Good restaurant

Discovered a really tasty, cool new restaurant last night. La Mar Cebicheria Peruana at Pier 1 1/2 on Embarcadero. Sometimes I actually do get good recommendations from Yelp. It's a Peruvian restaurant that specializes in cebiche (which I guess is how they spell the Peruvian version of ceviche). I was wrong in thinking that on a Wednesday night we didn't need a reservation - despite the fact that the restaurant's dining room seemed to be quite large, they were already fully booked for the evening. However, they sat us at the relatively sparsely populated cebiche bar, which worked just fine for us (we also had the option of taking a table in the front bar section, but it was quieter by the cebiche bar). Service was quite prompt and attentive. Food was yummy. We got the cebiche tasting which was a sampler of the mixto, the chifa, the clasico, and the nikei, which were all quite yummy. The only odd thing is that they seem to cut the pieces of raw fish really large - like sashimi - while I'm used to the smaller pieces in Mexican ceviche. In fact, it almost felt more like sashimi with accompaniments than how I usually think of ceviche, but still good (actually there was a lot of Asian influence all around - evidently Chinese-Peruvian food is a whole subgenre). For entrees, I got the duo de pato, which was two different types of duck - a duck confit on a bed of risotto and a few slices of duck breast on a tasty potato base with some sort of Asian-influenced sauce. They were both good, though I found the duck breast a bit more to my taste. My bf got the atun, or ahi tuna, which was crusted and seared in 3 chunks, each on top of a different base. Also good. For dessert, even though we were stuffed, I tried the fried pumpkin and sweet potato fritters which came with a kind of syrup to dip them in (I think it was passionfruit infused syrup, but the dessert menu isn't on their website so I can't be sure). They were different, and good, but not incredibly interesting (they sounded more unique on the menu). Kind of a light, airy, fried dough, basically. Oh, and instead of bread, they gave us a huge basket of plantain, yam, and potato chips which we started off by dipping in the 3 sauces they gave us, and then ended up using to scoop up the cebiche. Good stuff. All in all definitely not a cheap meal, but one of the better restaurants we've tried.

Updating

This blog is *supposed* to more or less be a record of stuff I do so I can remember it later, so of course it's totally useless that I haven't been updating.

So, a quick recap, for my own gratification.

We've been to plenty of restaurants that were indifferent or disappointing. Stuff that sounded good but just didn't taste that good. Or wasn't as interesting as it should have been. Places like Zare at Fly Trap, a Mediterranean place with an interesting sounding menu but eh food, or Oola, which is just disappointing.

Some highlights that we tried and very much enjoyed:
Isa (3324 Steiner btwn Chestnut and Lombard in Marina). Cute little restaurant, super-tasty food. A nice surprise, worth the trip up to Marina.

Range (842 Valencia St, btwn 19th and Cunningham Pl in Mission). Went there recently and just thought the food tasted really good. Got a pork chop (very large, very tender and juicy) with squash puree (I love butternut squash soup, very close to that) and swiss chard (yummy and done way better than how Oola did it). My bf got the hangar steak which was tender and good, though we didn't quite like the side as much (mostly b/c kale is more bitter than chard). His appetizer salad was also good. Very yummy, I'd go back.

Can't remember much else except that I'm not so keen to return to Siam Thai - just not that good quality - and I'm annoyed because Koh Samui and the Monkey decided to give themselves an additional $2 in tip (good thing I check my credit card bill pretty closely).

Went to see A Bronx Tale - a one man play written by and starring Chazz Palmintieri that was the basis of a Robert De Niro movie several years ago. It was surprisingly good, surprising mostly because I'm not familiar with one man shows and wasn't sure at first about this one guy up there for an hour and a half talking, but Chazz Palmintieri was very good. Very compelling, very amusing, very touching, and very energetic.

Also went to see Spring Awakening. Not sure what I think about that show. The music was nice, I quite liked it, but lyrically I had no idea what was going on. I kept trying to listen as closely as possible but missed a lot of lyrics. The stuff I did catch, about 80% of the time, didn't seem directly related to what was going on. Or it was related, but in that more abstract pop kind of way. Not as direct or obvious as typical musical lyrics. Plotwise, it seemed like "what are all the bad things we can throw at these teenagers al at once?" and only worked as a function of the time period. It's a show I don't know if I'd recommend, to be honest, even though the cast were talented and energetic and young, and the music sounded good. Though maybe others would like it.

No skating shows for me this fall, since Kurt Browning pulled out of the two Disson shows he'd been in, due to his father's illness (luckily he's better), and I pulled out of the one show I did have a trip planned to due to a cold.

A number of weddings, though, including one I was in. Big, beautiful affair at the Ritz Carlton Half Moon Bay where I was in the wedding party (strapless dresses don't stay on! makeup doesn't come off! hair looked weird! still lots of fun!), and a more low key, but still nice, affair the next day at the Marriott San Mateo. Lots of weddings this year, got another one coming up in November, and another in December...

Otherwise, still indulging my Doctor Who obsession by watching every special feature there is on the DVDs and all the Doctor Who Confidentials I downloaded (since the DVDs only have the "cutdown" version).

Enough of an update for now, I can't remember anything else =).

David Tennant

Evidently my last blog post was a collection of YouTube links for Neil Patrick Harris. Well my newest actor interest is David Tennant, aka the 10th Doctor Who, who's currently winning critical acclaim onstage with the RSC as Hamlet and Berowne (Love's Labour Lost). Aside from being an excellent Doctor in the new Doctor Who, and possessing an incredibly charming Scottish accent and personality in interviews (and DVD commentaries - he's a total Doctor Who geek/fanboy), he's been in quite a number of things on British TV over the years. YouTube is a treasure trove of links to his past performances, so I figured I'd use this blog as a place to keep track of the various things I've found, some of which I haven't even watched yet, for easy future reference.

This is obviously a post basically for me.

People Like Us - a mockumentary about acting, featuring David as a struggling young actor, being followed by a camera crew for a day. Very dry, absurd sense of humor played totally straight.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Takin' Over the Asylum - one of David's first professional roles, and apparently recently released on DVD due to its popularity on YouTube. About an aspiring (but failing) Scottish DJ who tries to restart a radio station at a mental asylum. Features David as a young manic-depressive in the institution, and lets us get to know a number of patients over the course of six episodes. This is actually a really touching series that presents mental disorders quite seriously.
Episode 1, Part 1
Episode 1, Part 2
Episode 1, Part 3
Episode 1, Part 4
Episode 1, Part 5
Episode 2, Part 1
Episode 2, Part 2
...this is taking too long since there are 30 parts. Follow the "related" links to find the rest.

Recovery - one of his best roles, IMO. About a regular man - a husband, father of two, and supervisor of a construction site - who is struck by a truck one day, sustaining serious head trauma and waking up completely different. He has trouble with his memory, has lost all his inhibitions, and is quite unable to function as an independent adult. His wife struggles to deal with this new man, and his children don't know how to react to him. He filmed this between seasons of Doctor Who, I think, and there's not a trace of the Doctor in his performance.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9

Sweet Night, Good Heart - short film, with David's character completely screwing up his attempt to break up with his girlfriend.

Nine and a half minutes - another short film, this one evidently a couple playing out a relationship in 9.5 minutes, though there are some puzzling things about it I haven't quite figured out.

Measure for Measure - a scene from Measure for Measure, from a Shakespeare documentary.

Only Human - evidently a BBC pilot that was never picked up. Kind of an odd concept - David as a private eye or something who suddenly gets an AI helper
Part 1
Part 2

Love in the 21st Century - I don't know anything about the series but David was in one episode. A woman just turning 30 is pressured by her mom and everyone around her into thinking she wants to have a baby, and so she starts resorting to rather unconventional measures to get one... David is the doctor who catches her eye as a potential father of her baby.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

The Chatterly Affair - just David's scene, playing a professor who testified at the trials surrounding the banning of Lady Chatterly's Affair.

Mrs. Bradley Mysteries - haven't seen this yet. David and Peter Davison (one of the previous Doctors) in a shortish clip from one episode of this series.

The Deputy - someone just uploaded this. David doesn't have a huge role, and given it's about the Deputy Prime Minister of Britain, it's not terribly fascinating to me, but I do kind of enjoy his part, particularly his interactions with the Deputy PM (he's an aide).
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

There's definitely a lot more - for instance, I haven't linked to anything from Blackpool, or Casanova (neither of which I've seen, both of which I've heard a lot of good about), and there are a number of other roles with clips on YouTube. But I'm kind of tired now and must do other things =).

What a crazy random happenstance!

Forgot to blog about it earlier, but luckily, Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog" is still up and available to watch for free on Hulu, or download on iTunes.

It's an Internet musical about a wannabe low-rent supervillain, Dr. Horrible (played by Neil Patrick Harris, who is awesome), his arch-nemesis, the smarmy Captain Hammer (played by Nathan Fillion), and Penny, the girl at the laundromat he can't work up the courage to talk to (played by Felicia Day). Co-written, directed, and produced by Joss Whedon (creator of Buffy, Angel, and Firefly), it's got great songs, great humor, some awesome lines, and that priceless mix of cheese and unexpected emotion. Check it out!

Speaking of the awesome Neil Patrick Harris, some YouTube goodness (and evidently Doogie Howser seasons 1 & 2 are up on Hulu):

NPH and Jason Segal singing "Confrontation" from Les Miz on the Megan Mullally show. It's hysterical and awesome, all at once.

Telly's New Shoes - NPH on Sesame Street next season as the "Shoe Fairy". The guy can sing!

NPH's Old Spice commercial - just fun

NPH as Tobias in Sweeney Todd with Patti LuPone

NPH and Christian Menna sing "What You Own" from Rent on the Rosie O'Donnell show, circa 1997. Finally get to hear NPH as Mark! I'm not entirely sure I like how he sings this - he's kind of doing the Anthony Rapp but pinching his voice *just* a little too much for my taste. Sure sounds different than his later singing... Still, really neat.

Take Me Or Leave Me 1/2
Take Me Or Leave Me 2/2
This is just fun - Neil and his boyfriend David Burtka performing "Take Me or Leave Me" from "Rent" at "Broadway Backwards" which is evidently where women sing the men's parts and men sing the women's... from the "Kiss, Doogie" to NPH doing his best Joanne, it puts a smile on my face.

OK I should go to bed. But there's more!

Quick updates

I never have time to blog anymore.

Quick bits, hopefully to be filled in later:

El Farolito at Mission & 24th - didn't like. Mystery bits of meat, odd chile sauce mixed with meat, badly balanced burrito (huge chunk of rice, then a bunch of meat in middle, then a lot of beans at bottom). Supposed to be good, but disappointment. The strawberry agua fresca was yummy.

Le Charm French Bistro at 5th and Folsom - not bad. Cute restaurant, nice service (though the waitress forgot she hadn't given us the dessert). Good onion soup, duck leg confit was way too salty, apple tarte tartin dessert was delicious.

Schitzelhaus at 8th, I think? Went a while ago, didn't have the schnitzel, but what I did have, which slips my mind at the moment was very yummy. I liked. Would go back.

Muracci's at Kearny and Bush - Japanese curry - chicken katsu curry, specifically - for lunch. Bit of a wait. Quite yummy. Ended up super-full b/c of eating every bit of rice with sauce on it.

Cabo - fun! great view! yummy mangoes! sea kayaking and snorkeling is fun! Hopefully will write more later.

A Chorus Line - opening song very familiar. Overall show was ok. I think the cast were picked more for their dance skills (which were impressive) than their singing skills, so some of the women, in particular, seemed to have somewhat shrill, very musical-theater-esque voices. The songs weren't particularly memorable, though funny at times and touching at times. Honestly, overall didn't particularly like it. Didn't dislike it, but I wouldn't see it again and I wouldn't buy the soundtrack. At least now I've finally seen this very famous show, though, so I don't have to be curious anymore =).

I know I've gone to other restaurants, and done other stuff, but it's slipping my mind for now...

Hiking

I had no particular plans for the 4th of July this year, so when a friend called me up the night before and asked if my bf and I wanted to go hiking, we were all for it.

The particular hike we did was the Matt Davis/Steep Ravine/Dipsea Loop in the Mount Tamalpais State Park. It started at Stinson Beach, climbed up through the trees and the hill (mountain?) side, up and up...before looping around and descending again. The total loop was 7.3 miles of moderate hiking - enough to test my lungs and burning thighs on the ascent, and to stress my knees on the descent, but not challenging to anything except my fitness level.

The hike was quite nice. The initial part of the day was foggy and damp, with the trees periodically crying on us, and the views almost nonexistent in the shifting layers of fog and cloud. That actually worked quite well, though, since it coincided with the climbing part of the hike, so we didn't get too hot or worn out. Also, that part of the hike went up and up through trees and forest that at times felt like the Costa Rican cloudforest (lots of moss and ferns and twisted trees..not enough ephiphytes) so the clouds through the trees looked quite neat, while there wasn't much of a view (I don't think) because the trees blocked the way. We eventually broke the tree line (or something) and ended up hiking across what seemed like golden (yellow) fields (or ridges) of wheat (not actually wheat), periodically broken by stands of trees. We chose to lunch around 2pm in a flat spot on one of these sections, breaking out the various sandwich making goods, salami, trail mix, fruit, and other stuff we'd carried along, and taking a nice long rest. After lunch, the day started clearing up, and on our descent we found ourselves going through sun and bright blue skies. For a while, we were still in the woods, which were charming with the babbling brooks, fallen trees lying picturesquely across the brooks (or the paths, where they had been sawed off to allow people to pass), and tall trees. At one point, we had to descend a ladder along the side of a brook to get to the next part of the trail. Eventually we came out of the woods to descend down a gentle hill that sloped back towards Stinson Beach, with beautiful views of the beach and the bay behind it.

Overall, the hike was a beautiful one, though tough on my weak knees, and it was a nice way to spend the day. Of course, we were pretty well wiped out by the end of it, and ended up staying in and not seeing any fireworks. But that was totally fine with me.

Biscuity goodness

For the longest time, I've wanted to go to Brenda's Soul Food Cafe. The only time I actually physically got to the door, I found out they weren't open on Sundays. This week, since I'm not working, I've been determined to get myself to this restaurant to try out their "beignet flight," but discovered that it's now open on Sundays but *not* open on Tuesdays, my original planned day to visit.

Argh!

*Finally* I got myself there today, after deciding to postpone my workout until the afternoon and forget all the other projects I was hoping to get done today.

Was it all it was hyped up to be? Well, I can't completely answer that, since I only had the beignets and a biscuit, and none of the other food people rave over (po'boys, croque monsieur, gumbo, pancakes, french toast, grits and grillades, etc etc). The wait wasn't nearly as bad as people made it sound - I was there at 1pm, had maybe 5 people ahead of me, had to wait maybe 10 minutes, and then was quickly seated at the first available table (to my feeling of guilt - there was a couple behind me, yet I was one person seated at a table that could fit 3 - they later very apologetically asked if I'd be willing to move to a 2-person table, and I happily did so). The place seats 30 max (I counted) at several tables and one counter. The service was very friendly - all 3 waiters/waitresses had smiles whenever they walked by, and were very nice.

As for the food? Well I've only had beignets once before, at the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, and actually wasn't all that impressed there. I think beignets are not really my thing. To my surprise, my very favorite beignet was the first I ate - the savory crawfish beignet. It wasn't at all spicy, but it was warm, salty, cheesy, and tasty, and I enjoyed every last bite. I didn't at all expect that b/c I'm a sweets lover and not a huge crawfish fan. As for the rest of the beignets... the Cafe du Monde beignet was fluffy and soft and spilled powdered sugar *everywhere*. The ones at Brenda's were fried in a more crispy way, and a couple of them had somewhat hard edges. This helped them to retain their structural integrity *and* keep the powdered topping on, but did change the texture somewhat. The plain beignet with sugar on top was fine, and made better by adding the homemade jam on the table. The chocolate one was all right, the apple cinnamon one was all right..neither was particularly special. Not bad, mind you, just not amazing. If I were to go back and order beignets again, I think I'd order the crawfish one...and maybe not the others. But like I said, I'm not a connoisseur of beignets - I didn't even like the one at the source of supposedly the best beignets ever in New Orleans.

After I finished my beignets, I wrestled my conscience a bit and then ordered a biscuit because people had raved about them and the photo on the website: Brenda's Soul Food looked delectable. Turned out to be a very good decision for my taste buds, if not my stomach. That was the best biscuit I ever had - warm, flaky, buttery, oh-so-subtly sweet, and delicious. I added a little bit of jam at one point but it was so very good by itself. Didn't need the butter pat at all. I was stuffed when I was done but so happy to have gotten the biscuit. Wow that was good. I also got the watermelon sweet tea, and despite not being the hugest fan of watermelons *or* tea, really enjoyed it. It's a subtly sweet, refreshing drink.

All-in-all, I'm kind of wishing I got the croque monsieur or the bbq chicken po'boy on the specials menu instead of the beignets, but I'm glad I tried them to satisfy my curiousity. The food seems as good as advertised, and I'd love to try something else there... BTW by 2pm (it closes at 3) there was pretty much no wait. They're open 8-3pm every day except Tuesday. Must try them again...

Seattle living

After almost 7 years at my first job out of college, I finally left to try something new. My last day of work was June 20, and I don't start my new job until July 7, so I'm in the middle of two weeks of downtime. Most people seem to think I should be taking a vacation, relaxing, whatever, but I just keep thinking about how many projects I want to get done that I usually don't have time to do, and how little time I have left to do them!

Of course, that didn't stop me from taking off on a moment's notice to visit my sister in her new digs in Seattle (Redmond, actually). She just started work on *her* first job out of college on Monday. My mom was there with her the first week before she started work to help find an apartment, buy furniture, etc. I went up when I found a $159 fare on Virgin America for Wed through Sat ... on Tuesday. Virgin America is kind of nice - brand new planes (with odd blue and purple lighting), in-seat entertainment units with 20 channels (and ability to order food from your seat, though I didn't use that), cheap fares... I may be using them a bunch to visit my sister, though the really cheap fares seem to be (of course) midweek.

Unfortunately, my sister doesn't have internet hooked up in her new apartment yet - Comcast won't hook it up until she has a TV for them to test the cable (she got a combination package). I was planning on spending my days while she was at work at the library using their free wi-fi to work on my webpage, but somehow spent most of my time researching TVs for her, driving down to Costco and Fry's, researching the TVs online, buying the TV, turning around and exchanging it for the larger one... Ah well. I did finally fulfill a longtime goal - every time I visit Seattle I want to visit Sushi Land, a sushi place my bf told me about years ago when he was contracting with a company in Bellevue, but I've never been able to make it happen. I finally did, and discovered why my bf was so happy with the place. It was one of those places with a long conveyor belt with the sushi traveling by you, and the prices set by the color of the plate. The prices? $1, $1.50, $2, and $3. The fish was good, too - maybe not the very best fish ever, but fresh and tasty and fine with me. I had sake, maguro, and tamago nigiri, two rolls (tuna & cream cheese, shrimp tempura), and sesame balls for $10. If I wasn't waiting for the sesame balls to travel around the room (I was near the kitchen, but the belt flowed in the other direction), I could have finished my lunch in about 20 minutes. Great turnover for them! We also went to Jeem Asian Restaurant in the Safeway plaza in Redmond one night (we needed dinner around 9:30pm) which didn't look very hopeful from the outside but turned out to be quite an interesting Chinese restaurant inside - extensive menu with interesting and different looking dishes on it. We got strawberry spareribs (yum) and beef tenderloin udon with satay sauce (pretty good - my sister liked it more than me). Got lunch at Noodle Land, a Thai restaurant in the Redmond town center that was quite yummy as well - good pad thai that came with every lunch combo.

Oddly, on Friday afternoon, we were driving back to my sister's apartment so she could help me carry her new TV into her apartment, and we saw a firetruck with sirens and lights blazing coming out of her apartment complex's driveway. I thought it odd to have the lights on coming *out* of a place and asked if they had a fire station in her complex - no - and then joked maybe they meant to go to the Avalon complex next door and went in the wrong driveway. Imagine my surprise and chagrin when we got out of the car, looked back, and discovered a big plume of black smoke coming out of the Avalon complex... I guess I was more right than I knew! I don't know what happened but it seemed to be a pretty big fire, judging from the amount of smoke. I think they got it under control pretty fast after they responded, but yeesh.

I got back from Seattle Saturday night just in time to go to a friend's 30th birthday party - a rather elaborate deal with hired blackjack/craps/roulette dealers and catered food since he loves gambling, that was quite fun. Beforehand, we went to dinner at Acquapazza Ristorante, an Italian restaurant in San Mateo. I liked my dish - Strozzapreti - pasta with prosciutto, mushrooms, and peas in cream sauce - but my bf was less than impressed with his veal parmigian - he said it was overly breaded.

For lunch yesterday, I returned to Frjtz's to try the two crepes I was curious about - the one with roasted pears, nutella, toasted almonds and whipped cream, and the one with the roasted pineapple, toasted coconut, etc. Neither were particularly interesting so my curiousity about Frjtz's is pretty well satisfied, and I'm likely to never go back. For dinner, I went to Kitchen Kura, a little restaurant on Irving between 16th and 17th that servers homestyle Japanese food. I loved it - they have a list of entrees, where you pick two and get a whole meal of 2 entrees, an appetizer, a salad, miso soup, and green tea for $10.50, or a la carte options. I picked the sukiyaki (which I was craving all day) and nanban chicken (deep fried chicken that was lightly breaded and lightly fried but unfortunately a bit tasteless for my taste and too much fried food after a while). My bf picked the white butter shoyu fish - mahimahi with onion and zucchini in a butter soy sauce and the nanban chicken. Given the choice again I would have totally gotten the sukiyaki and fish - both came with a delicious sweet salty sauce that I loved. Totally hit the spot and was what I was craving yesterday. Unfortunately, my bf only likes sushi when it comes to Japanese food, we've realized - not fond of noodles or the other dishes - so he didn't particularly enjoy it. Guess I can only go back when he's not around!

Food, fun, and music

It seems like recently I have weeks where nothing happens, and then weeks where I have three nights in a row of plans (which, for me, is a lot).

Tuesday night a couple friends, my bf, and I met for a belated birthday dinner for my bf. We decided to go to One Market, right by the Ferry Building, for their Dine About Town. The restaurant is quite big and airy, and has a nice feel to it with big windows that overlook the ferry building, and big tables with long benches in the booths. Yelp claims it's "dressy" but we didn't feel out of place in our jeans. Three of us went for the DAT menu, with two of us getting the exact same thing - spring vegetable mix salad, braised Berkshire pork spareribs, and fresh strawberry/grand marnier trifle. The third one got the black bean soup, skatewing, and the trifle. My bf decided to do something different and got the duck breast off the regular menu, and, I think, the Valrhona Organic Chocolate Tart for dessert. My bf loved his food - the duck breast was excellent - good texture, great taste - and came with a vanilla sweet potato puree he loved. My friend and I both liked the spring vegetable salad, which consisted of asparagus, carrots, peas, beans, and other spring vegetables, I believe steamed, and in a balsamic vinaigrette. The pork spareribs were good, though in my opinion nothing exceptional. The dessert was excellent - layers of strawberries, grand marnier-infused cream, and a kind of spongy cake, that was all very tasty. The black bean soup my friend got was poured into a bowl with calamari, lime, and cilantro in the middle - it looked really thick, like a black been puree. He said he liked the spring vegetable salad better, but I'm not sure if that meant he disliked the soup. The skatewing was evidently good as well. My bf says he'd definitely go back.

Wednesday night, we met another group of friends for dinner at Foreign Cinema at 21st and Mission, again for Dine About Town. And again, my bf didn't get the DAT option. I did, getting the Marin mixed lettuce salad (yummy and fresh but nothing special), the salmon (buttery and lemony, and quite good), and the lemon creme brulee (which I traded for my bf's apricot crisp, which was disappointing but largely b/c I don't think I like apricots). My bf got the lamb (I think), which he said was fine. Several of our friends got the fried paprika chicken (at least one of them not realizing it was fried chicken) which I hear was very tasty (though $18 fried chicken had better be good!). We sat indoors, rather than outdoors, so we didn't get to see the cinema part of the foreign cinema. The restaurant was charming enough (we sat at a large wood table rather than a white tablecloth-covered table like smaller tables) and the food was pretty good.

Thursday night, we went to see Hairspray at the Orpheum Theater. My bf and I first stopped at Bossa Nova, a Brazilian restaurant at 8th St and Minna, only a block and a half from the theater. It's a cute place that I almost walked by, b/c they don't have any signs that stick out and it's not large. It's got a nice airy feel to it, though, with windows bringing in the sunshine and the door open to let in the breeze (it was a nice day). I think the Bossa Nova is more about the drinks than the food - extensive drink menu, smaller dinner menu - but the food was quite good. My bf got the flat iron steak "grande" plate which was very yummy with a great texture to the meat. It came with potato wedges that were quite flavorful and crispy, which was nice. He also ordered a side of fried plantain chips, but expected something different than plantains fried like potato chips (we've had too many fried plantains in Costa Rica that were not fried into dryness). I got the small plate of the ribeye on two skewers with 3 sauces (mango, green tomato, and bell pepper - I liked the mango the best). The flavor was good, and some of the pieces were nice and tender and yummy, but others were extremely chewy and hard to eat. The flatiron steak was definitely better. I also got a side of chicken croquettes which were in the shape of Hershey kisses (but larger), and had fried exteriors I couldn't stab my fork through, but were quite yummy to pick up, dip, and eat. Overall, we liked the meal and thought the food was well done.

Seeing Hairspray was a great deal of fun. I didn't know much at all about the musical going in - I knew it was John Waters, and had some iteration of movies to musicals to movies to musicals in its history, and had a man dressed up as the mother, and a "plus-sized" girl as the lead who wanted to dance, but I didn't know anything beyond that. Not the music, not most of the plot, nothing. The show was excellent! It's been a long time since I saw a musical in the old tradition of song and dance - usually these days it's heavy plotting, lots of dialogue, or maybe sung-through but without the dance (like Les Miz). I was blown away by the cast - they must be exhausted night after night! It's not a large cast and they're on stage practically every song, energetically dancing and jumping and twirling and singing. The music was great, the comedy was fun (with cute little character moments and nuances that enhanced the comedy), the performances were excellent (especially the girl playing Penny, Tracy's best friend, Sharon Malane - who was comedically perfect, always bringing something to the scene even when she was in the background), and the dancing was incredibly energetic and always on. I enjoyed a lot of the singing - Taylor Frey, who played Link the love interest, looked like a very young Ben Affleck but with much better moves and a lovely singing voice, the woman playing Motormouth Maybelle (whose name I didn't look up) had a commanding presence in her rallying song, and I thought in general the vocal performances were very smooth. My one issue was that Tracy is supposed to be an excellent dancer but she didn't impress all that much, particularly in front of that highly energetic cast (especially Link/Taylor, who seemed to put twice as much energy into every dance move), but she led the cast nicely and the rest of her performance was good. The show was a lot of fun and I'm very glad I went. Little piece of advice for people who may go in the future though - 3rd row center orchestra are great seats, except they're almost *too* close - you can see the makeup, and the forehead mikes, and stuff a little too closely, and it's harder to keep an eye on the dance as a whole as opposed to the individual dancers who may actually be looking directly at you while they perform. But how can I complain about getting such good seats? That was a fun night at a theater, and I highly recommend it to anyone.

Oh before I forget, I finally got to Frjtz's in Hayes Valley after it reopened. I've been wanting to go there for a while since I think I like Belgian food, even though they basically just have Belgian fries. Reading the Yelp reviews, people kept talking about getting hairs in their fries, which didn't make any sense to me but sure enough... We'd been eating fries for a while and then I stopped to take a closer look at one, and discovered these curly black hairs fried into the side of the fries. Gross..and strange. Every other fry I picked up after that had the same. I'm not convinced it's human hair, because how could anyone shed *that* much hair into the fryer, but I don't know what it is. Maybe the fries aren't peeled all the way and it's the bits of roots that start growing out of older potatoes, shriveled up in the frying oil?? Who knows. It did put my appetite off for the fries though. Which is fine, I keep ordering fries thinking I want them and I keep not wanting to finish them - the Frjtz fries were nothing special. We got two dipping sauces - ponzu ketchup and the smokey honey-mustard. The ponzu taste was way too strong in the former, and it wasn't a very good ponzu, while the mustard part of the smokey honey-mustard was too strong for this honey mustard-loving, regular mustard-hating girl. Disappointing. My food was better - I got the Velasquez sandwich, which was basically an open face sandwich on a thick slice of foccacia with lots of prosciutto (almost too much in places), mozzarella, roasted pineapple (so yummy) and roasted pepper mayo. Quite enjoyed that. My bf got a savory crepe, I forget which one, and seemed to like it. I really want to try the dessert crepes though - there's a roasted pineapple one, a caramelized apple one, and a roasted pear one, all of which look really really good. We were too full that day..maybe sometime in the future I'll come back for crepes but *not* fries.

Updates

Wow, haven't blogged in a while. Should probably be less wordy than usual in updating, then!

A few weeks back, I took a class down in Santa Clara for work, and they were kind enough to spring for hotel so I didn't have the do the 2+ hour commute each day. I stayed at the Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale, which was actually quite cute. It was designed to have a fairly tropical feel - open lobby, pool with little bungalows around it in the middle, open (though roofed) hallways, tropical-looking canopy over the beds, etc. I didn't spend any time at the pool, though I walked by it to get to breakfast each day, but it gave it a nice feel. The rooms were pretty nice as well - not huge, but comfortable with a large desk where I got some studying in. Free wireless, free breakfast. My one complaint was that the alarm clock in the room next door to me went off (beeping) at 6am one day and kept going for an hour (and I couldn't get the "Guest Services" button on my phone to work). Then the next morning, I was woken at 3:30AM by a radio alarm in that room, heard the people move around and then leave..and then at 6AM, was woken again by the bloody beeping alarm! After 10 minutes, I called the front desk (just took a chance and dialed 0) and told them that this alarm was going off, had gone off for an hour yesterday, and that I was pretty sure there was no one in there, and could they *please* do something about it. A few minutes later, it stopped. Yay! No one I know needs a hotel in the Bay Area, but if they do, I quite liked that one.

Two weeks ago, I had a fairly busy week since we had tickets lined up to see the Flight of the Conchords on Tuesday and then A Midsummer Night's Dream on Wednesday. Both were rather interesting experiences.

Flight of the Conchords is a duo from New Zealand who mix comedy and music in often hilarious ways. Unfortunately, as I discovered, it helps to have familiarity with their material before going to see them live, because it was exceedingly difficult to understand what they were saying (especially since the people around us *did* know them well and kept whooping and cheering and laughing and drowning them out). I like their music, but the humor gets lost when you can't hear it. Still was an enjoyable show, I just think I would have liked it way better if I had familiarized myself with more than Business Time and one song I recognized but have since forgotten what it was.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was a restaging of Shakespeare's classic play by Indian and Sri Lankan performers. On seeing the information about it on the Best of Broadway SF website, I got the impression it was a Bollywood-esque interpretation, an extravaganza of dance, acrobatics, singing, etc that used the play as its basis. I was wrong. There were some elements of it - some dance, some acrobatics with ropes and dangling cloths, and such. But it was fairly minimal and far less than expected. Instead, the play was largely comprised of its multiethnic cast performing Shakespeare's play in seven different languages - English and six Indian and Sri Lankan dialects. I have a hard enough time understanding Shakespearean dialogue to begin with. Shakespearean dialogue performed in Indian/Sri Lankan accents and frequently interspersed with long stretches of language I don't understand is even harder to follow. Without the extremely detailed insert describing the plot, we all would have been incredibly lost. The use of the sets was fairly interesting - a big frame structure hung over with billowing white sheets that got torn and climbed all over over the course of the evening provided the background, there was a hanging platform, and ropes/cloths hanging all over the set. The guy playing Puck also was the set rearranger, wandering around and unhooking or rehooking the ropes, setting up one of the more interesting visual scenes, putting out the cloth for the actors to sit on in various scenes... I don't know. All in all it probably didn't help that what we saw didn't match our expectations of the big Bollywood extravaganza, but none of us enjoyed the play particularly much. And I've never seen so many people just get up and leave during the first act.

That same week, we had a Lost night to watch the finale. That was interesting. Lost is weird for me - it's a show where attention and memory for detail pays off big, and it's a show where the details completely slip my mind very quickly. When the finale opened I was actually confused - it'd only been 2 weeks since we saw the previous episode and I couldn't remember what had happened, who was where, and why. Strange. I enjoyed it though, and am curious to see where they go next season.

Before "Flight of the Conchords," we went to eat at the Nob Hill Cafe, a small Italian restaurant which was just about the only reasonably priced place within 4 blocks and which was extremely popular and crowded (always is pre-show at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, evidently). We quite enjoyed it - it was good, basic Italian that was quite tasty.

Before "Midsummer Night's Dream," we went to eat at Kim Thanh, a Vietnamese restaurant only a couple blocks from the Orpheum. It was also pretty good, basic Vietnamese/Chinese - we had a decent salt and pepper crab, a decent if standard wonton soup, a fairly tasty vegetables in oyster sauce, and a quite yummy pork vermicelli. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to go back, but if I happened to be in the area, I wouldn't mind going again. The waiters were nice and one helped us figure out how to eat some of the stuff.

Before Lost, we had dinner at RNM in lower Haight, where we'd eaten before, and which was still good.

Last week, I hung out with a friend and ate at the Alembic in Haight-Ashbury (Haight btwn Cole and Shrader). It's a bar with a small food menu. Literally small, both in the number of options and the size of the dishes. Yummy, though. We got the charcuterie plate, which had some tasty cuts of salami, prosciutto, and other meats. I got the Berkshire Pork Belly which was very fatty as pork belly should be, melty, yummy, bad for me, and tiny. Both my companions got the Flat Iron Steak (a special for the day), which I tried a piece of and was quite yummy. Very small portions, not that cheap, but the food was well done and the bartender (we ate at the bar) nice and friendly. It's not a place really designed for dinner - there are very few tables - but the food was surprisingly good.

Spent most of the weekend in Boston for my sister's college graduation. It rained kindly on us on Friday - as we sat down before graduation, the skies opened up, but luckily we'd been provided with ponchos that mostly kept us dry, except occasional rain that would seep in the sleeves (only happened to me). The rain stopped by the time the procession started, which was a small plus. It then was extremely hot and humid on Saturday, the day we packed up her room and moved her out. I intelligently walked from my hotel in Brookline to her dorm in Cambridge, which wouldn't have been a bad walk had I not been carrying my bags and walking in the humidity. Ah well. I do like Boston, though. We had dinner at Le's Restaurant (formerly Pho Pasteur) in Harvard Square, and I had my old favorite yellow noodles dish. So very very yummy. My sister kept stealing some off my plate b/c it was so yummy. The Pho Pasteur in Chinatown does their corresponding dish (which they call chow mein) differently, somehow. It just doesn't have that distinctive yummy sauce I've never found anywhere else. Also had a pineapple shake (ah condensed milk) which was much happiness.

What else, what else.

Ah yes. I just gave notice today and am starting a new job in a month. Only my second job since college. I'm scared and excited.

Another weekend, another bunch of travel

I am so tired of traveling. If I could sleep in strange places, or on planes, I think I'd be a happier camper. But since I can't, traveling every weekend means sleep deprivation all weekend, which makes me a very whiny person. Luckily, this should be my last travel weekend in a while, though I am planning on sleeping in a hotel for several nights next week. Have a class for work down in Santa Clara and don't want to do the almost 3 hours commute during rush hour per day it'll be to get down there. But it'll just be me in the hotel room, and it'll be a stable place to stay, so it should be ok.

Nothing about this past weekend was stable. I flew on a redeye Thursday night to Boston, getting maybe 2 hours of sleep on and off during the flight. I got to my sister's dorm room around 9:30am, tried to nap on her bed (and only partially succeeding b/c it was stuffy as hell in her dorm room and she came in and out a few times to talk to my other sister, who was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor) until around 12:30 and then got up to meet my mom. Spent the afternoon with her, walking to Chinatown (and walking back with a bunch of drinks that were nice and heavy) in the rain, getting noodles at Pho Pasteur, and generally chatting with her. Skipped dinner because we had such a late and large lunch, and went directly to my little sister's a capella concert to meet up with my older sister. The concert was lovely - my sister had an amazing solo to "The Tower" by Vienna Teng, which sounded even better than the first recording of it I'd heard despite the fact that she'd been fighting a cough for weeks. It was the last concert of the year so they were saying goodbye to all the seniors, so the evening was an interesting blend of the touching/sentimental, the humorous (they did little skits), and just great singing.

Then it was to bed around 1-1:30AM only to not be able to fall asleep *at all* while sharing a double with my mom. I finally moved to the living room (this was my mom's friend's apartment) to sleep on the couch at 4:30AM and got about 2 hours of sleep between 5-7AM. Then it was time to taxi over to the airport, pick up a rental car, and drive the 5.5 hours to Ithaca, NY, stopping at Syracuse on the way to pick up a friend from the airport (who had his own share of travel difficulties). Had enough time to try to nap for 45 minutes (no luck, the rooms faced a central pool area and there were kids playing and screeching), get dressed, and run off to the wedding we were in Ithaca for. The wedding itself was really nice - on the shores of one of the Finger Lakes, on a sunny day, with the sun shining on the glimmering water behind the happy couple. The reception was also outdoors so I ended up wearing my bf's suit jacket most of the night. Had Chilean sea bass for the first time, which was quite yummy - all melty and not fishy at all. Actually danced a bit even though I'm a crappy-ass self-conscious dancer, and had fun laughing at my friends as they goofed on the dance floor. We knew a number of people at the wedding, so we had a nice evening. I left early, though, around 10:30PM, so I could try to grab some sleep before driving back to Boston the next day.

In bed around 12:30-ish, bf returned at 2AM, waking me up by mistake, woke up again at 4am with a terribly dry mouth..finally woke up for good at 8:30AM thinking I was rested enough, and taking off for Boston around 9:45AM or so. Apparently I wasn't entirely right. The drive the day before had been not great b/c I was tired and my judgment towards the end of the drive was pretty off (pulling into parking places right next to large SUVs that were opening their door), but at least I was pretty much alert and awake if not thinking 100% straight. The drive on Sunday was harder b/c I was sleepier and closer to falling asleep for more of it. Maybe because I wasn't drinking a steady stream of milk tea while driving, as I had the day before. I made it to Boston safely, though, in time to grab an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my sisters and mom for Mother's Day (they had a 45 minute wait even at 3:45PM!). Managed to spend almost 1.5 hours with them before running for the airport in order to return my car and make it to my 6:40PM flight. Finally got home around 11PM only to discover the huge load of laundry I'd left on my bed Thursday night, so I had to fold all that before I could go to sleep.

All in all, a very tiring weekend with some pleasant moments - a nice afternoon with my mom, a great concert for my sister and her group, a nice wedding and some time to hang out with friends - and a lot of driving, travel, and sleeplessness. Whine...

New Orleans

I have a friend who says she blogs in order to keep up her writing skills.

I apparently blog to brain dump, without taking the time to make sure my syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc are even remotely close to correct. I wonder if that means this blog is actually degrading my writing skills. Oh well.

My surgery 2 weeks ago had the fortunate timing of needing to happen when I wasn't out of the country - in Argentina or Canada. It had the unfortunate timing of happening in the middle of 5 consecutive weekends of planned travel. I cancelled one trip (sigh) but this past weekend had another planned, to New Orleans for a friend's bridal shower/bachelorette party type trip. Luckily, I was already feeling almost close to normal, so going on this trip wasn't as much of a post-op issue as I had feared.

I've never been to New Orleans before, and it was neat to visit a new city in the US. My rather short time there was spent primarily in the French Quarter and at Jazz Fest, since I arrived around 1AM Friday night/Saturday morning and left around 6:30PM Sunday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really quite liked the French Quarter - the narrow streets lined with little boutiques, shops, and restaurants, the Southern architecture with the wide balconies and verandas (my new fact of the day - verandas are covered balconies), the generally quaint feel that wasn't quite European but certainly wasn't like the big Eastern/Western cities I've visited in the US. The one odd thing was the plethora of SUV and minivan taxis. Not something I'm used to seeing. Our wanderings took us down Royal St to Jackson Square, which was quite pleasant, to Cafe Du Monde (ridiculously long but fast-moving line!) for beignets (to be honest, slightly disappointing - I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't fried dough). We then wandered over to the French Market, which I liked quite a lot. It was a covered open air structure, several blocks long, with a number of stalls and tables set up with all sorts of neat little arts, crafts, souvenirs, etc. I think I particularly liked that it wasn't cramped and it wasn't crowded, and it was quite bright, so the whole experience was just pretty pleasant. I got a $20 set of pewter jewelry (looks like bright silver, kind of) that I quite liked, and also bought a scented candle for my mom (b/c the other girls were all getting some and they needed a certain number to ship).

After the French Market, we made our way back to the Windsor Court Hotel for afternoon tea. Tea is such a female thing to do - I looked around and there was only one man in there the entire time we were there, and he didn't look too happy to be there. It's all soft music and sitting around in elegant tables with tea and cute little sandwiches and cakes. It was pretty nice, though, I'll admit. I'm not a fan of tea at all but I decided to try the Jasmine b/c it was supposed to be very light... and then poured in a lot of milk and sugar. I think I liked the four fruit tea a lot better when I finally tried it. But the food was good, and plentiful - I didn't end up being able to eat my dessert chocolate covered strawberry or chocolate truffles or cream puff, I was so full. Then it was back to the hotel to veg a bit and do some bridal shower activities - a couple games, opening presents. Then napping and relaxing until dinner.

For dinner, my friends were all determined to get boiled crawfish by the pound. We went to one restaurant that was well known for it, but the line was long and slow, so we ended up going to Felix's across the street, which had more crawfish for a better deal and almost no line. I'm lazy and not particularly inclined to work hard for my food, so I was the one person who didn't get crawfish - I got a Cajun sampler instead, consisting of jambalaya (too spicy for me), crawfish etouffe (ok), and red beans and rice (surprisingly my favorite). It was amusing watching my friends busily cracking into their pile of crawfish, which they all seemed to enjoy immensely. Afterwards, we wandered around Bourbon St a bit. From an observer's standpoint (which is what I tend to be), it was rather interesting - a whole street closed down and reserved for pedestrian traffic, all the open bars and restaurants and such which made it so people would just wander in and out of the street, people carrying drinks down the street... it was like one big open air party. The only thing is, I don't particularly like being around drunk people, particularly drunk people I don't know who approach me and try to give me beads, or call one of my friends uptight. So after the novelty wore off, I was a bit over it. Probably doesn't help that I don't drink, I don't actually like bars or clubs, and I was getting a bit tired from the long day. After getting daiquiries and jello shots at one of the numerous daiquiri stands lining the street, which resembled soda fountains except with daiquiri machines lining the wall instead of a soda fountain, and which sold pizza by the slice, my friends walked me back to the hotel before wandering out for a couple more hours.

Sunday morning opened with brunch at the Court of Two Sisters, which was quite nice. We sat in the cute outdoor pavilion with a fountain nearby, gazebo next to us, little well across the way, and live music in the back. The food was pretty yummy (it's too bad my appetite has been diminished since the surgery since I would have liked to eat more) and it was a nice way to start the day. We then split up so 3 of us went to Jazz Fest (one was leaving early, one kept her company, and one was very interested in historical stuff so she went to do a tour of the Katrina areas). Jazz Fest was neat - it was basically on a horse racetrack/fairgrounds, with several large stages set up all around, arts and crafts booths, and a ton of food. What particularly appealed to me was that they had 3 or 4 large tents set up that actually had folding chairs and bleachers *and* were covered from the sun, so we spent some time enjoying blues in one tent and jazz in another (I like blues better). The arts and crafts were cute, though more enjoyable to look at earlier in the day when there were less people, and it was kind of fascinating reading the signs and seeing just how many things you can do with crawfish. We wandered by a few of the other stages, but the main stage was set up so loud and with such booming bass that it felt like the bass was trying to make our hearts beat a new rhythm, which was quite uncomfortable. So we didn't stay near any stage for longer than a song or so. The overall experience was nice though - interesting music of different varieties, interesting food (I tried half a chicken po'boy, and half a pulled pork po'boy - liked the pork better), and interesting sights. We had to leave around 3PM so we missed the big names (Santana, etc) but by then it was getting really crowded and really hot, so we weren't too sad to go.

Overall, it was a fun weekend, and an interesting glimpse at New Orleans.

Randomness

My group at work has been suffering a slow attrition recently. And it's kind of evident more attrition will be happening in the future from the frequency of "work from home" emails we get, from people who used to never work from home. Sigh. What's ironic, though, is I probably look like I have a bigger slew of "excuses" to not be at work than anyone, what with the gum procedures, the orthodontia, and now this surgery. And I *haven't* been interviewing! I bet they're wondering how one person can have so many things wrong with her and need to be at all these different appointments all the time =P.

I've been wasting a lot of time recently while recuperating, poking around the Web. It's really fun all the old stuff you can dig up on YouTube, etc. And it's really weird to see how new generations of people are discovering some of my youthful obsessions. Back when it came out (and admittedly, still now), I was a huge fan of "Newsies," the Disney live action musical about newsboys on strike, starring a young Christian Bale. I was also a huge fan of "Roundhouse," a Nickelodeon sketch show that starred four of the background actors from Newsies. Apparently there's a whole cult following for "Newsies" that's still active today (just check out NewsiesFreak.com), but what's really amusing (and disturbing) is how many fans seem to be teens who weren't even alive when the movie came out 16 years ago. I suppose it makes sense b/c anyone like me, who liked it back then and still likes it but isn't actively involved, won't be the ones you see posting online.

But what really amuses me is something I just stumbled upon yesterday:
Blood Drips Heavily on Newsies Square, which apparently was a movie made via video camera by Michael Goorjian (aka Skittery, aka the guy on Party of Five), Max Casella (aka Racetrack, aka the guy from Doogie Howser), Trey Parker (aka Kid Blink), and Ivan Dudynsky (aka Dutchy, aka the guy from Roundhouse), on the set of the Newsies. It kind of shows what happens when you get a bunch of teen/early 20's guys together running around a movie set goofing off - you get a horror movie spoof starring Mark David (aka Specs, aka another guy from Roundhouse) as Don Knotts, who's pissed he's not allowed to be in "Newsies" and goes around killing off the Newsies one by one, as each exhibits dirty mouths and proclivities usually not emphasized in a Disney production. They somehow got everyone involved - there are cameos from the film's director, various assistants and crew, and almost everyone in the film (including Christian Bale and Bill Pullman). The production values are incredibly low (very amusingly so) and this possibly is only funny to those who are fans and know who these guys are. But it cracked me the hell up when I found it on YouTube, partly b/c I didn't know any of this background and was just like "what the hell is this??". Apparently Michael Goorjian found it when going through old tapes a while ago and gave it to a friend to put up for sale on the Internet, and when they got a lot of interest, ended up putting up the website I posted above to sell it. You can get it for $25 on VHS or DVD. Or you can go to YouTube:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three

The other thing I found out that I never realized - two of the Newsies are in the Rent movie. One is "Steve" in the "Will I Lose My Dignity" song (played "Mush" in Newsies) and the other is one of the guys at the table in "La Vie Boheme." Funky.

Slowly twisting..in the wind...twisting twisting

Well, the last couple weeks of my life have been...unexpected.

Embarked on a trip to Argentina with tons of plans and research and enthusiasm.

Flight to Buenos Aires was delayed like 3 hours, so we got to camp out on the floor of the Miami airport, waiting for our flight. OK, that sucks but we deal. First half-day in Buenos Aires was nice, if a bit subdued since it seems the entire city was shut down since it was Sunday. Almost no traffic, few people, most stores closed. We still got a nice walking tour down Calle Florida (the pedestrian shopping street where some of the shops were open) down past the Casa Rosada where we snapped some photos (including some of the neighboring historical buildings), all the way to San Telmo to find the Sunday antique market. We accidentally went into the local municipal market instead, which was fairly neat - lots of booths of antiques and old stuff, including lots of records, etc - and finally found ourselves at the antique market which was full of people and booths and neat art. We watched an elderly couple tango near the square, and bought some roasted peanuts from a street vendor, and then wandered into a cute little courtyard with cute little shops off of it. We then walked back up I think the Calle Defensa or something like that, which was also a quite busy street with street performers, street mimes, and a lot of shops and such. We wound up in a cafe to try some empanadas and local desserts (I got a gigantic dulce de leche flan which I had to eat mostly myself, while my friends split a dulce de leche crepe) for kind of a late afternoon snack, and finally wound up in Puerto Madero, where we were planning on having dinner. Since 5PM (after a 4PM snack) seemed way too early to eat, we started exploring the area before getting driven to cover by a sudden rainshower. We discovered that the entire port area was filled with a lot of restaurants but basically no stores, and broken up by several buildings of the Catholic University. We crossed the bridge over into the area across the water but only found more new looking upscale restaurants. Not the most exciting thing in the world, particularly since it was way before Buenos Aires dinnertime. We finally ended up going to the restaurant, Siga La Vaca, early. This was an Argentinian BBQ restaurant recommended by a friend, and I have to say it was rather disappointing. The salad bar was quite nice but the meat was all overcooked and there were no interesting cuts we were able to identify. What was impressive was that each of us got either a bottle of wine (full bottle), bottle of beer, or pitcher of soda with our meals, so we had a lot to drink (one wine, 3 sodas). We also got dessert - my chocolate volcano cake was huge and a bit overly sweet, but had a raspberry sauce and was decent. After dinner, we walked back to our hostel (V&S Hostel Club), passing by the back of Casa Rosada, as well as an arena where apparently a Bryan Adams concert was being held.

Got derailed the first morning (second day) when I woke up with severe lower abdominal pain, localized to the left lower abdomen (which meant very unlikely to be appendicitis unless I was backwards). Probably freaked out my friends who woke up to me whimpering on my bed and then running to the bathroom to dry heave. Fun for all! Of course, we had a flight to Trelew/Puerto Madryn in just a couple hours so all they could do was feed me motrin, pack my stuff up, and bundle me into the taxi to the airport. I vomited (sort of) again at the airport, and then curled up in a ball waiting for the plane. I really really wanted to see the penguins at Punta Tombo, especially since I'd arranged the tour and done the research, but by the time I got to Trelew airport, it was pretty evident I was in no shape to go bumping around in a bus and wandering around looking at stuff. The tour guide was very sweet and very concerned, and called for the shuttle bus to Puerto Madryn to pull over so they could transfer me aboard and get me to our hotel, where I spent the rest of the day napping and trying not to move so as not to aggravate the pain. By the time my friends returned in the late evening, I was feeling better, enough to partake of some of the Welsh pastries they brought me back from their Welsh tea, but not enough to go out to dinner with them. My meals that day therefore consisted of some powerbars and some Welsh pastries. Healthy! At least the hotel was nice - I highly recommend the Solar de la Costa. It's not downtown (apparently it's a 15 minute walk away) but it's on the waterline with a nice view, the rooms are clean and pretty and cute, the bathrooms are sparkling and large and modern, and if I had to hole up somewhere for a day, there are far worse places to do it! Like the V&S.

So, day 2 in Argentina for me: Wake up in pain. Travel in pain. Sit in (very nice) hotel in pain. Eat Welsh pastries.

Day 3 I was determined not to miss out on everything, and I was feeling better, so I went on the Peninsula Valdes tour with everybody. The tour we originally booked - Tito Bottazzi - had mechanical problems with their bus so they were over an hour late. My friends got fed up and called our company from the first day - Cuyun Co - who had a later departure, and we ended up going with them. Though not before Tito Bottazzi showed up (even though our hotel had called them to cancel). Slightly awkward. That was not the best time of the year to visit Peninsula Valdes (mid-April) so we didn't see that many animals, but we did see some, which was nice. The area around there is all very flat, dry steppe - lots of brush but not very interesting landscape, so we all ended up sleeping a great deal on the bus since there were long transits between every stop. I discovered that I could look at animals if they weren't too far from where the bus stopped, but walking or standing for a while wasn't fun, so I ended up squatting on paths taking photos, or just sitting and staying behind when there was a longer walk involved. Saw a couple elephant seals, a cute colony of Magellanic penguins in the side of a hill, some guanacos (big llama looking mammals), armadillos (trundling their way across the parking lots), rheas (I think - ostrich looking birds), and lots and lots of sea lions. Less than you'd usually see, but more sea lions than any other animal. We were told how there is a colony of I believe 21 orcas in the area, and of these only 7 know how to do the beaching behavior that apparently only these orcas do, where they deliberately beach themselves in order to catch baby sea lions during high tide. And of those 7, only 2 of them teach it to others. Unfortunately we weren't there during high tide but apparently a few had been spotted that morning at 7am. Had a very late lunch in Puerto Piramides, the final stop on our tour (all the other places you usually eat were closed for the season) and then headed back to Puerto Madryn. At this point I was starting to feel worse again, though not nearly as bad as the previous day, so I opted to stay in the hotel (where I watched a ton of silly American TV subtitled in Spanish) while my friends went to get dinner in the city. This time they brought me back a ham sandwich =).

Day 4 was partially a travel day, as we caught a bus back to Trelew to fly back to Buenos Aires. I still wasn't feeling very hot, so I stayed in the hostel (not nearly as nice - I had a top bunk b/c everyone was afraid of falling off, and everytime I moved, which was frequently b/c I was so uncomfortable from the abdominal discomfort, the whole thing swayed) while my friends explored the city. They booked all of us to go see a tango show that night at the Cafe Tortoni, assuming I'd be better by then, so I hobbled my way the 8 blocks to the restaurant, through some really unpleasant smoke in the air (turns out the farmers outside Buenos Aires decided to try to clear land by burning it, it got out of hand, and Buenos Aires ended up filled with smoke for days) to watch the show. Had my first real meal in days there - a beef steak with salad - and watched a rather amusing show that started off with all this drama we didn't understand b/c it was all in Spanish, but finally went into entertainment we did understand - singing, tango dancing, band playing, and these two amazing dancers with these long cords they whipped around themselves and struck on the floor to make noise, creating some elaborate rhythms and neverending movements of their arms. That was pretty neat. The walk there and back not so fun, but at least I got to see some genuine Argentinian *something* in Buenos Aires, having missed all the other activities of the day.

That night we were rather concerned about how long the pain was lasting and I found my ER doctor sister online, so there was medical consultation late into the night. Having ruled out most urgent things, we decided to just manage the pain and hope it went away.

Thursday we traveled to Iguazu Falls - that was a pure travel day b/c we left too late to really do much in Buenos Aires (we walked to a nearby mall where I once again parked myself in a chair while everyone else wandered around) and got to Iguazu too late to actually do anything there. We checked into our rather cutely rustic little hotel - the Riotropic - that was way off the main drag (as in, through the red unpaved mud roads), asked our very nice hotel owner for info, and then took a taxi into town for dinner. After making stops to get money from the ATM, we wound up at the El Quincho del Tío Querido which was really good. We all really enjoyed that restaurant. Three of us got dishes with the local river whitefish, the surubi, which was tender and yummy. One of us was smart and got the Lomo Michael which was a beef tenderloin cooked to perfection in a delicious sweetish sauce that we all sopped up and kept eating long after we couldn't eat any more meat. There was live music and a nice waiter, as well as fresh blended fruit drinks, and we were all very happy with the restaurant. After dinner, my friends went souvenir shopping while I found a stump to sit on, and then walked to buy us more water from a supermarket while I...found a bench to sit on. The same taxi driver took us back to our hotel, where we hit the sack so we'd be rested for a long day exploring the falls the next day.

Or at least, I tried to hit the sack. Intensely uncomfortable all night long (the pain wasn't very severe but it was persistent whenever I lay down in any position, so I had to sit up), I couldn't sleep until like 4am, and everyone was waking up at 7am so I decided to try to sleep longer and meet them in the park at noon. I actually felt better after sleeping, took a cab to the park (where I discovered I didn't have enough Argentinian pesos to pay both the entrance fee and the cab driver, so I ended up getting slightly ripped off paying him with US cash) and actually got to see a large portion of the Argentinian park. I missed the Isle de San Martin and most of the Lower Circuit, but I did the Devil's Throat circuit, the Upper Circuit, one of the Iguazu Jungle Explorer tours where we took a 4x4 into the jungle (saw a toucan or two), then a boat down the river to the falls, including a dousing under the San Martin falls, and part of the Lower Circuit in order to walk back from the boat dock. That day I only needed to sit from time to time (like on the train to the Devil's Throat and maybe twice on the walk there) but was able to climb the stairs out of the boat and actually run to the trailhead before they closed it of the upper circuit. So that was a good day. Dinner was at El Charo in Puerto Iguazu, where we each got a tenderloin (lomo) steak with a different sauce. Not as good as El Quincho but decent.

Our last day in Argentina was again a travel day. We weren't flying out until 2pm from Iguazu but no one wanted to hit the park again (they saw all the trails) and the intense rainfall from about 3am until 9am completely obliterated any thought I might have of trying to do the remaining trail in the park myself. Instead, we just bummed around the hotel until noon, and then took a cab to the airport. I wasn't feeling stellar, though nowhere as bad as Monday, so I was still sitting a lot in the airport. From the local airport, we cabbed (long ride) directly to the international airport, and then did some duty free shopping there. Dinner was some fairly lame sandwiches at the only restaurant inside security - overpriced and undertasting, oh well. The plane ride back was unpleasant and long (11 hours to Dallas, 2 hour layover, then another 3 hour flight) but finally I was home, where my bf was happy to see me and alarmed to see me sit almost immediately on the floor after seeing him at the baggage claim.

Sunday I slept much of the day and hung out with my bf, feeling not great but not totally in pain either.

Monday I had an appointment scheduled for a physical already, rather conveniently, so I ended up spending the day in the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF), getting tests (ultrasounds, urine test, blood draw) and bouncing around the center. I felt ok that day - able to walk around, go to downtown Mountain View for lunch, etc. No tenderness on exam, pain levels were low, so my doctor wasn't overly worried (though she did make sure to get a thorough history and do all the appropriate tests). She thought it was probably an ovarian cyst and ordered the ultrasound to check, but cysts are fairly typical and get reabsorbed without intervention so there wasn't too much concern.

Tuesday I felt ok - went to work, walked to get a burrito (and then sat down when we got there), but then left early b/c I wasn't feeling stellar.

Wednesday I woke up in severe pain, worst pain so far. Like, sobbing pain. That wasn't fun at all. However, it took until my sister got off work at the ER and came by to see me around 2pm before I actually did anything about it - she made me go to the ER. There was tenderness definitely when she tried to do a belly exam, and the pain got really bad at one point while she was there. She thought at the time maybe it was diverticulitis b/c it wasn't presenting as she'd expected for an ovarian cyst, and we still hadn't gotten results back from my doctor. We got to the ER at the hospital closest to my house, and only after we had been admitted did we finally get a hold of my doctor (she only works MWF) and find out the results of my ultrasound on Monday. I apparently had a 9cm solid mass on my left ovary with some complex free fluids in my pelvic area. They weren't sure what it was. Hearing these results, the ER decided to do another ultrasound, this one with flow (to see if there is blood flowing to/from the ovary) b/c the concern was about torsion - that the ovary would have twisted on itself and cut off the blood supply. They also found a 9cm solid mass which they couldn't really tell what it was, but they thought there was flow to an area they thought was my ovary. Consulted over the phone, their gynecologist on-call (who never saw my ultrasound or me) said he wanted to go in with open surgery and remove the ovary. Whoa there. Neither my sister nor I liked the sound of that, and my sister was particularly concerned. After talking to various gynecologists she knew and trusted, who all said they'd go in laparoscopically first and try to save the ovary before resorting to removing it or open surgery, we decided to check out of the first ER AMA and go to UCSF.

At UCSF, they looked at the ultrasound that the first ER had sent along, but said that it was really hard to tell what was what, so they tried another one. The gynecology resident in the ER was really nice with great bedside manner (and her ultrasound skills really impressed my sister). She did the ultrasound and found that it was really hard to determine exactly what was what - she saw the mass but wasn't convinced she saw an ovary, so she wondered if the mass *was* the ovary. She wanted to get a better picture, so she ordered a formal ultrasound with a non-portable machine and an ultrasound tech. In the meantime, I had taken a couple vicodin I had leftover from a gum procedure, and was feeling a lot better (but also, the pain seemed to subside b/c there was less tenderness). So we sat around the ER for quite some time until I finally could get the ultrasound after midnight, and some time after that until they could come consult with me. After much consultation with various residents, radiologists, etc, they decided that I definitely needed surgery but they didn't want to do emergency, middle of the night surgery if they didn't have to. In the middle of the night they're understaffed, the people working have been doing long shifts are tired, they're calling in people who were asleep at home to work... better and safer if they can do it during the day. And after the last ultrasound and given that some 12 hours after I took the vicodin, the pain still wasn't too bad, they decided to send me home and try to get the surgery done on Friday.

So, Thursday morning. I wake up feeling much better and refreshed after the first real night of sleep I think I'd gotten in a week and a half (every night in Argentina I basically woke up every hour or couldn't sleep). I was happy b/c there was essentially no pain - my bf was immediately concerned b/c they had said no pain = ovary dead. But after poking around some I decided there was still tenderness and standing still had pain, so I must be ok. But I was being lazy and poking around my computer - I showered, made some phone calls, etc, but never got around to having breakfast. Good thing. At 11:30, I got a phone call from the gynecology resident on the morning shift, who had reviewed my films with their sonographer, and they were very concerned about torsion and asked me to come in right away. You're not supposed to eat or drink for 8 hours before surgery (which is why I didn't get to eat or drink basically from 2pm onwards the previous day) but I had had a bit of Gatorade after waking up, so there was some concern about that. We went through all the pre-op stuff, I got everything explained to me (and asked of me) by a whole bunch of different people - the residents, the attending, the anesthesiologist, etc and finally, around 3:30PM, I went into surgery. Laparoscopic surgery, with the intention of saving the ovary if possible.

Post-op, I took longer waking up than anyone expected (on my side, I felt like I was getting a really good nap and was super-reluctant to wake up b/c I was so comfortable). I have vague memories of the doctors saying stuff about it going well and saving the ovary, but I really was out of it for quite some time. By the time I "woke up" enough for them to move me from a bed into a chair and get my bf in, my sister had to leave. I ended up having to hang out there for another 2-3 hours because they want proof you can urinate before you leave and I was so severely dehydrated I basically went through like a liter of water and 2 liters of IV fluids and still barely could produce any urine at all. So I just dozed in my chair while my poor bf sat there and watched my pulse drop as I fell asleep and then spike up again as I woke up. Finally, they sent me home.

I didn't really find out until the next day when I was really coherent what had happened. Apparently they went in and discovered that the 9cm mass *was* my ovary, filled with old blood and blood clots. Seems there had been a hemmorhagic cyst which burst, which is why my ovary was so large and where the fluids all came from. The ovary was twisted twice on itself (they kept giving me the example of a kinked garden hose) so they untwisted it, sucked out as much of the blood and blood clots as they could, and checked out my other ovary and other organs to make sure they were normal. They got the ovary back down to around 5cm, which is still larger than normal, but they left it in b/c even though it was still "purple and angry looking" by the conclusion of surgery, recent literature suggested that leaving it in, it should recover. They don't know how long the blood flow was cut off, they don't know when the hemorraghic cyst burst or the exact pathology of what happened over those 2 weeks and why I got pain when I did. Seems likely that the bulk of the twisting happened that Wednesday - hence the greater pain - and that maybe the cyst burst on the Monday in Argentina, which is why it hurt more there. The persistent pain was due to maybe the fluids from the cyst irritating my insides, and maybe from intermittent torsion of the oversized ovary. At any rate, we won't know for several weeks whether everything is ok or if the ovary was too damaged to recover. There is still some chance of it torsing again, so I'm being rather psychosomatic about every bit of pain I feel, but for now I've just felt normal recovery pains.

The team working on me were really great at UCSF - the recovery nurse followed up on me the next day, the resident followed up on me the day after, the attending followed up a little less than a week later. They all explained everything a lot, were really kind, and worked hard to save my ovary and do as minimally invasive a surgery as possible.

So this is me now - back at work (been "working from home" for several days but not doing much b/c I just didn't want to or couldn't focus) writing long blog posts, able to be up and about, getting tired a bit more easily physically than usual, with some pain, but generally feeling much better.

And I'm flying off to New Orleans tomorrow.

The mysteries of ballet

Made a last minute decision yesterday to go to the ballet. It's the 75th anniversary of the San Francisco Ballet, and as part of that, they have three guest companies performing in tribute to the SF ballet this week: the National Ballet of Canada, the New York City Ballet, and Les Ballet de Monte-Carlo. One of my friends had told me about this weeks ago but then we both forgot until I read a review in the paper about it. I have to confess that the main reason I was interested was that Sonia Rodriguez, wife of my favorite skater Kurt Browning, is a principal dancer with the National Ballet of Canada and was one of the dancers in town for this performance. We went last night because it was the only night my friend could make it. Yay for living in the city and being able to stop by the box office on my way home to buy the tickets directly (and thus getting better seats than we found online - row U on the island in the left center orchestra section, which is the first row of the "cheap" orchestra seats - $55 instead of the $95 the people in front of us paid).

When I watch ballet, this is generally me - "I have no idea what's going on. Wow, that's neat. It's amazing what these dancers can do! Hehe that's funny looking. OK I still have no clue what's happening. Wow."

Each of the three ballet companies performed a different 30-minute or so ballet (I didn't time them so I'm not sure if that's accurate, but there were 2 intermissions and the whole thing was about 2 hours long..), and it was a study in contrasting styles, kind of neat for a ballet newbie like myself.

The National Ballet of Canada went first with "A Delicate Battle." I've read the description in the program and I still don't entirely understand what was supposed to be happening ... then again, the choreographer himself says he wasn't going for a particular meaning so maybe that's the source of my confusion. There was something about the "battle" or conflict/tension between the 3 men and 3 women at the centerpiece. There was something going on with the fact that one woman remained fully dressed in her 19th-century style dress, one woman stripped the outer garment to dance in a gauzy skirt, and one stripped all that down to just the nude-colored leotard, but while I would have expected the disrobing to symbolize/accompany a corresponding loosening/freedom in the dancing but it didn't seem to. The woman in the dress was definitely the most tight, most rejecting of the man dancing with her, the one who tried to corral the others and "watch over" the dancers in the beginning, but then the woman in the floaty skirt (which was very pretty) seemed the most loose, most passionate, most embracing of the man. Sonia, who was the woman most fully stripped down, seemed some sort of amalgamation of the others, repeating their motions but with more desperation, passion, frenzy, rapidity... she seemed the most trapped, fighting between embracing the man and struggling against him. When he lifted her, her body language was the most tight, legs pressed together, arms tense... so I don't understand why the most stripped down one was the most conflicted. I don't understand the juxtaposition with the early dancers - the program said something about the women being the protectors, but while the men were, as my friend said, kind of abusive towards the 3 women, they seemed to mostly ignore the other dancers, so I didn't see the threat. I didn't get the overall progression at all, I guess. But the dancing and the staging was beautiful - simple stage with white confetti representing snow fluttering down all through (which was pretty but occasionally amusing when some big clump would suddenly come barreling down towards the stage). It's incredible what these dancers can do - the flexibility, strength, precision, balance (even though sometimes some ballet moves are really silly looking). The crowd gave these performers, IMO, rather tepid applause - polite and appreciative but not particularly enthusiastic, which made the really lengthy bows kind of weird to me. It's like they had planned for greater applause and didn't adjust for a more cool reception so they just went on bowing and bowing in different combinations long after the applause would warrant. Ah well.

After an intermission, the second ballet was from the New York City Ballet - "Duo Concertant" - which was relatively very simple and austere. A pianist, a violinist, a male dancer, and a female dancer...that's it. It opened with the violinist and pianist dueting while the dancers simply watched them for quite some time. This ballet had moments that I really enjoyed - some very pretty and stunning dancing from the dancers, things that made me marvel once again at ballet dancers' perfect balance and precision of movement (though also some inadvertently amusing moments when their shoes squeaked overmuch on the floor, kind of ruining the smooth effortless grace). But it also had long moments of dullness - it's not that interesting to watch dancers watching a pair of instrumentalists whose music is a bit muted from back in row U. The music was not my favorite and a little too quiet. I think if this segment had been shorter, I would have enjoyed it more because the dancing was great, when there was dancing.

One more intermission to clear things between groups and then the curtain went up on a pair of dancers with a candle in between them. Throughout this whole dance by Les Ballet de Monte Carlo, the flame and candles were a recurring motif, both in decoration and in the dancers' movements, with waving arms and flickering fingers evoking the flame. This dance was in my opinion the most interesting - very different, very innovative, very evocative. It had a huge cast of people, in contrast to the other two groups, and they did some interesting things with gender roles. It opened with pairs of women dancing together, where one woman was in a tutu-style skirt while the other was in pants, partnering each other in fluid and interesting movements. It then went to pairs/groups of men dancing together, again where some were costumed in pants and others in a skirt. There was an extended section of dance with a push/pull/control/play type of dynamic between a man in a skirt and a woman in pants. The last segment had all the men and women on stage together, sometimes with the women partnered, sometimes with the men, with half of them (the half where the men were in skirts and the women in pants) reaching towards the other half (the traditionally dressed bunch) who were dancing together, etc. It wasn't even the gender play that was the interesting part here, though. As I said to my friend, I didn't really know what that ballet was about either, but I didn't care because I was just captivated. The movement they achieved, the style, the music, the look..it was all entirely different and really interesting. The SF Chronicle reviewer seemed to find this ballet very pretentious, and stereotypically so. I may just not watch enough ballet to know what's stereotypical but to me, it was fresh and interesting. And the audience seemed to agree - they were on their feet (though not terribly quickly) for this one, while the applause for the previous two groups was mostly moderate. I definitely liked this dance the best of the three.

Overall it was an interesting night - something different than what I usually do, and interesting to see the contrasting styles and variety there is in the ballet.

Blog of whine

Wah. My teeth hurt. The top teeth b/c of this other gum thing I did last week and probably b/c I haven't been very careful about eating this time around, and the bottom teeth b/c of my retainer which my orthodontist kindly tightened for me even though my teeth had moved back as a result of several weeks of non-retainer wearing after the gum graft. And my gum feels a bit inflamed. And my head hurts. And waaaaahhh.

Bleah.

I hate my mouth! Or gums...

Went to see my periodontist today. The hole in the top of my mouth is all healed, yay! My gum graft has taken nicely and looks good, I can go back to normal brushing, flossing, eating, everything. Yay!

I need to get another gum procedure done. Boooooo!!! Apparently I have very deep pockets (6mm) on the backside of my right rear teeth. Since I got a deep cleaning done just last year and it doesn't seem to have helped, she's highly recommending trimming the gum to trim away the pockets, b/c brushing and flossing won't be able to clean that deep and I'll end up with some periodontal disease later. Sigh. Since I want to be healed up in time to eat lots of beef in Argentina, I ended up scheduling the procedure for tomorrow afternoon. So yes - a day after I'm given the ok to treat my mouth like it's fully normal, I'm setting myself back into liquids and soft foods land. Hopefully this one will take less time to heal...

And not only that, I drive to Palo Alto almost right after the procedure in order to get vaccinations/immunizations for my trip. Sore mouth, drive to get needles poked in my arm. So much fun. Sigh...

Random SF happenings

Odd things sometimes happen when living in San Francisco.

Shopping in Union Square on the 15th of March, we spotted a huge crowd of people - men and women - wearing bridal gowns of all different styles milling about. When asked what this was all about, we were told "We're the Brides of March!" The Brides of March on the Ides of March. How very random.

Riding the 31 bus, which goes down Turk straight through the Tenderloin last week (not my usual bus), a whole crowd of young black men got on the bus somewhere around the SF Shopping Center. Within a few blocks of turning onto Turk, the whole group of them were staring apprehensively out the back window and muttering nervously to each other. I was reading a book at the time in the back seat so I wasn't entirely paying attention but I finally caught on that there was a car - a BMW, I guess - following the bus with a guy in a ski mask hanging out of one of the windows. At one stop, the car went around the bus but then stopped not far ahead of it. The entire group were on edge, not sure what to do, yelling at the bus driver to stop and let them off the bus, but then too nervous to actually get off. One guy opened the emergency window and jumped out of it, and took off running around the corner. A few others got off (or jumped out the window for some reason, even though the bus was still stopped and the door was only 3 feet to the left of the window) and took off running, while others chose to stay on the bus but kept watching apprehensively out the window. There was some relief when it was reported that the car had turned off the road, but they all wondered where it had gone. More guys got off a few stops later, but three guys stayed on the bus past my stop (which is a good distance away from where this all occurred), apparently deciding it was the safest place to be. Somehow the rest of the people on the bus, even when we figured out what was happening, couldn't seem to get too nervous about this, but these guys were obviously quite terrified. Then again, given that I read that a teenager was gunned down in a drive-by earlier that day in Western Addition, I don't blame them for being nervous. Guys in ski masks hanging out of cars..not something you generally want to see (though I never did see him). I did have the nervous thought that if someone *did* open fire on the crowded bus, there'd be nowhere to go..but I somehow couldn't believe they'd just randomly shoot into a crowded bus either. The 31 isn't top on my list of buses to take these days after that, though, I must say...which isn't to say I won't take it if I need to go somewhere it'll take me.

Travelling girl...

One of my friends generally has a busier schedule than me, so I suppose mine is lame in comparison. But my travel schedule for April/May I'm finding a trifle overwhelming. I suspect I will be very tired and have gotten very little work for work done by the end of this time period...

In case you're wondering where I am...

April 12-20 - Argentina (Buenos Aires, Peninsula Valdes, Iguazu Falls)
April 24-27 - Toronto/Rochester
May 2-4 - New Orleans
May 9-11 - Boston (and possibly Ithaca)
June 5-7(or 8) - Boston

All that flying..on 3 different airlines so far. So much for my miles...

Food, what else?

In the week before my gum graft, I was rather concerned with weeks and weeks of not being able to eat anything real (that's what I get for reading online stories) so I was a bit determined to get some good meals in before it happened.

The Tuesday before the procedure, I was surfing Yelp to see what kind of Tuesday night deals there were. I had already found the $12 Tuesdays at 2223 Restaurant. Apparently there were Taco Tuesdays all over the city, but that wasn't what I was looking for. I finally stumbled across 20% off Tuesdays at Tangerine Cafe (3499 16th St at Sanchez), a restaurant I'd heard good things about for brunch. We decided to give it a try. The restaurant was fairly empty - one reason for Tuesday specials is I think it's kind of a dead night for restaurants - so we were seated quickly and then moved almost as quickly to a table by the window. The menu looked interesting but I have to confess the food was a bit disappointing. My bf got the Baked New Zealand Lamb, described thus: "Lamb chops encrusted with herbs, honey and pistachio nuts, served with spicy rice with roasted bell pepper and steamed vegetables" - he said he tasted neither honey nor pistachio, and it just wasn't very interesting. I think I got the Grilled Plum Wine Marinated Pork Tenderloin, described thus: "with Whiskey-Braised Apple Sauce,Served sautéed eggplant with black bean and jasmine rice." This tasted pretty good, but it was rather strongly flavored. Nothing subtle in this dish - I liked most of the flavors but they were just very overpowering. It's too bad because the menu did look interesting, but the visit didn't inspire the desire for a return visit.

I did discover, however, that Sanchez has got to be the sweetest smelling street in SF. I'm used to walking around and smelling piss. Sanchez has jasmine trees or something planted all along it, and the walk to the bus was so pleasant and lovely smelling. I'd want to live there just for that!

I don't remember what we did Wednesday night but Thursday, I decided to try the 7-course of beef at Anh Hong Restaurant (808 Geary at Hyde), who claim that their family invented the seven course of beef. I'd heard a lot about this but I have to say, the 7 courses weren't what I expected. It was beef in stuff like salads, soup, rolls, sausages, meatballs..the only straight out pieces of beef were the "beef fondue" which was thin slices of beef cooked at the table in a shallow layer of simmering red wine vinegar sauce over a small flame. Of course, this was less overwhelming than if it was 7 courses of pieces of beef (like Brazilian bbq) and it ended up being quite tasty. The pacing was odd, though. They came out quickly with the salad (which was really good - fresh and tasty - and we both gobbled it up quickly), followed it with the beef fondue before we were done with the salad (having brought out the steaming hot bowl of water for us to soften our spring roll skins in way before so it'd already started to cool down), and then after a pause, the next four courses on one plate. There were definitely language issues - one of the poor waiters tried to turn to me to speak Vietnamese (sorry guy, I'm Chinese) and I had to shrug helplessly. Still, I mostly enjoyed it. The beef of the beef fondue didn't end up particularly tasty but we rolled it into a spring roll along with a bunch of other ingredients so it was ok (although that made a lot of rolls which filled us up quickly!). My favorite of the four courses that came together was probably the beef sausages, which were very tasty and flavorful. The meatballs, beef wrapped in Hawaiian leaves, and grilled beef with lemongrass were all pretty good but not amazing. We had to leave some of this dish behind so we would have room for the beef rice soup, which turned out to be quite tasty. I was surprised my bf loved it - he gobbled it up very quickly. We ended up liking the salad and the soup best, to my surprise. It was a good meal though my bf said he wasn't impressed enough to want to go back to that restasurant.

The morning before the procedure, I got a steak sandwich from Thirsty Bear (661 Howard St at 3rd) when my coworkers went there for lunch. They put blue cheese in the sandwich which makes it quite tasty if not "the best steak sandwich ever" as my coworkers proclaimed, and it came with garlic fries. Not a bad "last meal."

Other places I've been since I started being able to eat again:
Citrus Club (1790 Haight St) where my bf and I keep thinking we should like it but being underwhelmed.

Hukilau (Hawaiian, 5 Masonic Ave at Geary) which I actually really enjoyed. I've only tried Hawaiian really once before and wasn't that fond (next time I should order what I think looks interesting, not what my friend likes). This time I got the Kalua Pork and really liked it - it was slightly overpeppered but the overall flavor, with the cabbage stir fried in, the steamed rice and macaroni salad on the side, was very satisfying. And I had enough leftover for lunch. We also got the tuna poke appetizer which was quite yummy - large chunks of raw tuna in soy sauce, sesame oil, and some other marinade. My bf got the chicken katsu which was quite decent, and garlic fries (which were extra) which were buried in garlic. I'd definitely go there again - a nice satisfying, homestyle (if you're Hawaiian), no frills meal.

Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant (667 Jackson St between Kearny and Grant) This pho place is near my bf's work and in Chinatown (my first time to the real restaurant part of Chinatown - I'd only gotten as far as the stupid tourist stores before). The pho was really tasty - very yummy broth. My bf said the smalls were too small so we both got larges, which were bigger than I usually get but I finished it anyway. It was just really yummy. I'd happily go back.

The rest of the week I've actually cooked. Wow.