A flair for brunch

For the brunch of a lifetime, go to JRDN’s with Patricia and Rod Wright.

JRDN’s, which is coolchic for “Jordan’s,” is a stylish angular dining cave facing the San Diego oceanfront that has in a short time developed a reputation for ambience (ambience always comes first these days), food, and an inside-outside bar. It is the ground floor of the Tower 23 Hotel, in the beach community of Pacific Beach, and the rooms feature the same angular, sunlight-fueled austerity as the restaurant.

Patricia and Rod invited us there for brunch. JRDN’s gave us a nice outside table, and Patricia brought the flair. JRDN’s possesses some flair – I ordered a Bloody Martini and they didn’t bat an eye – but it isn’t in their DNA, whereas Patricia was born with it.

Our waiter was tall, slender, all in black, sunglasses pushed up on his wavy hair, and he moved with busy intent, very cheery. Between his physical presence and his brain, there existed a vast carnival of private sights and sounds through which he romped for 20-odd minutes between our asking for drinks and receiving them, except for a quick appearance to drop off pancakes at the next table. We had also asked for coffee and water, and cream, and those arrived 10 minutes after the drinks.

It was during those 10 minutes that Patricia’s flair DNA started to wiggle. She left the table for a few minutes and then returned. Right behind her came a busboy with the coffee and the water, the coffee in slender, stylish cups), and right behind him, our carnival man appeared with one of those same cups with about three-quarters of an inch of cream in the bottom. Patricia’s second bellini remained back up the trail somewhere.

It was that, and the eyedropper of cream, that touched off Patricia’s deeper flair artistry. She rose once again and left the table. Several minutes later, she returned with a white plastic grocery bag in hand. From these she withdrew a bottle of Cordoniu champagne, and a quart container of half and half, and sat them on the table. The next table had turned over, so the new guests missed the context, but put two-and-two together easily enough, and smiled.

“The best champagne they had was only $7,” Patricia said, disappointed. She had walked over to a Smart & Final a block away. I told her that Cordoniu was a perfectly acceptable Spanish champagne, and at that moment our food arrived, with Patricia’s second bellini. Our waiter did not acknowledge the towering white-and-yellow container of half and half in the middle of the table, but said of the bottle of Cordoniu, “Would you like me to open that, and put it on ice for you?”

She smiled at him across a distance of her own and said, “A little later, perhaps.”

The food was good. I had a seafood cobb salad, Karen and Patricia had crab cakes benedict with a light, subtle citrus hollandaise, and Rod had an omelet. We opened the champagne and drank it along with our food. When we were finished, about a inch was left in the bottle. Our waiter appeared with a trendy, sculpted aluminum bottle cooler that sat on the table at an angle. He swooped up the inch of champagne and placed the bottle in the cooler and asked if we had any requests. “Just the check,” Rod said.

Patricia said it’s fun to go the JRDN’s after work and watch the coolchic crowd and sit and nibble at the bar. “They have a fried lobster roll to die for,” she said, “that they don’t serve on weekends for some reason.” I do love a fried lobster roll, even if I know it is going to be anticlimactic.