Something to Chew On...

Something to Chew On...

SWEET SUCCESS: When a new restaurant, in its second week, in a city glutted with restaurants, in the depths of a recession, is packed to the rafters on a weeknight, somebody’s doing something right. More likely, a lot of people are doing a lot of things right. Such is the case with Tracy Borkum’s Cucina Urbana. Borkum is no newcomer to the restaurant game. Her Kensington Grill has been among our very best neighborhood eateries for years. Her takeover and redo some years back of the ­upscale Laurel restaurant on Bankers Hill was a mixed success. More recently, like some other high-end dining rooms, it was struggling a bit. And so Borkum kicked over the tables. She closed it down for four weeks, gutted it and started over with a new concept, new décor and a new attitude. The pricing is part of the attitude. And there may be a lesson here for some other restaurateurs, not a few of whom have tried to beat the customer downturn with an upturn in prices, especially on wine. Check this out: At Cucina Urbana, nothing on the menu is priced higher than $20. The wine pricing is even better. On one recent night, a bottle of Charles Krug Char­don­nay, selling in the $20 range at corner liquor stores, was just $16 in Urbana’s own wine shop. With a modest $7 corkage fee, a glass cost about half what most restaurants would charge.

MEANWHILE: With many restaurants cutting their operating days and hours, and more than a few closing their doors for good in this nasty economy, Arnold Stimson got a kick out of the promotional material for the grand opening of a new one this month in Rancho Bernardo. It’s billed as “PRIVILEGE—the occasional restaurant.” Sighs Stimson, “Aren’t they all these days?”

IN A NAME: When San Diego football legend Don Coryell returned for a San Diego State University Aztec Legacy reception at the Del Mar Marriott in July, the former SDSU and Chargers head coach was the natural center of attention. Aztec alum Ernie Anderson, sensing the coach couldn’t find a comfortable seat, set out to find him one. He cornered a hotel employee, and when the young man learned the chair was for Coryell, he was more than eager to assist. In 1982, at the height of “Air Coryell” mania in San Diego, his parents named him ­af­ter Don Coryell, he told the coach. But Don isn’t exactly an uncommon name, the coach said. “Oh, no,” the young man replied. “My first name’s Cory. My middle initial is L.”

CAST OF MILLIONS: American Idol phenomenon Adam Lambert isn’t the only one in the family who can hold an audience. His father, Eber, has become something of a regular at Rebecca’s coffeehouse in South Park, where the third Tuesday of each month is open-microphone night. Eber doesn’t sing, but the regulars give him high marks for his poetry recitations. And he does seem to have the Lambert performing gene ... Charger Kassim Osgood isn’t afraid of jinxes; he’s predicting his team will go all the way this season. “I truly believe we can go 16-and-0 and win the Super Bowl,” he says. With one caveat: a season-breaking disruption in the dicey contract negotiations between the NFL and players union. “We don’t need that distraction,” he says. “We need a collective bargaining agreement.” ... Reason magazine is out with a new report that’s bound to jump-start a noisy debate. It quotes criminologists who say cities with large illegal-immigrant populations tend to have proportionately lower crime rates than other communities—mostly when it comes to violent crimes. Border cities like San Diego. “If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population,” says Jack Levin, a criminologist at Northeastern University in Massachusetts. “San Diego, Laredo, El Paso—these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they’re some of the safest in the country.”

THE COLLEGE TRY: Okay, I’m as green as the next guy—I hope. And I certainly don’t like to discourage enterprising young people. But something seems just a tad off tilt with this news out of MiraCosta College: Students from the horticulture department won five awards at the San Diego County Fair this summer for their water-saving project—a garden “demonstrating the benefits of collecting and irrigating with rainwater.” You’ve heard of rainwater, right? That stuff that comes out of the sky—up in Seattle.

THE LAST WORD: Now that the county sheriff and district attorney both are pursuing investigations into The Great Pepper Spray Caper at would-be congresswoman Francine Busby’s political fund-raiser, Wendy Fowler steps up to lend some perspective to the scene. “I feel sorry for the innocent bystanders,” she says, “but I do believe politicians should be pepper-sprayed on a regular basis.”

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