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!
Monday, June 30, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
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.
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.
Monday, June 9, 2008
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.
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.
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