular sights in San Diego, you might wonder what the tourists on a Gold Coast sightseeing bus would find so fascinating while sitting for an hour at downtown’s Sixth Avenue and Beech Street. The answer: Nothing. The bus’ rear bumper failed to successfully negotiate the street’s steep decline and had to be towed to freedom. No extra charge for the passengers.

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