Welcome to Salon G

Some people I can have fun with no matter what the circumstance.

So even when it's impossible to get the server's attention, even when the restaurant is out of not one but two of the wines we tried to order (one bottle, one glass), even when after asking for a food menu we are never given the chance to order food, we persevere.

After all, we haven't gotten together in three weeks and we are just happy to be in each other's company.

Still, it rankles to have so much go wrong when we choose a place I had previously written off but decided to give yet another chance.

Sometimes I am too forgiving.

After the painful process of getting wine and then being ignored right up through trying to pay the check, we knew enough to vacate the premises.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times and I need never return to your establishment.

And yet the evening was redeemed almost immediately.

With a short drive to Bistro 27, we entered a bustling dining room, found two stools at the bar and were greeted enthusiastically by the handsome bartender who'd gone from being a long-hair to looking like a male model with his freshly shorn locks.

They weren't out of the wine we wanted (Pont de Crillon Cotes du Rhone), 27 guy was in the stool next to me to say hello (and ask me about Happy Hour at the Hipp) and the bartender said, "The Chef and I were just saying last night that Karen hadn't been in for a while."

Truth is, I had been in less than two weeks ago, but neither of them had been working so my visit had gone unnoticed except by my partner in crime who was not there to act as my witness tonight.

Unlike at our previous stop, we had no problem ordering and by that point in the evening, only the Wagyu Kobe-style beef cheeseburger was going to do it for me.

A juicy burger smothered in Fontina and mushrooms and an abundance of fries paved the way for conversation about making your feelings known in a relationship, taking off one's bra immediately when it gets a red wine stain and how 36-year old men are old enough to decide with whom they want to sleep.

Don't get us started because we just feed off of each other and we have opinions about everything..

After dinner we pulled in some fresh meat to join the conversation about restaurants good and bad.

By the time I drove my friend home, we'd moved on to a discussion of the kind of place we would open if given the opportunity.

Let's just say it would involve scintillating guests, well-priced wine that was always in stock and attentive servers. A small plate menu and a traditional menu. Not a single TV screen. Lots of couches.

And great music, always the perfect music.

People would come, not to chat with the person they arrived with, but to be part of a bigger discussion of ideas and philosophy and art.

Friend and I would facilitate by introducing worthy conversational partners and tossing out discussion points.

Yeesh. Give a couple of bookish types some Cotes du Rhone and next thing you know they're fantasizing like a couple of schoolgirls.

That is, when they're not laughing uproariously at themselves.