Michael Buble Concert

Michael Buble is one of my favorite artists. We missed him when he had a concert in San Jose a couple years ago, so when Dan heard that he was coming back, we snatched up tickets right away. We had been so looking forward to this day, and he definitely did not disappoint.



We started with dinner at La Fondue, which is obviously a fondue restaurant. :) Originally we were going to grab dinner at Arcadia Steakhouse, one of our favorite restaurants in San Jose. But we decided to switch it up last minute, since we had not been to La Fondue. We had a pretty good experience at Rok Bistro a couple of weeks ago. La Fondue is located in Saratoga, and valet parking costed $8. Thankfully we found public parking 1 block away for free!

Restaurant entrance

La Fondue bar area

We were seated in a very dark room, which we later realized was the "couples" room, since the tables were all tables for 2. When we went to the bathroom, we passed other areas for families and larger groups, which had better lighting. Our dining room was very dark where we could hardly read the menu. We're guessing they are trying to make the ambiance romantic.

 

We ordered a la carte and chose the following:

• 4 Cheese (Ementhaler, Gruyere, Fontina Surchoix, Champagne)
• Teriyaki Sirloin entree - Grilled
• Danger Mix Chocolate Fondue

The first entree was the 4 Cheese fondue. The cheese fondue came with bread and vegetables to dip. The server mixed the cheese and champagne on the table so it was cool to see. The cheese however, was a little disappointing. There wasn't a whole lot of flavor and the champagne taste was a little too strong. We realized that we prefer a sharper cheese for fondue (like cheddar).

4 Cheese Fondue

Dan enjoying his cheese fondue

For the entree, we shared the Teriyaki Sirloin, which came with mixed vegetables and six different types of sauce: chimichurri, wasabi teriyaki, garlic butter, bbq, regular teriyaki, and mango chutney. My favorite sauce was the mango chutney, and Dan liked the wasabi teriyaki sauce.

Teriyaki Sirloin with 6 different dips

Sirloin on the grill

The sirloin was pretty good, and they gave a large portion. We were definitely full, and it was more than enough to share! As we mentioned before, our dining room was very dark, so it was hard to know whether the meat was cooked or not so we just guessed. :p

Even though we were full, there's always room for dessert. We ordered the Danger Mix dark chocolate, with English toffee bits. Dessert was definitely fun to eat and deliciously rich and heavy. Dan really enjoyed the dark chocolate mix!

Danger Mix Dark Chocolate

Yummy dessert companions

Overall we thought the restaurant was alright. It's probably on par with Melting Pot, and we surprisingly preferred the Rok Bistro in Sunnyvale. Dinner took almost 2 hours and we headed directly to the HP Pavilion for the highly anticipated Michael Buble concert!

HP Pavilion - Michael Buble concert

We sat in section 102, row 11, which were pretty good seats....well, good enough for what we were willing to pay. :p The opening act was Naturally 7, an interesting, no instrumental background accompaniment music - a capella band, and they were awesome. We were both very impressed with their crisp, amazing performance. It totally sounded like they were playig actual instruments in the band although it was all human voice.

Us with the stage behind

Michael Buble came on stage around 9 PM. He was such a great performer and had a great sense of humor. He poked fun at the audience, at himself, and at his band members. He seemed to be a very genuine performer who really appreciates his fans and enjoys what he does, and obviously very good at what he does.

Michael Buble

In the middle of the concert, he started walking toward the middle section of the floor, and started performing right there. We secretly wished we had one of the middle floor seating so we can see him closer!

His performance in the center floor stage

The performance ended around 11 PM and he earned his standing ovation. We both had such a great time and would definitely come again to his next concert. :)

Supperclub SF Dinner

We brought a Groupon last year for dinner for 2 at Supperclub in San Francisco. I had heard about this restaurant before and was intrigued by the concept of eating on a bed. The deal was about to expire, so we booked our dinner this weekend. We did not really know quite what to expect, and boy, we had a pretty interesting experience. :)

Seating was between 7 and 7:30PM. We arrived shortly before 7 and found plenty of street parking. (yay for free, easy street parking in SF!) The area around the restaurant was a little sketchy. The first thing we saw were these hanging gold shoes outside of the restaurant. Hmm...if this was an indication of how the night would go, we were definitely in for a unique experience. There was already a line formed outside of the restaurant--apparently they were not letting people in yet. We only waited for a couple minutes and then the host let us in. As soon as we entered, there were hanging gold shoes and a bathtub filled with records and random gold stuff. Interesting...

Hanging shoes and bathtub?

The host then greeted us and assigned our seat. There did not seem to be a method on how he/she assigned seats. The host was an over the top, overly outgoing transvestite. "She" was very loud but friendly and yelled, "Love you!" to everyone who came in. :p

Check in area

After checking in with her, we were assigned our "bed". We were directed to the bar area where they served drinks with very interesting names such as One night stand, Morning breath, Tuck me in, etc. I got the "Lullaby" which had some pomegranate juice and blueberry. Dan got a normal glass of Chardonnay wine.

Bar

Our pre-dinner drinks

After hanging out in the bar area for about 30 minutes, we then proceeded to the dining room, which was a 2 story room with huge wraparound beds. We were both kind of excited to be eating on a big bed! Ours was on the first floor, bed #27, on the left side, behind the DJ table. Our seating was ok but there were a couple times where we were not able to see the performers since our view was blocked by the speakers and/or DJ. There was a couple who got assigned probably the worst seat in the house, which was the back corner seat, behind the stairs. They probably couldn't see much at all. :(

Our "bed" where we had dinner

Dinner area

There was popcorn with spicy tabasco sauce waiting for us on our mini table. The popcorn was pretty good (Dan didn't like it as much since it was soggy, but I enjoyed it quite a bit). The waiter went around to get more drink orders; we decided to stick with water. The 2nd floor customers got served food first. We patiently waited for our first course which was a fava bean soup with creme fraiche and corn bread muffin with honey butter. We really enjoyed the corn bread muffin. It was very moist and tasty! The fava bean soup was creamy and a little heavy, and had a slight curry hint which was surprising.

Fava bean soup and corn bread muffin

In between meals there were different performers. The first performer was a singer, and we both thought she was really good. Our favorite performance was probably the trapeze artist who was very flexible and strong! :)

The 2nd course was shrimp & sausage grits served in a doggie bowl. I almost lost her appetite... ha ha. It was fun eating out of the doggie bowl. We thought that this was the main course, but then it turned out the 3rd course was BBQ chicken with potatoes. By this time we were already full. During this time we saw a middle eastern type dancer and a trapeze act (she was really good!).

"Interesting" doggie plate

BBQ chicken

Dessert was butterscotch pudding (excellent) while we watched our host stripped down...sorry, no picture here! This was probably the most "interesting" performance of all...ha ha.

Yummy butterscotch pudding

Overall, the food was ok, but we had a great time and were glad we went. However, we would not recommend this place for children, anyone under 21, or "conservative" people since there were some pretty risque stuff here.