Got a random late night email from a friend last night asking if we wanted to go to breakfast today. Despite the fact that I got back from karaoke (Music Tunnel in Richmond has a cool touch screen interface now, which almost makes up for its still relatively (to Gamba) poor English music selection) at 3:30am and then stayed up until 4:30am trying to get something working and kicked off for work, I woke up at 9, unable to fall back asleep. So I texted him and off to breakfast we all went.
Randomly picked Olea based on both of us finding it highly recommended on Yelp (though he didn't read the menu, unlike me, and was a bit surprised at how non-typical brunch their selections were). Three of us ended up all getting the challah custard toast with cinnamon sugar and berries, while the fourth got an poached egg in a cazuela (which apparently is just a certain style plate) with tomato sauce, mushrooms, and shredded chicken. The egg, which I tried one small bite of, was good, but the french toast was amazing. My friend afterwards said it was probably one of the best he had and I think it probably was *the* best I've had. I've had French toast at several places recently (like Zazie's) and made my own that other people have highly complimented but I haven't actually enjoyed that much, so I was starting to lose faith in French toast. But Olea's has restored my faith. So moist and tasty all the way through (the custard and the challah both playing a role here). so perfectly sweet (not too sweet but with a great cinnamon sugar taste) it almost didn't need syrup. Loved it.
Service was good (friendly server), we sat at the communal table (2 parties of 4 completely ignoring each other), and had a bit of a wait... Place is small but the lines don't seem so much long as just happening in waves. If you get there at the right time, as one wave of people are leaving, you'll get seated quickly, but if you happen to be unlucky enough to get there just as pretty much all the tables get seated, you have to wait for basically a full meal cycle before a table clears. Don't know if it gets busier later, we got there before 10:30. Definitely recommend this place on the basis of the French toast alone. Mmmmmm.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
A new restaurant
A new restaurant has recently opened next to the Papalote, across the street from the Lucky, on Fulton near Masonic. That would be Jannah, which is described as Mediterranean/Middle Eastern. We finally checked it out tonight for dinner. We started off quizzically ordering a couple of their "home-made juices" for $2 - sun dried lime and raisin with mint. They were out of the raisin, it turns out, so we never got to try it, but after a couple sips each of the sun dried lime, we both quickly gave up on that. Very odd taste, not at all something we liked (but vaguely reminded me of some of the dried plums Chinese people like to snack on, so it's probably a personal taste thing). We then got the "Jannah", a $3 salad of eggplant, roasted red peppers, marinated cucumbers, and onions in pomegranate molasses, served with pita bread, which I found more and more yummy as I ate it (and got closer to the molasses). My bf wasn't as big of a fan - he thought it was fine - but given that he's not a vegetable eater, that's not really a surprise. Finally, for the entree, he ordered the perdaplow, a phyllo pastry stuffed with shredded chicken, raisins, rice, cardamom and some other stuff, sitting in an apricot sauce. I took a bite and found it had a strong taste I didn't like - I think it was the cardamom - but he seemed to think it was ok enough to eat most of it. I ordered the fesanjoon - chicken with walnuts marinated in pomegranate molasses sitting on a bed of rice with steamed veggies arranged around it - and really enjoyed it. I think I really like pomegranate molasses. The entrees were $11 each (the menu is really straightforwardly laid out - all entrees are $11, all salad/dips are $3, etc). On the service front, they weren't particularly speedy but it was fine.
Overall, I liked what I ordered and would go back, but my bf said he decidedly would not return. I think the weird flavors in both his drink and his dish turned him off. It's too bad, b/c I suspect there are other things on the menu that he might like better, like the tikkas. If he really refuses to return, I think I may use this as one of my standby takeout places when he's not around.
Overall, I liked what I ordered and would go back, but my bf said he decidedly would not return. I think the weird flavors in both his drink and his dish turned him off. It's too bad, b/c I suspect there are other things on the menu that he might like better, like the tikkas. If he really refuses to return, I think I may use this as one of my standby takeout places when he's not around.
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Pleasant surprise in Potrero area
I sometimes think restaurants are the most enjoyable when you go in with no expectation whatsoever. After spending the last 4 evenings eating the beef chow mein I made Sunday night (good the first couple nights, tiresome by the 4th night), I desperately wanted to eat out and have something different. My bf needed to pick up a package from the UPS center so I started checking Yelp for restaurants in that general vicinity. I randomly stumbled across Slow Club, which has a ton of good reviews on Yelp, but whose menu, to my Dragonfly-craving self (ie, French-Vietnamese) didn't look particularly interesting. However, the bf thought it sounded good, so to Slow Club we went.
What a pleasant surprise! I got the burger (sans mustard), since Yelpers raved about it, and it was indeed a really tasty burger. Had non-lettuce greens, tomato, balsamic onion, cheddar cheese, toasted bun, yummy burger patty and just really hit the spot. Plus, the fries on the side were the thin-cut crispy kind, well-salted, which is my favorite kind. My bf got the flatbread, which very much resembled a pizza (tomato sauce, cheese, basil, fennel sausage), which he said was good, though by the end he was a bit tired of it (I think it's meant to be an appetizer but it was almost too big to be an entree!). But the really delicious part was the dessert. The dessert menu in general looked good to me, with its use of Bi-Rite ice cream, the presence of a warm fruit crisp (plum), and some other good stuff. But what jumped out at us was the TCHO dark chocolate mousse cake with honey-lavender ice cream. I didn't really like the ice cream - not sure I actually like lavender - but once scraped aside... WOW. So very very yummy. Each bite was a bite of joy. It was like eating a cake of XOX truffles, almost. Usually when they're like "Scharffenberger chocolate" or "Ghiradelli chocolate" or even "Valhrona chocolate" it ends up being disappointing. But TCHO dark chocolate? So very good. I was a very happy me by the end of that meal. Immensely unhealthy meal, but so very yummy. I'd definitely go back.
What a pleasant surprise! I got the burger (sans mustard), since Yelpers raved about it, and it was indeed a really tasty burger. Had non-lettuce greens, tomato, balsamic onion, cheddar cheese, toasted bun, yummy burger patty and just really hit the spot. Plus, the fries on the side were the thin-cut crispy kind, well-salted, which is my favorite kind. My bf got the flatbread, which very much resembled a pizza (tomato sauce, cheese, basil, fennel sausage), which he said was good, though by the end he was a bit tired of it (I think it's meant to be an appetizer but it was almost too big to be an entree!). But the really delicious part was the dessert. The dessert menu in general looked good to me, with its use of Bi-Rite ice cream, the presence of a warm fruit crisp (plum), and some other good stuff. But what jumped out at us was the TCHO dark chocolate mousse cake with honey-lavender ice cream. I didn't really like the ice cream - not sure I actually like lavender - but once scraped aside... WOW. So very very yummy. Each bite was a bite of joy. It was like eating a cake of XOX truffles, almost. Usually when they're like "Scharffenberger chocolate" or "Ghiradelli chocolate" or even "Valhrona chocolate" it ends up being disappointing. But TCHO dark chocolate? So very good. I was a very happy me by the end of that meal. Immensely unhealthy meal, but so very yummy. I'd definitely go back.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Things that make me smile
I like it when I go on YouTube and inadvertently discover new videos that make me happy and make me appreciate the interweb even more.
Latest set of vids that bring a smile to my face feature the Chicago cast of Jersey Boys (before Jarrod Spector left for Broadway) singing a bunch of songs I enjoy at the Festa Italiana in Chicago:
Jersey Boys Cast - Blue Moon
Jersey Boys Cast - Still of the Night
Jersey Boys Chicago Cast - Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me
Jersey Boys Chicago Cast - For the Longest Time
Jersey Boys Chicago Cast - Crazy
Jersey Boys A Capitol Fourth - almost exactly same mix of songs and cast as the Emmy's performance, but I like it a lot better because of the lack of Sopranos clips and incongruous images of people getting whacked while these guys sing.
And because I'm not sure I ever linked them before here:
Jersey Boys at the Emmys 2007 - good performance, weird-ass juxtaposition with Sopranos clips
Jersey Boys cast sing movie medley - from the One Night Only concert I went to
Jersey Boys Sing It Sucks To Be Me Pt. 1 - much funnier if you're familiar with the show, but so very funny if you are
Jersey Boys Sing It Sucks To Be Me Pt. 2
There's nothing like guys harmonizing to make me happy.
Latest set of vids that bring a smile to my face feature the Chicago cast of Jersey Boys (before Jarrod Spector left for Broadway) singing a bunch of songs I enjoy at the Festa Italiana in Chicago:
Jersey Boys Cast - Blue Moon
Jersey Boys Cast - Still of the Night
Jersey Boys Chicago Cast - Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me
Jersey Boys Chicago Cast - For the Longest Time
Jersey Boys Chicago Cast - Crazy
Jersey Boys A Capitol Fourth - almost exactly same mix of songs and cast as the Emmy's performance, but I like it a lot better because of the lack of Sopranos clips and incongruous images of people getting whacked while these guys sing.
And because I'm not sure I ever linked them before here:
Jersey Boys at the Emmys 2007 - good performance, weird-ass juxtaposition with Sopranos clips
Jersey Boys cast sing movie medley - from the One Night Only concert I went to
Jersey Boys Sing It Sucks To Be Me Pt. 1 - much funnier if you're familiar with the show, but so very funny if you are
Jersey Boys Sing It Sucks To Be Me Pt. 2
There's nothing like guys harmonizing to make me happy.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
I have to push the pram a lot....
I seem to be going to a succession of shows these days. After returning from Seattle and seeing Rent with Anthony Rapp and Adam Pascal (again, whoo!), I went to see Spamalot just a couple days later in SF.
I've seen Spamalot once before, on Broadway, with Harry Groener in the role of King Arthur. To my surprise, I didn't particularly enjoy it. I think I must have been in a bad mood, and was really bothered by feeling like I was left out of the joke. The audience kept laughing, which is great and fine, except they kept laughing when I didn't see anything funny going on - or anything in particular going on. It's not just that I didn't "get" the joke, I didn't even notice anything resembling a joke was happening. Feeling like I'm left out of the joke hundreds of people are getting does not put me in a good mood.
This time, I was determined to arm myself before going by watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail first. I'd forgotten how the first 1/2 hour of that movie is essentially a series of sketches, with King Arthur passing through all of them. It's also where many of the famous jokes (or at least the ones repeated a lot at CTY) take place, with the "I'm not dead yet", airspeed velocity of a swallow, "she's a witch! a witch!", "it's just a flesh wound", etc all taking place in rapid succession. I also realized I didn't forget as many of the jokes as I thought, though I'd completely forgotten about the Finish subtitles in the credits, the fake movie start, and some of the details of the "we're the knights of the round table" random musical number at Camelot.
I settled into watching Spamalot Wednesday night at the Orpheum, and discovered to my delight, that I was enjoying the show considerably more than the last time. You'd think re-hearing the exact same jokes twice within a week, told almost exactly the same way, would lessen my enjoyment of them, but I think the recognition from the movie helps. You're laughing with fond familiarity, on top of enjoying just amusing humor. Though my sister hasn't watched Holy Grail since high school and still really enjoyed the show. I still wonder about combining the random "Dennis" guy railing against authority with Galahad, or the guy who conks out the "I'm not dead yet" old man with Lancelot, though at least in the latter case, it almost makes sense given Lancelot's later random acts of senseless violence. They completely diminished Sir Belvedere's role (dropping the witch scene, which I thought was classic in the movie) while keeping large roles for characters like Lancelot, whose actor played multiple roles in the show (periodically we'd look around and be like, where'd Lancelot go? Oh the actor is playing the French taunter). Still, as long as you're not expecting a completely faithful adaptation of the movie, it's fun to see how they've adapted the movie to a show. Especially given that the show is much longer than the movie was. There are several fun numbers basically making fun of the whole musical theater format. I thought John O'Hurley made an excellent King Arthur, combining that just right degree of dignity and royalty with absurdity. The rest of the cast were also stellar. The Lady of the Lake was a great comic actress, overplaying her part to great effect, and much hilarity. Lancelot threw himself into his role(s) with glee - not the best French accent but a really funny physical interpretation of the taunting. Sir Robin, Galahad, Arthur's faithful companion whose name I've forgotten...all excellently played. It was definitely an enjoyable evening out. Though I do have to wonder how some of the jokes play with those who have never seen the movie. They should be funny even if this is the first time you've seen it, but you might wonder why the audience is laughing *quite* that hard. On the other hand, the audience seemed less composed of insiders this time around - while they were clearly enjoying the show, people laughed when I did and didn't laugh when I didn't, and it felt like a better communal experience all around.
I've seen Spamalot once before, on Broadway, with Harry Groener in the role of King Arthur. To my surprise, I didn't particularly enjoy it. I think I must have been in a bad mood, and was really bothered by feeling like I was left out of the joke. The audience kept laughing, which is great and fine, except they kept laughing when I didn't see anything funny going on - or anything in particular going on. It's not just that I didn't "get" the joke, I didn't even notice anything resembling a joke was happening. Feeling like I'm left out of the joke hundreds of people are getting does not put me in a good mood.
This time, I was determined to arm myself before going by watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail first. I'd forgotten how the first 1/2 hour of that movie is essentially a series of sketches, with King Arthur passing through all of them. It's also where many of the famous jokes (or at least the ones repeated a lot at CTY) take place, with the "I'm not dead yet", airspeed velocity of a swallow, "she's a witch! a witch!", "it's just a flesh wound", etc all taking place in rapid succession. I also realized I didn't forget as many of the jokes as I thought, though I'd completely forgotten about the Finish subtitles in the credits, the fake movie start, and some of the details of the "we're the knights of the round table" random musical number at Camelot.
I settled into watching Spamalot Wednesday night at the Orpheum, and discovered to my delight, that I was enjoying the show considerably more than the last time. You'd think re-hearing the exact same jokes twice within a week, told almost exactly the same way, would lessen my enjoyment of them, but I think the recognition from the movie helps. You're laughing with fond familiarity, on top of enjoying just amusing humor. Though my sister hasn't watched Holy Grail since high school and still really enjoyed the show. I still wonder about combining the random "Dennis" guy railing against authority with Galahad, or the guy who conks out the "I'm not dead yet" old man with Lancelot, though at least in the latter case, it almost makes sense given Lancelot's later random acts of senseless violence. They completely diminished Sir Belvedere's role (dropping the witch scene, which I thought was classic in the movie) while keeping large roles for characters like Lancelot, whose actor played multiple roles in the show (periodically we'd look around and be like, where'd Lancelot go? Oh the actor is playing the French taunter). Still, as long as you're not expecting a completely faithful adaptation of the movie, it's fun to see how they've adapted the movie to a show. Especially given that the show is much longer than the movie was. There are several fun numbers basically making fun of the whole musical theater format. I thought John O'Hurley made an excellent King Arthur, combining that just right degree of dignity and royalty with absurdity. The rest of the cast were also stellar. The Lady of the Lake was a great comic actress, overplaying her part to great effect, and much hilarity. Lancelot threw himself into his role(s) with glee - not the best French accent but a really funny physical interpretation of the taunting. Sir Robin, Galahad, Arthur's faithful companion whose name I've forgotten...all excellently played. It was definitely an enjoyable evening out. Though I do have to wonder how some of the jokes play with those who have never seen the movie. They should be funny even if this is the first time you've seen it, but you might wonder why the audience is laughing *quite* that hard. On the other hand, the audience seemed less composed of insiders this time around - while they were clearly enjoying the show, people laughed when I did and didn't laugh when I didn't, and it felt like a better communal experience all around.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Sleepless in Seattle
Easier to write a post on a weekend trip than a 2-week trip. I'd better blog Peru before I forget...but not yet.
Spent the past weekend in Seattle due to a convergence of circumstances. Namely, my parents had invited my aunt in Taiwan to come visit in celebration of her 60th birthday, and they decided to meet up in Seattle (where my sister lives), and do a tour of Vancouver, the Canadian Rockies, and Yellowstone. This was the weekend they were all arriving, which was also the weekend of my parents' wedding anniversary and Father's Day. All these circumstances meant even my older sister, who's in the middle of a lot of stuff in her life, decided to fly up to Seattle for a little family reunion.
My bf and I stayed with a friend of his in Wallingford, my parents and aunt stayed at a hotel in Redmond (Marriott Residence Inn which is right by the town center and the Saturday farmers' market, to their delight), and my older sister stayed with my younger sister.
My bf, his friend's wife, their 9-month old baby, and I all had breakfast at the Five Spot in Queen Anne on Saturday. We'd been to this restaurant with them on a previous trip and remembered the cinnamon twist french toast with caramel sauce very very well, and specifically chose to go back for it. That didn't stop my bf from ordering the Cherry Jubilee French Toast instead, regretting it, and then trying to steal my french toast. Caramel sauce instead of maple syrup is very very yummy. Though not quite as delectable as last time, not quite sure what the difference was.
The 520 bridge was closed all weekend which led to some traffic debacles. My bf was originally supposed to meet up with another friend/colleague in Seattle for lunch, but when the guy encountered the pretty much stopped traffic going into Seattle, they decided to meet in Bellevue instead, so my bf drove me there and had my sister pick me up. We joined my parents and aunt at the farmer's market, where they were happily browsing, and chose to get food there since some of us were quite full from breakfast while others needed lunch. I got a peanut butter, banana, and raspberry freezer jam crepe that was pretty good initially, but rapidly got to be too much peanut butter which was far too rich quite quickly. We then bummed around their hotel room for a while before deciding to drive off to Ballard to check out the locks and fish ladder.
My bf stayed behind b/c he needed to pick up my older sister from the airport at 4:30, so he went go-karting while the rest of us went to watch fish. The locks were fairly neat in concept though not incredibly exciting to watch in person (ooh the water is draining and the boats are going down. now the gate is opening and the boats are driving away! ok done). The fish ladder was neat - I was a bit disappointed not to see the fish jumping up it (apparently they just swim through) but we did see a couple fish jumping out in the river, and saw schools and schools of salmon just under the water surface. It was kind of fun watching for them and feeling a sense of satisfaction when we spotted more. Evidently when we went was in the beginning of sockeye season but before chinook season - if we went in July/August, we would have seen a lot more fish and more kinds of fish. As it was, it was still pretty cool, and fun to watch some herons staring intently into the water as they waited for prey. The locks also had a botanical garden that my parents and aunt enjoyed walking around.
We had an early dinner reservation Oceanaire restaurant, which was kitty corner from Pacific Place. The intention was to find food that would make my parents happy, since this was our main celebration for their anniversary and Father's Day, and I think we succeeded. The restaurant is not at all cheap, but had a great selection of different fresh fish prepared in a number of interesting sounding ways. My bf got the mahi-mahi, my sister got the seared salmon, my other sister got the halibut, I got an Alaskan rockfish as part of a 3-course prix fixe, and my parents and aunt all got platters that involved a multitude of seafood types. The clam chowder I got as my starter was also very good, and nicely pepped up with some bacon. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try my apricot peach walnut cobbler dessert until the next day, after it'd sat in a fridge all night and a car for several hours, so I don't think I got the best taste of that. My bf did say that the new york cheesecake that they shared was quite good, though.
My sisters and I had to run off early so we could see Rent. And not just any production of Rent, but the cast featuring original cast members Anthony Rapp as Mark, and Adam Pascal as Roger. I've loved Rent since it first emerged in 1996, so this cast meant a lot to me, and it was a relief seeing them unfettered on stage, instead of in the fairly lame screen adaptation. Anthony Rapp owns the role of Mark. He inhabits it thoroughly and knows it well - every other Mark has emulated him since, I think. It was awesome finally seeing him in the role, especially during La Vie Boheme. Adam Pascal's voice has gotten a bit odd to me. Better by far than what it was in the movie, it still felt a bit off at times, like his voice has deepened a bit over the years and now he's straining a little to sound unpolished. I think his high bits and soft bits were beautifully done but when he belted, it wasn't always pleasant to my ears. My little sister's theory is that his voice is actually overtrained and now he's trying too hard to sound rough and rocky. That being said, he was still wonderful in the role and listening to him and Anthony harmonize and sing together was amazing, a real privilege. And his voice, like I said, was really good at the soft parts and the emotional parts - Without You was just gorgeous. The Mimi we saw, Lexi Lawson, was probably the best Mimi I've ever seen, and I've seen Rent I think 5 times now. Her voice was terrific, plus she was physically flexible and dexterous, and really attacked "Out Tonight". I've seen Mimis that looked too tentative and afraid (and I don't blame them) but she mostly went for it. And, as I said, her singing was wonderful. The Angel we saw was the one from the closing cast on Broadway. I don't remember his name but he had an amazing voice, and brought some really cute humorous touches to the role. Plus, he can actually drum and high kick and dance, unlike a couple Angels I've seen, which helps a lot. Collins had a less deep voice than I was used to, but an utterly beautiful one, and he provided one of the best renditions of the I'll Cover You reprise I've seen. I was less enamored with the Maureen and Joanne in this production, unfortunately. From the mezzanine, I couldn't tell half the time if Joanne was actually moving her lips - she seemed to be singing through gritted bared teeth in a fixed smile a lot - and I didn't like her voice as much. Maureen's "Over the Moon" was amusing, though as I whispered to my sister, more like Kristin Chenoweth (who I do love) as Maureen rather than Idina Menzel. Bit more ditzy hehe than I'm used to. And I really didn't like her voice when she was actually singing in the second act. I noticed from her bio that she was in Legally Blonde, and having seen all of one song from that show at the Tony's and really detesting how *that* girl sang, there may be a correlation here. Which is too bad. Though I still loved Tango Maureen, and they mostly made Take Me As I Am work. Overall though, I thought this was an awesome production. It's amazing to me that after all these years and seeing it 5 times, I still get totally taken up by this show and still adore the music to bits. I do notice now that the lyrics to "I'll Cover You" are actually fairly lame, and that "Your Eyes" is not remotely good enough to be a song it took Roger all year to write, but aside from those flaws, I absolutely love this show. And I was so happy to get to see Anthony and Adam perform it.
On Sunday, we had breakfast with our hosts at their house, and then headed down to Seattle to take the Ducks tour with my parents. The Ducks is totally cheesy and they try way too hard to be loud and silly, but we did get a lot of interesting information (never knew Boeing founded United Airlines or that Nordstrom was originally a shoe store founded by a Norwegian? Swedish? gold miner), got to see a lot of downtown Seattle, and I always enjoy water views, so overall it was an entertaining diversion. We then got lunch at a random Thai restaurant near the Seattle Center which was ok, not great, and then one sister took the other to the airport, while the rest of us headed to Pike's Place Market to hang out. I kind of like markets these days so I rather enjoyed this part, though I'm regretting not getting any cherries while I was there. We were there fairly close to closing, though, so they were putting away the fish and closing the booths as we walked by. We then found our way to the waterfront, walked around Miner's Landing and listened to a band play, and then hurried back to our car so we could drop my parents and aunt off in Redmond before returning to the airport for our flight back to SF. And that was our trip to Seattle.
Spent the past weekend in Seattle due to a convergence of circumstances. Namely, my parents had invited my aunt in Taiwan to come visit in celebration of her 60th birthday, and they decided to meet up in Seattle (where my sister lives), and do a tour of Vancouver, the Canadian Rockies, and Yellowstone. This was the weekend they were all arriving, which was also the weekend of my parents' wedding anniversary and Father's Day. All these circumstances meant even my older sister, who's in the middle of a lot of stuff in her life, decided to fly up to Seattle for a little family reunion.
My bf and I stayed with a friend of his in Wallingford, my parents and aunt stayed at a hotel in Redmond (Marriott Residence Inn which is right by the town center and the Saturday farmers' market, to their delight), and my older sister stayed with my younger sister.
My bf, his friend's wife, their 9-month old baby, and I all had breakfast at the Five Spot in Queen Anne on Saturday. We'd been to this restaurant with them on a previous trip and remembered the cinnamon twist french toast with caramel sauce very very well, and specifically chose to go back for it. That didn't stop my bf from ordering the Cherry Jubilee French Toast instead, regretting it, and then trying to steal my french toast. Caramel sauce instead of maple syrup is very very yummy. Though not quite as delectable as last time, not quite sure what the difference was.
The 520 bridge was closed all weekend which led to some traffic debacles. My bf was originally supposed to meet up with another friend/colleague in Seattle for lunch, but when the guy encountered the pretty much stopped traffic going into Seattle, they decided to meet in Bellevue instead, so my bf drove me there and had my sister pick me up. We joined my parents and aunt at the farmer's market, where they were happily browsing, and chose to get food there since some of us were quite full from breakfast while others needed lunch. I got a peanut butter, banana, and raspberry freezer jam crepe that was pretty good initially, but rapidly got to be too much peanut butter which was far too rich quite quickly. We then bummed around their hotel room for a while before deciding to drive off to Ballard to check out the locks and fish ladder.
My bf stayed behind b/c he needed to pick up my older sister from the airport at 4:30, so he went go-karting while the rest of us went to watch fish. The locks were fairly neat in concept though not incredibly exciting to watch in person (ooh the water is draining and the boats are going down. now the gate is opening and the boats are driving away! ok done). The fish ladder was neat - I was a bit disappointed not to see the fish jumping up it (apparently they just swim through) but we did see a couple fish jumping out in the river, and saw schools and schools of salmon just under the water surface. It was kind of fun watching for them and feeling a sense of satisfaction when we spotted more. Evidently when we went was in the beginning of sockeye season but before chinook season - if we went in July/August, we would have seen a lot more fish and more kinds of fish. As it was, it was still pretty cool, and fun to watch some herons staring intently into the water as they waited for prey. The locks also had a botanical garden that my parents and aunt enjoyed walking around.
We had an early dinner reservation Oceanaire restaurant, which was kitty corner from Pacific Place. The intention was to find food that would make my parents happy, since this was our main celebration for their anniversary and Father's Day, and I think we succeeded. The restaurant is not at all cheap, but had a great selection of different fresh fish prepared in a number of interesting sounding ways. My bf got the mahi-mahi, my sister got the seared salmon, my other sister got the halibut, I got an Alaskan rockfish as part of a 3-course prix fixe, and my parents and aunt all got platters that involved a multitude of seafood types. The clam chowder I got as my starter was also very good, and nicely pepped up with some bacon. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to try my apricot peach walnut cobbler dessert until the next day, after it'd sat in a fridge all night and a car for several hours, so I don't think I got the best taste of that. My bf did say that the new york cheesecake that they shared was quite good, though.
My sisters and I had to run off early so we could see Rent. And not just any production of Rent, but the cast featuring original cast members Anthony Rapp as Mark, and Adam Pascal as Roger. I've loved Rent since it first emerged in 1996, so this cast meant a lot to me, and it was a relief seeing them unfettered on stage, instead of in the fairly lame screen adaptation. Anthony Rapp owns the role of Mark. He inhabits it thoroughly and knows it well - every other Mark has emulated him since, I think. It was awesome finally seeing him in the role, especially during La Vie Boheme. Adam Pascal's voice has gotten a bit odd to me. Better by far than what it was in the movie, it still felt a bit off at times, like his voice has deepened a bit over the years and now he's straining a little to sound unpolished. I think his high bits and soft bits were beautifully done but when he belted, it wasn't always pleasant to my ears. My little sister's theory is that his voice is actually overtrained and now he's trying too hard to sound rough and rocky. That being said, he was still wonderful in the role and listening to him and Anthony harmonize and sing together was amazing, a real privilege. And his voice, like I said, was really good at the soft parts and the emotional parts - Without You was just gorgeous. The Mimi we saw, Lexi Lawson, was probably the best Mimi I've ever seen, and I've seen Rent I think 5 times now. Her voice was terrific, plus she was physically flexible and dexterous, and really attacked "Out Tonight". I've seen Mimis that looked too tentative and afraid (and I don't blame them) but she mostly went for it. And, as I said, her singing was wonderful. The Angel we saw was the one from the closing cast on Broadway. I don't remember his name but he had an amazing voice, and brought some really cute humorous touches to the role. Plus, he can actually drum and high kick and dance, unlike a couple Angels I've seen, which helps a lot. Collins had a less deep voice than I was used to, but an utterly beautiful one, and he provided one of the best renditions of the I'll Cover You reprise I've seen. I was less enamored with the Maureen and Joanne in this production, unfortunately. From the mezzanine, I couldn't tell half the time if Joanne was actually moving her lips - she seemed to be singing through gritted bared teeth in a fixed smile a lot - and I didn't like her voice as much. Maureen's "Over the Moon" was amusing, though as I whispered to my sister, more like Kristin Chenoweth (who I do love) as Maureen rather than Idina Menzel. Bit more ditzy hehe than I'm used to. And I really didn't like her voice when she was actually singing in the second act. I noticed from her bio that she was in Legally Blonde, and having seen all of one song from that show at the Tony's and really detesting how *that* girl sang, there may be a correlation here. Which is too bad. Though I still loved Tango Maureen, and they mostly made Take Me As I Am work. Overall though, I thought this was an awesome production. It's amazing to me that after all these years and seeing it 5 times, I still get totally taken up by this show and still adore the music to bits. I do notice now that the lyrics to "I'll Cover You" are actually fairly lame, and that "Your Eyes" is not remotely good enough to be a song it took Roger all year to write, but aside from those flaws, I absolutely love this show. And I was so happy to get to see Anthony and Adam perform it.
On Sunday, we had breakfast with our hosts at their house, and then headed down to Seattle to take the Ducks tour with my parents. The Ducks is totally cheesy and they try way too hard to be loud and silly, but we did get a lot of interesting information (never knew Boeing founded United Airlines or that Nordstrom was originally a shoe store founded by a Norwegian? Swedish? gold miner), got to see a lot of downtown Seattle, and I always enjoy water views, so overall it was an entertaining diversion. We then got lunch at a random Thai restaurant near the Seattle Center which was ok, not great, and then one sister took the other to the airport, while the rest of us headed to Pike's Place Market to hang out. I kind of like markets these days so I rather enjoyed this part, though I'm regretting not getting any cherries while I was there. We were there fairly close to closing, though, so they were putting away the fish and closing the booths as we walked by. We then found our way to the waterfront, walked around Miner's Landing and listened to a band play, and then hurried back to our car so we could drop my parents and aunt off in Redmond before returning to the airport for our flight back to SF. And that was our trip to Seattle.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Another restaurant
Ate at Cafe Altano in Hayes Valley last night. It's a newish Italian place across the street from Suppenkuche, at Hayes and Laguna. We quite enjoyed it. It's a nice, light restaurant, at least during daytime hours, since there are a lot of windows. I got a baby spinach salad I really liked, and a wild mushroom risotto that was fine. Pretty good, though I like creamier risottos. My bf got the chicken stuffed with prosciutto and cheese, and said it was pretty good as well. Everything was flavored decently and it was a decent mid-range price place very close to our route home, so I think we'd go back.
Almost forgot, saw Porgy and Bess at the SF Opera on Sunday night. I'm really not an opera fan, I've realized. I don't like the style of singing, can't get into the music, plus it's just really really long. I just have to acknowledge that I'm really a musical theater fan and like the more pop music sensibility. That said, I did enjoy the show more as it went on. I do find it kind of interesting reading the bios - it's like every time they stage a production of Porgy and Bess, they have to draw on every opera company around the country to get a big enough African-American cast. Or black cast, anyway, not all of them are American I think. Talented singers, though, and a definitely passionate performance of the story. If it wasn't opera, I might have liked it more...
Almost forgot, saw Porgy and Bess at the SF Opera on Sunday night. I'm really not an opera fan, I've realized. I don't like the style of singing, can't get into the music, plus it's just really really long. I just have to acknowledge that I'm really a musical theater fan and like the more pop music sensibility. That said, I did enjoy the show more as it went on. I do find it kind of interesting reading the bios - it's like every time they stage a production of Porgy and Bess, they have to draw on every opera company around the country to get a big enough African-American cast. Or black cast, anyway, not all of them are American I think. Talented singers, though, and a definitely passionate performance of the story. If it wasn't opera, I might have liked it more...
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Restaurant update
Haven't blogged food in forever, totally behind. Not much time now.
Just a few mentions.
For DAT this June, we went two places - Isa and Anzu. I usually like Isa but we were a bit disappointed this time because it was completely full and therefore service was quite slow. We weren't in the mood for a slow meal and would have liked things to move along faster. Also, I'm supposed to note that my bf doesn't like the molten chocolate cake there and really should stop ordering it. My amaretto semifreddo was ok though huge and I couldn't quite figure out what a semifreddo was, even as I ate it. I usually like duck at Isa and it was pretty good, but not as delectable as last time. Bread was good as usual. Appetizer was good - I think I got the tuna and he got the salmon and they were both yummy.
Anzu was in the Hotel Nikko. Food was ok but unmemorable. My bf liked the salad better than I did, probably b/c of the Meyer lemon vinaigrette (I thought the greens were too bitter and I'm not as big a fan of sour as he is). Bf got the seared ahi entree, which was pretty good (from the bites I tried), on a bed of sweet corn that was yummy. I got the butternut squash ravioli which was fine. I've had worse, I've definitely had better. For dessert I got the chocolate croissant bread pudding which, unlike a previous chocolate croissant bread pudding I had at a different restaurant, barely hinted at its croissant origins. It was ok, not great. Bf got a creme brulee, I think, which was fine. It was fine to visit once, I probably wouldn't rush back.
Went to Chez Spencer last night just randomly. We were definitely the most underdressed there but the waiters never batted an eye. Service was great - nice, attentive waiter, frequent water refills, frequent offer of fresh warm bread. Food was ok, but not spectacular. I had the duck, which on the menu said "blackberry, blueberry" so I was envisioning the berries being involved in the sauce, but instead I got five blueberries and 3 blackberries on my duck. It was fine but a bit too salty. I liked the heirloom tomato thing on the side though. Spinach was also too salty. My bf got the venison, rare. I tried a bit and it was quite good. He seemed to like it ok. We didn't get dessert or appetizer. Had bf's homemade burnt caramel gelato and vanilla ice cream instesad.
Did Memphis Minnie's again. May have to switch my usual entrees. The beef seems to have been more moist than the pork the last few times - ribs and brisket. I got the pork ribs and brisket this time, and liked the brisket the best by far.
Where else have eaten?
Ate at Walzwerk in the Mission and quite liked it. Cute German place, good food. Nice servers though not always the most attentive.
Don't like Nate's BBQ across from the Sports Authority.
Can't remember what else.
Went to Peru almost two weeks ago. Still need to blog...
Just a few mentions.
For DAT this June, we went two places - Isa and Anzu. I usually like Isa but we were a bit disappointed this time because it was completely full and therefore service was quite slow. We weren't in the mood for a slow meal and would have liked things to move along faster. Also, I'm supposed to note that my bf doesn't like the molten chocolate cake there and really should stop ordering it. My amaretto semifreddo was ok though huge and I couldn't quite figure out what a semifreddo was, even as I ate it. I usually like duck at Isa and it was pretty good, but not as delectable as last time. Bread was good as usual. Appetizer was good - I think I got the tuna and he got the salmon and they were both yummy.
Anzu was in the Hotel Nikko. Food was ok but unmemorable. My bf liked the salad better than I did, probably b/c of the Meyer lemon vinaigrette (I thought the greens were too bitter and I'm not as big a fan of sour as he is). Bf got the seared ahi entree, which was pretty good (from the bites I tried), on a bed of sweet corn that was yummy. I got the butternut squash ravioli which was fine. I've had worse, I've definitely had better. For dessert I got the chocolate croissant bread pudding which, unlike a previous chocolate croissant bread pudding I had at a different restaurant, barely hinted at its croissant origins. It was ok, not great. Bf got a creme brulee, I think, which was fine. It was fine to visit once, I probably wouldn't rush back.
Went to Chez Spencer last night just randomly. We were definitely the most underdressed there but the waiters never batted an eye. Service was great - nice, attentive waiter, frequent water refills, frequent offer of fresh warm bread. Food was ok, but not spectacular. I had the duck, which on the menu said "blackberry, blueberry" so I was envisioning the berries being involved in the sauce, but instead I got five blueberries and 3 blackberries on my duck. It was fine but a bit too salty. I liked the heirloom tomato thing on the side though. Spinach was also too salty. My bf got the venison, rare. I tried a bit and it was quite good. He seemed to like it ok. We didn't get dessert or appetizer. Had bf's homemade burnt caramel gelato and vanilla ice cream instesad.
Did Memphis Minnie's again. May have to switch my usual entrees. The beef seems to have been more moist than the pork the last few times - ribs and brisket. I got the pork ribs and brisket this time, and liked the brisket the best by far.
Where else have eaten?
Ate at Walzwerk in the Mission and quite liked it. Cute German place, good food. Nice servers though not always the most attentive.
Don't like Nate's BBQ across from the Sports Authority.
Can't remember what else.
Went to Peru almost two weeks ago. Still need to blog...
Monday, March 23, 2009
More restaurants
A few more restaurants:
Wanted something light, like tapas, so we decided to hit Pisco Latin Lounge, which is next door to Destino and has the same owners. It's a lounge/bar with a tapas menu, and was pretty empty on a random Monday. Light != cheap. We got the plantain chips (yum), caprese empanadas (pretty yum - mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil in an empanada), the PisCo-Chino Roll (yellowtail, quinoa, lemongrass oil, soy-tamarind reduction - quinoa is gross or at least not what I expect in a sushi roll), the Tiradito de Corvina (white sea bass crudo, crema de rocoto, meyer lemon-agave salsa - crema de rocoto is SPICY, good thing we got it on the side. crudo was yummy), and the Jamon Serrano Spears (cardamom infused persimmon, goat cheese, jamon serrano, pomegranate reduction - would have liked a lot more if I liked goat cheese). Not a lot of food, pretty hefty price. Pretty tasty, except for the use of quinoa in the sushi roll, though! Definitely a very different type of tapas than I got last week, but not surprising given these were Peruvian.
Tuesday I was starving (opposite of Monday) and decided to hit B's BBQ and Grill, a new BBQ place on Divisadero between McAllister and Fulton that we pass every day on our bike. The whole place is super-smoky so we decided to eat at home. It took maybe 20 minutes for our order to be ready, which isn't terrible. We got a 1/2 order of the ribs, and 1/2 order of the brisket, plus a sweet tea. The sweet tea was delicious. My biggest complaint, even though I love sauce, is that they DROWN their meat in sauce. More than I like, which is saying a lot. The ribs were meaty but a bit tough and dry, which was disappointing. The brisket was tender and good, though, and would have been excellent with a bit less sauce. I have a theory about bbq places, though - I think that unless they're super-good, they aren't that consistent. Smoking meat I don't think is an exact science. I might go again. It's a bit more consistent than Memphis Minnie's but I think at the moment I still like Memphis Minnie's more - more meat choices, more side choices, and I think it's a bit cheaper.
Wednesday we had leftover ribs and brisket. Thursday we went to Pauline's again and got a pepperoni pizza. That place is not fast and not cheap but it's pretty darn good and not greasy (well, except for the little pools of grease cupped in our little pepperoni, but the crust and cheese are not greasy). Friday we tried fresh spaghetti I had bought from the Crocker Galleria farmer's market Thursday, along with sauce we made following the Best Recipe from diced tomatoes, olive oil, basil, oregano, garlic.... it was ok. The spaghetti was quite chewy.
Saturday we tried buying pre-marinated Kalbi from the Woo Ri Korean supermarket on Fillmore by Geary (in a little refrigerated case near the front counter) and grilling it at home on our cast-iron grill. The first couple pieces were super-salty, probably b/c we usually use the cast iron grill to make our pepper and salt seared filet mignon (and we don't wash it since it's cast iron). After that though... I don't think I'd get the meat there again. The marinade wasn't very good. Mostly on the salty side, not very sweet. And it's not cheap - we got a case with 9 pieces of kalbi for $15 or so. It was supposed to be 2.3 lbs but I think a lot of that weight was the marinade. Might as well just go to a korean bbq like Pine Restaurant for that price. Oh well...
Yesterday I made a chicken pot pie which we're eating tonight as well. That's not so interesting, but it was tasty =).
Wanted something light, like tapas, so we decided to hit Pisco Latin Lounge, which is next door to Destino and has the same owners. It's a lounge/bar with a tapas menu, and was pretty empty on a random Monday. Light != cheap. We got the plantain chips (yum), caprese empanadas (pretty yum - mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil in an empanada), the PisCo-Chino Roll (yellowtail, quinoa, lemongrass oil, soy-tamarind reduction - quinoa is gross or at least not what I expect in a sushi roll), the Tiradito de Corvina (white sea bass crudo, crema de rocoto, meyer lemon-agave salsa - crema de rocoto is SPICY, good thing we got it on the side. crudo was yummy), and the Jamon Serrano Spears (cardamom infused persimmon, goat cheese, jamon serrano, pomegranate reduction - would have liked a lot more if I liked goat cheese). Not a lot of food, pretty hefty price. Pretty tasty, except for the use of quinoa in the sushi roll, though! Definitely a very different type of tapas than I got last week, but not surprising given these were Peruvian.
Tuesday I was starving (opposite of Monday) and decided to hit B's BBQ and Grill, a new BBQ place on Divisadero between McAllister and Fulton that we pass every day on our bike. The whole place is super-smoky so we decided to eat at home. It took maybe 20 minutes for our order to be ready, which isn't terrible. We got a 1/2 order of the ribs, and 1/2 order of the brisket, plus a sweet tea. The sweet tea was delicious. My biggest complaint, even though I love sauce, is that they DROWN their meat in sauce. More than I like, which is saying a lot. The ribs were meaty but a bit tough and dry, which was disappointing. The brisket was tender and good, though, and would have been excellent with a bit less sauce. I have a theory about bbq places, though - I think that unless they're super-good, they aren't that consistent. Smoking meat I don't think is an exact science. I might go again. It's a bit more consistent than Memphis Minnie's but I think at the moment I still like Memphis Minnie's more - more meat choices, more side choices, and I think it's a bit cheaper.
Wednesday we had leftover ribs and brisket. Thursday we went to Pauline's again and got a pepperoni pizza. That place is not fast and not cheap but it's pretty darn good and not greasy (well, except for the little pools of grease cupped in our little pepperoni, but the crust and cheese are not greasy). Friday we tried fresh spaghetti I had bought from the Crocker Galleria farmer's market Thursday, along with sauce we made following the Best Recipe from diced tomatoes, olive oil, basil, oregano, garlic.... it was ok. The spaghetti was quite chewy.
Saturday we tried buying pre-marinated Kalbi from the Woo Ri Korean supermarket on Fillmore by Geary (in a little refrigerated case near the front counter) and grilling it at home on our cast-iron grill. The first couple pieces were super-salty, probably b/c we usually use the cast iron grill to make our pepper and salt seared filet mignon (and we don't wash it since it's cast iron). After that though... I don't think I'd get the meat there again. The marinade wasn't very good. Mostly on the salty side, not very sweet. And it's not cheap - we got a case with 9 pieces of kalbi for $15 or so. It was supposed to be 2.3 lbs but I think a lot of that weight was the marinade. Might as well just go to a korean bbq like Pine Restaurant for that price. Oh well...
Yesterday I made a chicken pot pie which we're eating tonight as well. That's not so interesting, but it was tasty =).
Monday, March 16, 2009
More restaurants
Eating out way too much these days.
Hit Poleng Lounge near home on Friday after discovering the wait was an hour at Little Star. Yummy sweet potato fries with banana catsup. Yummy butterfish ceviche. Ok kalbi.
Saturday, met an old friend from college and a friend of hers for dinner in the Mission. Decided on the fly to visit Picaro on 16th near Valencia, a tapas place right next to Ti Couz. She liked seafood and didn't like fried food so we got an entirely different set of tapas than I would have gotten with my bf, and it was very tasty! The grilled calamari was surprisingly delicious - tender texture, buttery taste. I don't much like eggplant but the Japanese eggplant dish was decent - good for what it was. The mushrooms, shrimp, and onion? dish was really tasty as well - little shrimp, all very flavorful. Rabbit stew her friend loved - when we finished eating our bits he basically licked the plate clean - but I was less impressed. And the patatas bravas were good though a little spicier than I like. Well, we got the ones that said spicy in the description so what can I expect? Overall I very much enjoyed the food, and would return. Though the guitar player/singer who came in towards the end of our meal and started walking around the place was quite loud...not so good for conversation.
Sunday, was shopping at REI and Sports Basement until later than expected, so we decided to eat in Potrero Hill. There's a short little block at 18th that has a few restaurants so we parked there and went where the menu most struck our fancy, Lingba Lounge, a Thai restaurant. We ordered the "little bit of everything" appetizer special, which consisted of two chicken satay skewers, 4 pieces of fresh spring roll, 4 pieces of fried spring roll, 2 corn cakes, and a heap of thai beef jerky with 3 sauces to dip things in. It was quite tasty, though we found the beef jerky less than inspiring and left it all behind since we still had a lot of food to come. That was $22 for 2 people - lots of food. Then my bf got the garlic noodles with char-shu pork, which was pretty good - I had the leftovers for lunch today and it was quite garlicky and spicy. I got the miso and sake marinated black cod on sugar snaps and brussel sprouts and it was DELICIOUS. I was a very happy girl last night with my dinner. The black cod was sweet and flaky and tender and super-yummy, and the veggies were crisp and sweet and yummy in the sauce. So very very good. Yum. Service was prompt and fine, the place was nice, and there was no wait (it was a Sunday night). Sometimes it's best not to check out Yelp reviews before hitting a place!
Hit Poleng Lounge near home on Friday after discovering the wait was an hour at Little Star. Yummy sweet potato fries with banana catsup. Yummy butterfish ceviche. Ok kalbi.
Saturday, met an old friend from college and a friend of hers for dinner in the Mission. Decided on the fly to visit Picaro on 16th near Valencia, a tapas place right next to Ti Couz. She liked seafood and didn't like fried food so we got an entirely different set of tapas than I would have gotten with my bf, and it was very tasty! The grilled calamari was surprisingly delicious - tender texture, buttery taste. I don't much like eggplant but the Japanese eggplant dish was decent - good for what it was. The mushrooms, shrimp, and onion? dish was really tasty as well - little shrimp, all very flavorful. Rabbit stew her friend loved - when we finished eating our bits he basically licked the plate clean - but I was less impressed. And the patatas bravas were good though a little spicier than I like. Well, we got the ones that said spicy in the description so what can I expect? Overall I very much enjoyed the food, and would return. Though the guitar player/singer who came in towards the end of our meal and started walking around the place was quite loud...not so good for conversation.
Sunday, was shopping at REI and Sports Basement until later than expected, so we decided to eat in Potrero Hill. There's a short little block at 18th that has a few restaurants so we parked there and went where the menu most struck our fancy, Lingba Lounge, a Thai restaurant. We ordered the "little bit of everything" appetizer special, which consisted of two chicken satay skewers, 4 pieces of fresh spring roll, 4 pieces of fried spring roll, 2 corn cakes, and a heap of thai beef jerky with 3 sauces to dip things in. It was quite tasty, though we found the beef jerky less than inspiring and left it all behind since we still had a lot of food to come. That was $22 for 2 people - lots of food. Then my bf got the garlic noodles with char-shu pork, which was pretty good - I had the leftovers for lunch today and it was quite garlicky and spicy. I got the miso and sake marinated black cod on sugar snaps and brussel sprouts and it was DELICIOUS. I was a very happy girl last night with my dinner. The black cod was sweet and flaky and tender and super-yummy, and the veggies were crisp and sweet and yummy in the sauce. So very very good. Yum. Service was prompt and fine, the place was nice, and there was no wait (it was a Sunday night). Sometimes it's best not to check out Yelp reviews before hitting a place!
Friday, March 13, 2009
Blogging blogging blogging
Food:
Note to self, do not return to Tangerine, unless to try brunch. We went once before, I don't actually think we loved it but I didn't blog about it (I don't think) so I couldn't be sure. We went again Tuesday b/c of their 20% off Tuesday special. The menu looks interesting, all Asian-fusion, but we've been less than impressed with the food. We got roasted duck rolls with green mango sauce that I actually did quite like but my bf didn't (he doesn't like fried spring rolls). I got two appetizers for my meal - butternut squash soup (I should remember, I think I like bisque, not soup, for butternut squash - mashed up boiled squash is not what I'm looking for) and what they called salmon croissant but turned out to be another variation of a fried roll, only this one with cooked salmon (must remember, I like raw salmon, not cooked salmon) inside filo pastry and deep fried. I didn't finish it, there is only so much fried roll I can take in a meal, and the roasted duck one was much better. My bf got the coriander beef short ribs which just weren't that interesting. The food's not bad, it's just not particularly worth revisiting.
Hit Ti Couz last night to try crepes for dinner. Not particularly cheap crepes either. I liked my mushroom-cheese-almonds crepe just fine (buckwheat crepe, had mushroom sauce on top), my bf really didn't like his smoked salmon and onion dinner crepe. For one thing, the smoked salmon was pretty much cooked and he doesn't like cooked fish, and he doesn't like buckwheat crepes. The dessert crepe redeemed itself to him - we split a raspberry sorbet & nutella crepe which he probably enjoyed a bit more than I did since he loves raspberry sorbet and was very impressed by theirs, whereas I'm not as big a fan. We might go back for dessert crepes sometime, though with Bi-Rite in the neighborhood, I'm not sure when.
Revisited Isa, which I still love. Found out they get their baguettes from Bakers of Paris, and found Bakers of Paris baguettes at Lucky. Apparently the key is to follow the instructions on the bag and heat the bread in the oven before eating to bring out the crustiness and that warm French bread taste. Yum.
Went to see Wicked on Wednesday night as part of my Best of Broadway subscription. Interesting to see what I missed last time I saw the show (since I was 20 minutes late due to being a complete moron). I don't love the music in Wicked, with the exception of a few songs, and I found the group numbers in particular impossible to understand lyrically, but the show is overall a good one. More emotionally affecting, especially by the end, than you'd expect. And despite simplifying the characterizations - Elphaba's in particular - from the book, does a remarkably good job of actually creating two layered main characters (not so much the rest of the characters). Galinda, as my friend pointed out, was more developed than Elphaba - she had flaws and redeeming moments all mixed in together, and a genuinely mixed POV. The layering in of elements to create the Wicked Witch myth - there's the cowardly lion, that's how the tin man came about, there's the scarecrow, the whole "wicked" persona was propaganda created about her when she went against the government, etc - was neat though a little much in places (the scarecrow part is a bit of a stretch IMO, Elphaba cackling for no apparent reason when Glinda slapped her was just cheesy). The book obviously did a deeper job of delving into all of it - the political situation in Oz, the relationships and the characters - but the show did a remarkably good job of distilling it into a 3-ish hour musical. As for the cast we saw, Galinda had great comic timing (if a little over the top at times) but also quite good emotional depth, as well as a good voice (was worried when she was warbling unintelligibly during the opening number but she altered her voice to play the schoolgirl). Elphaba was an overactor, but boy could she sing. Powerful set of pipes and a beautiful voice, and she totally attacked "Defying Gravity". Definitely not a case where I thought the actress I saw was inferior vocally to the originating cast member. And the two of them together had great chemistry and some wonderful duets.
Overall I'd say Wicked is a good show - not one of my favorites, especially musical - but definitely well worth watching.
Note to self, do not return to Tangerine, unless to try brunch. We went once before, I don't actually think we loved it but I didn't blog about it (I don't think) so I couldn't be sure. We went again Tuesday b/c of their 20% off Tuesday special. The menu looks interesting, all Asian-fusion, but we've been less than impressed with the food. We got roasted duck rolls with green mango sauce that I actually did quite like but my bf didn't (he doesn't like fried spring rolls). I got two appetizers for my meal - butternut squash soup (I should remember, I think I like bisque, not soup, for butternut squash - mashed up boiled squash is not what I'm looking for) and what they called salmon croissant but turned out to be another variation of a fried roll, only this one with cooked salmon (must remember, I like raw salmon, not cooked salmon) inside filo pastry and deep fried. I didn't finish it, there is only so much fried roll I can take in a meal, and the roasted duck one was much better. My bf got the coriander beef short ribs which just weren't that interesting. The food's not bad, it's just not particularly worth revisiting.
Hit Ti Couz last night to try crepes for dinner. Not particularly cheap crepes either. I liked my mushroom-cheese-almonds crepe just fine (buckwheat crepe, had mushroom sauce on top), my bf really didn't like his smoked salmon and onion dinner crepe. For one thing, the smoked salmon was pretty much cooked and he doesn't like cooked fish, and he doesn't like buckwheat crepes. The dessert crepe redeemed itself to him - we split a raspberry sorbet & nutella crepe which he probably enjoyed a bit more than I did since he loves raspberry sorbet and was very impressed by theirs, whereas I'm not as big a fan. We might go back for dessert crepes sometime, though with Bi-Rite in the neighborhood, I'm not sure when.
Revisited Isa, which I still love. Found out they get their baguettes from Bakers of Paris, and found Bakers of Paris baguettes at Lucky. Apparently the key is to follow the instructions on the bag and heat the bread in the oven before eating to bring out the crustiness and that warm French bread taste. Yum.
Went to see Wicked on Wednesday night as part of my Best of Broadway subscription. Interesting to see what I missed last time I saw the show (since I was 20 minutes late due to being a complete moron). I don't love the music in Wicked, with the exception of a few songs, and I found the group numbers in particular impossible to understand lyrically, but the show is overall a good one. More emotionally affecting, especially by the end, than you'd expect. And despite simplifying the characterizations - Elphaba's in particular - from the book, does a remarkably good job of actually creating two layered main characters (not so much the rest of the characters). Galinda, as my friend pointed out, was more developed than Elphaba - she had flaws and redeeming moments all mixed in together, and a genuinely mixed POV. The layering in of elements to create the Wicked Witch myth - there's the cowardly lion, that's how the tin man came about, there's the scarecrow, the whole "wicked" persona was propaganda created about her when she went against the government, etc - was neat though a little much in places (the scarecrow part is a bit of a stretch IMO, Elphaba cackling for no apparent reason when Glinda slapped her was just cheesy). The book obviously did a deeper job of delving into all of it - the political situation in Oz, the relationships and the characters - but the show did a remarkably good job of distilling it into a 3-ish hour musical. As for the cast we saw, Galinda had great comic timing (if a little over the top at times) but also quite good emotional depth, as well as a good voice (was worried when she was warbling unintelligibly during the opening number but she altered her voice to play the schoolgirl). Elphaba was an overactor, but boy could she sing. Powerful set of pipes and a beautiful voice, and she totally attacked "Defying Gravity". Definitely not a case where I thought the actress I saw was inferior vocally to the originating cast member. And the two of them together had great chemistry and some wonderful duets.
Overall I'd say Wicked is a good show - not one of my favorites, especially musical - but definitely well worth watching.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Quick restaurant update
Went to a bunch o' restaurants this week and one last week.
Briefly, without links:
Baghdad Nights in Lower Haight - Iraqi food. Completely empty when we walked in (on a Friday night!), but right after we walked in a few couples and groups came in. Food was similar in description in many items to the Afghani food at Helmand Palace. Kebabs and biryani and the like. I got a lamb shank with okra in tomato sauce that was ok. Lamb was tender and not too gamy but it wasn't very interesting tasting dish. My bf got a minced lamb with other stuff dish that also wasn't that interesting. Nice service though not very quick (at least to get our check) b/c it was only the one guy seating everyone and taking their orders with one other underling who brought out food and cleared stuff. We probably won't go back - the Helmand's food is so much tastier.
Gamine in Marina - French food. Fairly empty but cute little place. Super-nice and friendly waiter - honestly, nicest and most genuinely smiling French waiter I've ever had. Food was ok. I got tilapia on a bed of garlic spinach - the tilapia was very generously salted and peppered, and the spinach was quite salty too. Not *too* much to the point where it was unpleasant but definitely very strong. Nothing subtle about the flavors there! The tilapia was fine - not as delicate/flaky in texture as I had hoped but I have no idea if tilapia actually is supposed to be that flaky. My bf got the flat iron steak (which was very thick and he said was quite like flank steak) with a heap of very thin fries which were apparently very salty and delicious and he polished them off (which he *never* does with fries). He said the steak was fine. We also split a banana nutella crepe for dessert which was what you would expect for a banana nutella crepe =).
Conduit in Mission - American food. Tries to be swanky or cool or something with their menu, which apparently is printed new every day and doesn't bother with descriptions, just a list of nouns of what's in each dish (more or less - doesn't bother to describe sauces or cooking style or anything). As a result we may have missed out on some good pork (sounded good as described by the waiter to the table next to us, after we'd ordered). I got a fish & chips appetizer, which I do not recommend - not very tasty, not very interesting, overly fried and overpriced ($11 for 3 sticks of fish and 2 wedges of potato). I also got a half-portion of the butternut squash ravioli which was delicious - butternut squash and ricotta with brown sage butter in ravioli with brown sage butter sauce. Unfortunately a half portion ($11 or $10, I forget which) only comes with 3 pieces. I should have just gotten the full portion and forgone the fish and chips. My bf got a beef carpaccio appetizer with truffles on top (quite yummy) and the pappardelle - homemade pasta (long wide noodles, or thin sheets, depending how you look at it) with pork sugo - that was pretty tasty. We ran out of there and biked home before the rain, so no dessert there or anywhere else.
Pauline's Pizza in Mission - actually right on the same block as Conduit. Apparently they use fresh organic ingredients, and have specialty pizzas and more interesting ingredients. We split a medium Louisiana Andouille Pizza, which was just the right size for the two of us (8 slices, 12" - the small is 8 slices, 10"). Fairly thin crust that was just a bit crispy and not the least bit soggy or doughy. Yummy Andouille sausage though not enough of it. Fontina cheese (I like cheesier pizzas so I could have used more of it as well). Bell peppers. Green onions (way too many - I don't like green onions much and only want them in moderation). My bf was all "mmmm, this is great pizza, great choice!" I liked it a bit less but mostly b/c of the green onions. Overall pretty tasty pizza that is very minimally greasy. They weren't very fast, though, I must say, and there was always a wait since it seems fairly popular.
And of course, since it wasn't raining last night, we polished it off with some more Bi-Rite Creamery ice cream. Bi-Rite rocks. This time I got the single scoop two flavors - the salted caramel (which I always do) with chocolate-coconut (vegan option that uses coconut instead of dairy..ie, lactose-intolerant-friendly option) and homemade graham crackers sprinkled on top. Sooooo good. And soooo cold since it was pretty chilly out last night and it was too crowded in the Bi-Rite to eat inside. My bf got the Meyer lemon with pistachio which he says was odd and he wouldn't get again, and which didn't go along with his coffee toffee at all. Which is just to say he picked badly, not that bi-rite is bad =).
Want to try Candybar, a dessert/wine place with board games at Fulton between Divis and Broderick sometime. Found it on the Yelp app on my iPhone. Going slightly nuts installing free apps on my iPhone. Fun!
To work...
Briefly, without links:
Baghdad Nights in Lower Haight - Iraqi food. Completely empty when we walked in (on a Friday night!), but right after we walked in a few couples and groups came in. Food was similar in description in many items to the Afghani food at Helmand Palace. Kebabs and biryani and the like. I got a lamb shank with okra in tomato sauce that was ok. Lamb was tender and not too gamy but it wasn't very interesting tasting dish. My bf got a minced lamb with other stuff dish that also wasn't that interesting. Nice service though not very quick (at least to get our check) b/c it was only the one guy seating everyone and taking their orders with one other underling who brought out food and cleared stuff. We probably won't go back - the Helmand's food is so much tastier.
Gamine in Marina - French food. Fairly empty but cute little place. Super-nice and friendly waiter - honestly, nicest and most genuinely smiling French waiter I've ever had. Food was ok. I got tilapia on a bed of garlic spinach - the tilapia was very generously salted and peppered, and the spinach was quite salty too. Not *too* much to the point where it was unpleasant but definitely very strong. Nothing subtle about the flavors there! The tilapia was fine - not as delicate/flaky in texture as I had hoped but I have no idea if tilapia actually is supposed to be that flaky. My bf got the flat iron steak (which was very thick and he said was quite like flank steak) with a heap of very thin fries which were apparently very salty and delicious and he polished them off (which he *never* does with fries). He said the steak was fine. We also split a banana nutella crepe for dessert which was what you would expect for a banana nutella crepe =).
Conduit in Mission - American food. Tries to be swanky or cool or something with their menu, which apparently is printed new every day and doesn't bother with descriptions, just a list of nouns of what's in each dish (more or less - doesn't bother to describe sauces or cooking style or anything). As a result we may have missed out on some good pork (sounded good as described by the waiter to the table next to us, after we'd ordered). I got a fish & chips appetizer, which I do not recommend - not very tasty, not very interesting, overly fried and overpriced ($11 for 3 sticks of fish and 2 wedges of potato). I also got a half-portion of the butternut squash ravioli which was delicious - butternut squash and ricotta with brown sage butter in ravioli with brown sage butter sauce. Unfortunately a half portion ($11 or $10, I forget which) only comes with 3 pieces. I should have just gotten the full portion and forgone the fish and chips. My bf got a beef carpaccio appetizer with truffles on top (quite yummy) and the pappardelle - homemade pasta (long wide noodles, or thin sheets, depending how you look at it) with pork sugo - that was pretty tasty. We ran out of there and biked home before the rain, so no dessert there or anywhere else.
Pauline's Pizza in Mission - actually right on the same block as Conduit. Apparently they use fresh organic ingredients, and have specialty pizzas and more interesting ingredients. We split a medium Louisiana Andouille Pizza, which was just the right size for the two of us (8 slices, 12" - the small is 8 slices, 10"). Fairly thin crust that was just a bit crispy and not the least bit soggy or doughy. Yummy Andouille sausage though not enough of it. Fontina cheese (I like cheesier pizzas so I could have used more of it as well). Bell peppers. Green onions (way too many - I don't like green onions much and only want them in moderation). My bf was all "mmmm, this is great pizza, great choice!" I liked it a bit less but mostly b/c of the green onions. Overall pretty tasty pizza that is very minimally greasy. They weren't very fast, though, I must say, and there was always a wait since it seems fairly popular.
And of course, since it wasn't raining last night, we polished it off with some more Bi-Rite Creamery ice cream. Bi-Rite rocks. This time I got the single scoop two flavors - the salted caramel (which I always do) with chocolate-coconut (vegan option that uses coconut instead of dairy..ie, lactose-intolerant-friendly option) and homemade graham crackers sprinkled on top. Sooooo good. And soooo cold since it was pretty chilly out last night and it was too crowded in the Bi-Rite to eat inside. My bf got the Meyer lemon with pistachio which he says was odd and he wouldn't get again, and which didn't go along with his coffee toffee at all. Which is just to say he picked badly, not that bi-rite is bad =).
Want to try Candybar, a dessert/wine place with board games at Fulton between Divis and Broderick sometime. Found it on the Yelp app on my iPhone. Going slightly nuts installing free apps on my iPhone. Fun!
To work...
Monday, February 9, 2009
Northstar rocks
This has been an unusually dry (and warm) winter, so when the forecast finally showed snow for Lake Tahoe, we decided to seize the opportunity and do a ski trip (*not* on President's Day weekend, though the snow may be even better then since it's supposed to snow on and off all week). This was a very last minute trip - I think we decided to actually go up maybe 3 or 4pm on Friday. And it was a very deciding-on-the-fly trip since when we left, we weren't sure if we were going to stay for Sunday or not.
Since Sugar Bowl got the most snow of North Tahoe in the forecast (and actually, at the time, more than South Tahoe), we picked up a couple lift tickets from Sports Basement (my gym 10% discount did not apply) on our way out of the city. We stayed the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Roseville (about an hour out of Truckee), which was quite nice. They've done a good job with a lot of these Holiday Inn Express hotels - comfy beds, nice towels, clean, new looking rooms, free breakfast... The next morning, we were up and out of there by around 7:30 and got to Sugar Bowl's Village Gondola lot and up onto the mountain by 9AM, when they opened.
I keep forgetting, and I keep re-discovering, that I'm really a very limited range skier. There are a particular set of conditions I really like - long, wide, fairly steep groomed runs - and then there is everything else. Sugar Bowl quickly made an enemy of me because it truly is bowl shaped - long flat base at the bottom of every run before you get to the lift, and long flat rim which you have to pole yourself over from the top of the lift before you get to the top of the run. Plus, they converted our favorite blue warm-up area - the Mt Judah Express - to a terrain park. It was also super-windy, quite chilly, and the visibility at the summit was horrible due to the wind whipping up snow nonstop. After doing basically the same run several times over off the Mt. Lincoln Express (mostly b/c I don't like moguls or bumps), trying Christmas Tree only to realize that with a race set up there, there were only a couple blue runs off of it, and eating a godawful meal at the lodge (my bf's pizza was terrible, my chili was typical ski resort chili), we finally made our way over to the Disney Express. This was better, especially after we figured out the higher way to make our way back to the lift, which gave us a better opportunity to accumulate speed that would get us almost all the way to the lift line. I still wasn't a particularly happy camper, especially because Sugar Bowl doesn't seem to really groom runs and it really doesn't let you know which were groomed. I'm usually the type of skier to try to squeeze in that last run before the lift closes, but I was checking my watch from 1pm onwards, and finally we just stopped at 3pm, a good hour before the lifts closed. I went to get my skis waxed and edged ($20, kind of overpriced) and after some discussion, we decided to try Northstar on Sunday, if only to make me like skiing again.
We decided to spend the night in Reno, since Northstar is the closest resort to the NV border, and Reno had some very cheap hotels (unlike Truckee). My bf turned up "The Summit at the Grand Sierra Resort" in his searches, which looked like it could be very nice, and for (relatively) not very much. Since he likes to stay in nicer places, we decided to give it a shot. Turns out the Grand Sierra Resort has been around for ages and their standard rooms are $69/night, but the Summit is their condo hotel, much newer (I think everything had been renovated in the last 3 years?) and much nicer, for only $100/night. So we went for that. Good choice - it was definitely by far the nicest hotel room I've ever stayed at for $100. Big king bed with a soft-top on the mattress, cushioned headboard, and feather pillows. Big nice sofa and desk with a big LCD TV on the wall (though with pretty bad signal), little kitchenette area with good-sized mini-fridge and microwave. Very nice modern bathroom (with a little TV in it) though without a towel rack or hook for the bath towels (a common failing in nicer bathrooms for some reason). Modern, darkish decor that made it feel much nicer than a hotel room. So we were happy with that decision. We met up with some friends who had been skiing at Squaw Valley for dinner at the Sterling's Steak and Seafood restaurant in the Silver Legacy. Very expensive entrees (more than most of the nicer SF restaurants we've eaten at) with very large portions, but quite tasty at least. We spent some time playing games on the midway at Circus Circus (where I won two stuffed animals, which I've never done before, so I got quite excited) before heading back to our hotel and going to sleep.
The next morning, we took our time getting up and getting out, but finally got some discount Northstar tickets at the hotel ($69 vs $79 on the mountain) and got to Northstar around 10:45-11. We went directly to Lookout Mountain (via the gondola to Tahoe Zephyr Express, which is a 6-chair with occasional gondola cars (??) to the tow rope), where we did two runs (Washoe and Prosser?), discovered conditions were quite icy, and headed over to backside via Back Door. We got really lucky b/c lines were incredibly short (as they had been at Sugar Bowl the night before), so aside from the lift periodically stopping, we spent very little time waiting for the lifts. Northstar is, typical lines aside, my idea of ski nirvana. Backside in particular. Long, wide, steep-ish groomed runs, clearly marked, where I can just go swish, swish, swish with some speed, but have plenty of room to steer around people or slow down if I start getting out of control. High speed quads. The best food of any ski resort I ever tried (which is a bit pricey, admittedly, but so much better) - I got a huge smoked turkey leg that was quite delicious, while my bf got a smoked bbq ribs platter with fall-off-the-bone tender meat. I was much, much happier on Sunday, especially when we stopped to get Belgian waffles and hot cocoa on the way down, finally leaving after most people had gone, so we hit very little traffic before reaching Sacramento. I was especially happy that we found a Panera Bread in Vacaville for dinner.
I don't know why I keep bothering with other ski resorts. (Ok, ok, Northstar usually has huge lines and the least snow of any resort) Northstar fits all my criteria and makes my ski day very pleasant, whereas I usually am not nearly as happy at other resorts. I think it should be Northstar or nothing for me from now on, at least in the Tahoe area...
Since Sugar Bowl got the most snow of North Tahoe in the forecast (and actually, at the time, more than South Tahoe), we picked up a couple lift tickets from Sports Basement (my gym 10% discount did not apply) on our way out of the city. We stayed the night at the Holiday Inn Express in Roseville (about an hour out of Truckee), which was quite nice. They've done a good job with a lot of these Holiday Inn Express hotels - comfy beds, nice towels, clean, new looking rooms, free breakfast... The next morning, we were up and out of there by around 7:30 and got to Sugar Bowl's Village Gondola lot and up onto the mountain by 9AM, when they opened.
I keep forgetting, and I keep re-discovering, that I'm really a very limited range skier. There are a particular set of conditions I really like - long, wide, fairly steep groomed runs - and then there is everything else. Sugar Bowl quickly made an enemy of me because it truly is bowl shaped - long flat base at the bottom of every run before you get to the lift, and long flat rim which you have to pole yourself over from the top of the lift before you get to the top of the run. Plus, they converted our favorite blue warm-up area - the Mt Judah Express - to a terrain park. It was also super-windy, quite chilly, and the visibility at the summit was horrible due to the wind whipping up snow nonstop. After doing basically the same run several times over off the Mt. Lincoln Express (mostly b/c I don't like moguls or bumps), trying Christmas Tree only to realize that with a race set up there, there were only a couple blue runs off of it, and eating a godawful meal at the lodge (my bf's pizza was terrible, my chili was typical ski resort chili), we finally made our way over to the Disney Express. This was better, especially after we figured out the higher way to make our way back to the lift, which gave us a better opportunity to accumulate speed that would get us almost all the way to the lift line. I still wasn't a particularly happy camper, especially because Sugar Bowl doesn't seem to really groom runs and it really doesn't let you know which were groomed. I'm usually the type of skier to try to squeeze in that last run before the lift closes, but I was checking my watch from 1pm onwards, and finally we just stopped at 3pm, a good hour before the lifts closed. I went to get my skis waxed and edged ($20, kind of overpriced) and after some discussion, we decided to try Northstar on Sunday, if only to make me like skiing again.
We decided to spend the night in Reno, since Northstar is the closest resort to the NV border, and Reno had some very cheap hotels (unlike Truckee). My bf turned up "The Summit at the Grand Sierra Resort" in his searches, which looked like it could be very nice, and for (relatively) not very much. Since he likes to stay in nicer places, we decided to give it a shot. Turns out the Grand Sierra Resort has been around for ages and their standard rooms are $69/night, but the Summit is their condo hotel, much newer (I think everything had been renovated in the last 3 years?) and much nicer, for only $100/night. So we went for that. Good choice - it was definitely by far the nicest hotel room I've ever stayed at for $100. Big king bed with a soft-top on the mattress, cushioned headboard, and feather pillows. Big nice sofa and desk with a big LCD TV on the wall (though with pretty bad signal), little kitchenette area with good-sized mini-fridge and microwave. Very nice modern bathroom (with a little TV in it) though without a towel rack or hook for the bath towels (a common failing in nicer bathrooms for some reason). Modern, darkish decor that made it feel much nicer than a hotel room. So we were happy with that decision. We met up with some friends who had been skiing at Squaw Valley for dinner at the Sterling's Steak and Seafood restaurant in the Silver Legacy. Very expensive entrees (more than most of the nicer SF restaurants we've eaten at) with very large portions, but quite tasty at least. We spent some time playing games on the midway at Circus Circus (where I won two stuffed animals, which I've never done before, so I got quite excited) before heading back to our hotel and going to sleep.
The next morning, we took our time getting up and getting out, but finally got some discount Northstar tickets at the hotel ($69 vs $79 on the mountain) and got to Northstar around 10:45-11. We went directly to Lookout Mountain (via the gondola to Tahoe Zephyr Express, which is a 6-chair with occasional gondola cars (??) to the tow rope), where we did two runs (Washoe and Prosser?), discovered conditions were quite icy, and headed over to backside via Back Door. We got really lucky b/c lines were incredibly short (as they had been at Sugar Bowl the night before), so aside from the lift periodically stopping, we spent very little time waiting for the lifts. Northstar is, typical lines aside, my idea of ski nirvana. Backside in particular. Long, wide, steep-ish groomed runs, clearly marked, where I can just go swish, swish, swish with some speed, but have plenty of room to steer around people or slow down if I start getting out of control. High speed quads. The best food of any ski resort I ever tried (which is a bit pricey, admittedly, but so much better) - I got a huge smoked turkey leg that was quite delicious, while my bf got a smoked bbq ribs platter with fall-off-the-bone tender meat. I was much, much happier on Sunday, especially when we stopped to get Belgian waffles and hot cocoa on the way down, finally leaving after most people had gone, so we hit very little traffic before reaching Sacramento. I was especially happy that we found a Panera Bread in Vacaville for dinner.
I don't know why I keep bothering with other ski resorts. (Ok, ok, Northstar usually has huge lines and the least snow of any resort) Northstar fits all my criteria and makes my ski day very pleasant, whereas I usually am not nearly as happy at other resorts. I think it should be Northstar or nothing for me from now on, at least in the Tahoe area...
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Firefly!
Finally got out to Firefly (4288 24th St, btwn Douglass and Diamond) last night with my family (my parents were in town). I've been wanting to go here for a while since I read the menu online, and it looked delicious. Helps that my sister is a big fan. I was not disappointed - my food was super-yummy and I was very happy. My sister got the prix fixe menu ($35 for any appetizer, entree and dessert Monday-Thursday, which is a reasonably good deal that saves you maybe $4-8) and for her appetizer, ordered us brussel sprouts in parmesan-ruggiano and truffle oil. That was delicious - I think the truffle oil made all the difference, though the parmesan helped as well. The brussel sprouts were roasted to be slightly crispy and they were just about the best I've ever had. For the entree, I got the duck breast with spaetzel, braised red cabbage, and blood oranges and it was one of the best duck breasts I've had - tender and really, really tasty, down to the last bite. Everyone with me ordered a different entree, so I got to try a bite of each. My dad's goat leg brochette I found less than inspiring - the last goat I had was the super tender stuff in Jamaica, while this stuff was a bit more tough and not quite as flavorful (though the mashed yams it came with were very sweet and tasty). My mom's pan roasted striped bass wasn't what I expected either - a flatter, drier piece with a crispy skin-on top that was reasonably tasty but not the moist thick slab I've been used to getting with bass (she was initially disappointed but after she dug into it more, said the fish was actually quite moist and good). My bf's grilled rare tombo tuna I think I would have liked a lot better if I liked olives (it comes with a picholine olive & meyer lemon salsa) but the fish itself was nice and rare and good. My sister's beef short ribs were my next favorite after my duck - super-tender and tasty (my bf thought it tasted too much like wine, so clearly we have different tastes when it comes to short ribs). It is possible I was as happy as I was because I ordered well (my tastes of my mom and dad's dishes were less than inspiring) but it's also possible I would have liked the other dishes more if I had had more than one bite. For dessert, I got the warm chocolate cashew tart with vietnamese coffee ice cream which was like a very chocolatey molten cake with very strong coffee ice cream - gooey and yummy and delicious. My sister got an interesting lime with coconut cream parfait with pieces of grapefruit and oranges in it which was tastily tart and sweet. My bf got I think an almond sherbert and blood orange?? sorbet with honey citrus madelines which was fine, but not the one to eat third, b/c relative to the first two, it was quite bland. I think it was good by itself, but hard to tell after the intense sweet chocolate taste of my dessert and the tart sweet taste of my sister's.
I liked the ambiance too, since it was nice in a very casual way, and the server was friendly and helpful. Just wish the restaurant wasn't so far out!
For the record, the flattest way from SOMA to Firefly is to do Mission to 15th to Valencia to 22nd to Chatanooga to 24th. The last two blocks from Castro to Douglass are distinctly uphill, though not as bad as taking Diamond from Elizabeth to like 22nd! On the other hand, taking Diamond from 22nd to 18th was a lot of downhill zoom!
I liked the ambiance too, since it was nice in a very casual way, and the server was friendly and helpful. Just wish the restaurant wasn't so far out!
For the record, the flattest way from SOMA to Firefly is to do Mission to 15th to Valencia to 22nd to Chatanooga to 24th. The last two blocks from Castro to Douglass are distinctly uphill, though not as bad as taking Diamond from Elizabeth to like 22nd! On the other hand, taking Diamond from 22nd to 18th was a lot of downhill zoom!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Biking about town
We're planning on a trip to Machu Picchu in June, so I've been trying to come up ways to get in shape and train for it. One of my ideas is to do something long each weekend - long bike ride, long hike, long walk around the city, or at the very least, an hour on the elliptical (which is not that long but you try to run in place for longer than that). This weekend we were thinking of doing like a 15-20 mile bike ride around the city on Sunday but we ended up doing a more broken up 19-20 miles worth of biking yesterday instead.
First up was a 6.5 mile bike ride through GG Park, down the Great Highway, to the SF Zoo, where we met up with a couple of friends and their 19-month old. The ride took about 35 minutes and wasn't so bad, especially since there was a lot of coasting through the park, though at some point along the Great Highway I was thinking to myself that this bike riding was a whole lot of work and didn't leave me that much time to look at the scenery. Too busy steering around joggers, walkers, and other bikers. Of course, I was also not going at a leisurely pace...
We first picnicked in the zoo (on the lawn by the playground), eating Acme baguettes with Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam triple cream cheese and good French strawberry jam, Acme onion bread (also with cheese), salami from the Ferry Building, and other random snacks, which was quite enjoyable. We then strolled around the zoo for a few hours, unfortunately missing the baby giraffe (5 days old - we put it off until last and it already went indoors by the time we got there), but checking out the various other animals and closed exhibits =P they had. The zoo isn't the hugest place in the world but it's got a decent amount of stuff to look at. The 19-month old was initially quite fascinated in the children's zoo by the turtles and the sheep and getting to feed the goats, and got really excited about the penguins (they'd come swimming around by where we were, and then zooming away again, at which point he excitedly signed "more! more!"), dancing around while we watched them get fed. I think he had less of an ability to connect to the large animals that were rather far away in the bit enclosures, losing interest quickly in the lions, tigers, and gorilla, and more interested in the lights, rivets, and drains in his immediate vicinity. I was rather amused because there were some very aggressive seagulls at the zoo who hovered around the cafes and practically would dive bomb you for the food you were carrying in your hand. Evidently the seagulls were an issue at the penguin feeding as well (Magellanic penguins like the ones we saw in Argentina) so the zoo people had developed some methods to deal with it. First, the feeder kept a hose at hand to spray seagulls with. Then, they rigged up a net over part of the water so some of the penguins could go under there and safely eat their fish without being bothered by seagulls. And lastly, they brought out the bald eagle to both raise awareness of bald eagles and to keep the seagulls away, since the gulls feared the eagle. And right they were to, I think - the eagle was quite imposing and seemed to keep an eye on the skies above, ready to pounce on any interlopers. The penguins were adorable as they came to get their food, I must say. Overall it was a nice trip and a quite nice day (sunny though it started getting cooler over the course of the day).
Then it was a 6.5 mile ride back, which was less fun b/c of the gradual but unrelenting uphill through the park for a good 2/3 of the park on our way home (we appear to live more or less on top of a hill so all paths home require some uphill =P). I figured we were done with biking for the day but when it came time for dinner, we decided to get Korean bbq at Pine Restaurant at 20th and Noriega, followed by dessert at Golden Island Cafe a couple doors down, and my bf suddenly decided it'd be stupid to bus or drive there, and said I could do whatever I wanted but he was biking there. So of course, it seemed even stupider for me to drive while he biked, so back on the bike we went. 2.8 miles or so each way this time, with a steady and steeper uphill for a good 5 blocks from Irving to Noriega on 20th. I wasn't liking my bf all that much by the end of it, but we made it. The trip back, of course, though, was very quick, coasting downhill for 5 blocks and basically not pedaling (though we did make a stop at Andronico's to get some milk, thus breaking up the trip), some uphill for maybe 3 blocks on Irving, and then an easy ride through a quite deserted park on the more or less flat part of the ride home.
It's funny how much the last part of the ride influences your opinion. If we had just stopped after the zoo ride, or after the first part of the dinner ride, I'd be all grumbly about how tiring biking was. But the coasting and the easy ride through the park and panhandle were nice, so I instead ended the evening thinking biking was fun and plotting the next bike ride.
We're probably going to take a break from the riding today, though, and I'll do the elliptical instead. Which is just as well - I haven't used the elliptical at home for a few weeks now!
First up was a 6.5 mile bike ride through GG Park, down the Great Highway, to the SF Zoo, where we met up with a couple of friends and their 19-month old. The ride took about 35 minutes and wasn't so bad, especially since there was a lot of coasting through the park, though at some point along the Great Highway I was thinking to myself that this bike riding was a whole lot of work and didn't leave me that much time to look at the scenery. Too busy steering around joggers, walkers, and other bikers. Of course, I was also not going at a leisurely pace...
We first picnicked in the zoo (on the lawn by the playground), eating Acme baguettes with Cowgirl Creamery Mt. Tam triple cream cheese and good French strawberry jam, Acme onion bread (also with cheese), salami from the Ferry Building, and other random snacks, which was quite enjoyable. We then strolled around the zoo for a few hours, unfortunately missing the baby giraffe (5 days old - we put it off until last and it already went indoors by the time we got there), but checking out the various other animals and closed exhibits =P they had. The zoo isn't the hugest place in the world but it's got a decent amount of stuff to look at. The 19-month old was initially quite fascinated in the children's zoo by the turtles and the sheep and getting to feed the goats, and got really excited about the penguins (they'd come swimming around by where we were, and then zooming away again, at which point he excitedly signed "more! more!"), dancing around while we watched them get fed. I think he had less of an ability to connect to the large animals that were rather far away in the bit enclosures, losing interest quickly in the lions, tigers, and gorilla, and more interested in the lights, rivets, and drains in his immediate vicinity. I was rather amused because there were some very aggressive seagulls at the zoo who hovered around the cafes and practically would dive bomb you for the food you were carrying in your hand. Evidently the seagulls were an issue at the penguin feeding as well (Magellanic penguins like the ones we saw in Argentina) so the zoo people had developed some methods to deal with it. First, the feeder kept a hose at hand to spray seagulls with. Then, they rigged up a net over part of the water so some of the penguins could go under there and safely eat their fish without being bothered by seagulls. And lastly, they brought out the bald eagle to both raise awareness of bald eagles and to keep the seagulls away, since the gulls feared the eagle. And right they were to, I think - the eagle was quite imposing and seemed to keep an eye on the skies above, ready to pounce on any interlopers. The penguins were adorable as they came to get their food, I must say. Overall it was a nice trip and a quite nice day (sunny though it started getting cooler over the course of the day).
Then it was a 6.5 mile ride back, which was less fun b/c of the gradual but unrelenting uphill through the park for a good 2/3 of the park on our way home (we appear to live more or less on top of a hill so all paths home require some uphill =P). I figured we were done with biking for the day but when it came time for dinner, we decided to get Korean bbq at Pine Restaurant at 20th and Noriega, followed by dessert at Golden Island Cafe a couple doors down, and my bf suddenly decided it'd be stupid to bus or drive there, and said I could do whatever I wanted but he was biking there. So of course, it seemed even stupider for me to drive while he biked, so back on the bike we went. 2.8 miles or so each way this time, with a steady and steeper uphill for a good 5 blocks from Irving to Noriega on 20th. I wasn't liking my bf all that much by the end of it, but we made it. The trip back, of course, though, was very quick, coasting downhill for 5 blocks and basically not pedaling (though we did make a stop at Andronico's to get some milk, thus breaking up the trip), some uphill for maybe 3 blocks on Irving, and then an easy ride through a quite deserted park on the more or less flat part of the ride home.
It's funny how much the last part of the ride influences your opinion. If we had just stopped after the zoo ride, or after the first part of the dinner ride, I'd be all grumbly about how tiring biking was. But the coasting and the easy ride through the park and panhandle were nice, so I instead ended the evening thinking biking was fun and plotting the next bike ride.
We're probably going to take a break from the riding today, though, and I'll do the elliptical instead. Which is just as well - I haven't used the elliptical at home for a few weeks now!
Dining about town
I think my bf and I are just about the least favorite DAT customers a restaurant might have - we come in carrying our bike gear, dressed in jeans and a polo (for him) or a slightly nicer than t-shirt long-sleeve shirt (for me). We order off the DAT menu and get nothing extra, besides a coke for him. No alcohol, no coffee... And we may never revisit the restaurant again to pay full price. Ah well.
We hit three DAT restaurants in a row this week.
Tuesday, we went to Le Colonial (20 Cosmo Pl, btwn Sutter and Post/Taylor and Jones). It's an upscale Vietnamese place located in a bit of an alley (with a parking lot in the alley) which evidently turns into a dance club at night, though we didn't see that part of it. Looking at the menu, I have the feeling the place is rather overpriced ($30+ entrees) so the DAT was definitely a deal for the place. My bf and I both got the DAT - I got the Kurobuta pork belly (with a savory caramel sauce, white truffle oil, Hosui pear, pickled bok choy and quail egg) and he got the um..I think the spring rolls? (The DAT menu on the website is not what we had to choose from so I'm going on memory). The pork belly was very yummy, IMO, the spring rolls were fine but nothing special. Then we both got the beef short ribs (braised Niman Ranch beef short ribs with leek, shiitake mushrooms, and wild rice served with a star anise broth). This was very tender and nicely textured - I thought it was too bland, my bf appreciated its "subtle" flavor and really liked it. For dessert, they had the pineapple upside down cake with coconut ice cream, which was very yummy (of course, those are some of my favorite flavor combos). The service was nice and prompt, the ambiance nice (we were definitely the least well dressed in there), and the food fine. I personally still think it was overpriced but my bf quite liked it.
Wednesday we hit Chaya Brasserie (132 The Embarcadero, btwn Mission and Howard), a French-Japanese type place, which basically seemed to mean they served both sushi and steak. Also not a cheap place. We both got the DAT again but this time got totally different stuff. My bf got the hamachi carpaccio for appetizer (quite yummy), I got the shrimp tempura roll (totally not a $12 roll, I've definitely had better shrimp tempura rolls for less elsewhere). For dinner, he got the prime beef done two different ways (a NY steak and a short rib) while I got the petrale sole. He said his beef was fine (I think he preferred le Colonial's), my sole was fine but nothing outstanding. Reasonably tasty and fairly well presented, but it just didn't stand out. Then again, my standards when I go to more expensive places tend to get pretty high. For dessert, he got the Meyer lemon sorbet which he really enjoyed, and I got the chocolate croissant bread pudding which I thought was absolutely delicious. The croissant aspect of it lent it an interesting texture in places and that kind of buttery croissant taste that I really enjoyed. So I guess I'd say dessert was my highlight in both places.
Thursday, we went to Maverick (3316 17th St btwn Hoff and Mission) with one of my bf's coworkers and his girlfriend. The prices here were lower, so DAT was just about worth it (basically you saved $4). The DAT menu had no choices, but we thought it looked good and went for it - "Little Gem Salad" to open (pretty basic blue cheese, pears, lettuce salad), fried chicken ($21 on the regular menu) with yellow grits, collard greens, some other stuff, and walnut chocolate chip cookies with milk to dip them in. The salad was fine, nothing special, nothing bad. The fried chicken was good, but not $21 good. The chicken meat itself was very tender and juicy (though the breast still wasn't very tasty), the fried part was a fairly thin crisp dark brown layer that tasted fine but nothing special. Wasn't the super-greasy type of chicken you get from KFC or Popeye's, that's for sure, and the chicken was good quality, but somehow it just wasn't that exciting. The cookies, no matter how good they might be (and they were yummy though not the best ever) were not worth $8 for two cookies (which is what they were on the regular menu, though maybe they give you more than 2 if you order it regularly - our salads were smaller than the one someone in our party got as her main meal, even though she ordered the same salad). I think the milk they gave us was whole milk - I only did a bit of dipping but no drinking due to lactose-intolerance - and the cookies were the crisp texture kind. Yummy, as I said, but not so exceptional I'd go to Maverick just to have them - or pay that much to have them again. I guess basically overall, we found Maverick a bit disappointing and probably wouldn't go back. Which is funny, b/c of the three, it's the highest rated on Yelp...
And that was our DAT experience for January 2009.
We hit three DAT restaurants in a row this week.
Tuesday, we went to Le Colonial (20 Cosmo Pl, btwn Sutter and Post/Taylor and Jones). It's an upscale Vietnamese place located in a bit of an alley (with a parking lot in the alley) which evidently turns into a dance club at night, though we didn't see that part of it. Looking at the menu, I have the feeling the place is rather overpriced ($30+ entrees) so the DAT was definitely a deal for the place. My bf and I both got the DAT - I got the Kurobuta pork belly (with a savory caramel sauce, white truffle oil, Hosui pear, pickled bok choy and quail egg) and he got the um..I think the spring rolls? (The DAT menu on the website is not what we had to choose from so I'm going on memory). The pork belly was very yummy, IMO, the spring rolls were fine but nothing special. Then we both got the beef short ribs (braised Niman Ranch beef short ribs with leek, shiitake mushrooms, and wild rice served with a star anise broth). This was very tender and nicely textured - I thought it was too bland, my bf appreciated its "subtle" flavor and really liked it. For dessert, they had the pineapple upside down cake with coconut ice cream, which was very yummy (of course, those are some of my favorite flavor combos). The service was nice and prompt, the ambiance nice (we were definitely the least well dressed in there), and the food fine. I personally still think it was overpriced but my bf quite liked it.
Wednesday we hit Chaya Brasserie (132 The Embarcadero, btwn Mission and Howard), a French-Japanese type place, which basically seemed to mean they served both sushi and steak. Also not a cheap place. We both got the DAT again but this time got totally different stuff. My bf got the hamachi carpaccio for appetizer (quite yummy), I got the shrimp tempura roll (totally not a $12 roll, I've definitely had better shrimp tempura rolls for less elsewhere). For dinner, he got the prime beef done two different ways (a NY steak and a short rib) while I got the petrale sole. He said his beef was fine (I think he preferred le Colonial's), my sole was fine but nothing outstanding. Reasonably tasty and fairly well presented, but it just didn't stand out. Then again, my standards when I go to more expensive places tend to get pretty high. For dessert, he got the Meyer lemon sorbet which he really enjoyed, and I got the chocolate croissant bread pudding which I thought was absolutely delicious. The croissant aspect of it lent it an interesting texture in places and that kind of buttery croissant taste that I really enjoyed. So I guess I'd say dessert was my highlight in both places.
Thursday, we went to Maverick (3316 17th St btwn Hoff and Mission) with one of my bf's coworkers and his girlfriend. The prices here were lower, so DAT was just about worth it (basically you saved $4). The DAT menu had no choices, but we thought it looked good and went for it - "Little Gem Salad" to open (pretty basic blue cheese, pears, lettuce salad), fried chicken ($21 on the regular menu) with yellow grits, collard greens, some other stuff, and walnut chocolate chip cookies with milk to dip them in. The salad was fine, nothing special, nothing bad. The fried chicken was good, but not $21 good. The chicken meat itself was very tender and juicy (though the breast still wasn't very tasty), the fried part was a fairly thin crisp dark brown layer that tasted fine but nothing special. Wasn't the super-greasy type of chicken you get from KFC or Popeye's, that's for sure, and the chicken was good quality, but somehow it just wasn't that exciting. The cookies, no matter how good they might be (and they were yummy though not the best ever) were not worth $8 for two cookies (which is what they were on the regular menu, though maybe they give you more than 2 if you order it regularly - our salads were smaller than the one someone in our party got as her main meal, even though she ordered the same salad). I think the milk they gave us was whole milk - I only did a bit of dipping but no drinking due to lactose-intolerance - and the cookies were the crisp texture kind. Yummy, as I said, but not so exceptional I'd go to Maverick just to have them - or pay that much to have them again. I guess basically overall, we found Maverick a bit disappointing and probably wouldn't go back. Which is funny, b/c of the three, it's the highest rated on Yelp...
And that was our DAT experience for January 2009.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Spork!
One more restaurant - last night my bf and I went to Spork at 1058 Valencia (btwn 21st and 22nd). It is located in an old KFC, and they give you metal sporks to use with dessert. It's got a pretty small but fairly varied menu. I got the Alaskan Halibut which ended up being cod, which was pretty tasty, on a bed of gnocchi and shredded brussel sprouts and some sort of sauce. I liked it. My bf got the cauliflower and apple soup (tasty, very cauliflowery) and "The Other Italian Stallion", which was a pasta dish with Italian sausage that tasted fine but was not particularly inspiring. We got the "Elvis has left the building" dessert - a warm peanut butter cup with a sliced banana on the side, a scoop of vanilla gelato, all drizzled with a caramel sauce and salted peanuts. Not very big but very yummy. Overall, I liked it, my bf was less impressed. Apparently my sister loves this place...
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Couple more restaurants
Trying to blog before I forget.
Tuesday, the bf wanted to do something more low key so we picked up Jay's Cheesesteaks. Jay's Cheesesteaks aren't what I'd call authentic Philly cheesesteaks - they come with mayo, mustard, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes, none of which I expect in a Philly cheesesteak. But my pepper & onion cheesesteak minus the mustard and pickles was very tasty indeed. As long as you're not insisting on authenticity, and just want something greasy and yummy, I like this place.
Wednesday, we were going to try to do Dine About Town at Garcon but upon realizing that their pricing is just about on par with DAT pricing (ie you could get any appetizer, entree, and dessert on average for $35), we didn't feel compelled to stick with the DAT menu. The DAT menu was actually completely different than the regular menu - not one single item overlapped except the desserts, since you could pick any dessert off the regular dessert menu. I ended up getting the Atlantic Salmon in a pastry shell off of the regular menu, cooked medium rare at the waiter's suggestion, and it was delicious. Very very tasty, and the salmon was moist and nice instead of dry and almost sticky chewy like it often is. Loved the mushroom puree it was served on top of as well. I polished off my entire plate. Another of our party also got the salmon, without the mushroom, and said he enjoyed it, while my bf got the duck leg confit which he said was quite good as well. Service was fine, too, though for some reason we got two different guys both telling us what the soup of the day was and offering to answer any questions, but hey two is better than none! I'd go back. I'm liking the restaurants in the 22nd/Valencia/Guerrero area.
Tuesday, the bf wanted to do something more low key so we picked up Jay's Cheesesteaks. Jay's Cheesesteaks aren't what I'd call authentic Philly cheesesteaks - they come with mayo, mustard, pickles, lettuce, and tomatoes, none of which I expect in a Philly cheesesteak. But my pepper & onion cheesesteak minus the mustard and pickles was very tasty indeed. As long as you're not insisting on authenticity, and just want something greasy and yummy, I like this place.
Wednesday, we were going to try to do Dine About Town at Garcon but upon realizing that their pricing is just about on par with DAT pricing (ie you could get any appetizer, entree, and dessert on average for $35), we didn't feel compelled to stick with the DAT menu. The DAT menu was actually completely different than the regular menu - not one single item overlapped except the desserts, since you could pick any dessert off the regular dessert menu. I ended up getting the Atlantic Salmon in a pastry shell off of the regular menu, cooked medium rare at the waiter's suggestion, and it was delicious. Very very tasty, and the salmon was moist and nice instead of dry and almost sticky chewy like it often is. Loved the mushroom puree it was served on top of as well. I polished off my entire plate. Another of our party also got the salmon, without the mushroom, and said he enjoyed it, while my bf got the duck leg confit which he said was quite good as well. Service was fine, too, though for some reason we got two different guys both telling us what the soup of the day was and offering to answer any questions, but hey two is better than none! I'd go back. I'm liking the restaurants in the 22nd/Valencia/Guerrero area.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
More food
3 more food places to blog about before I forget.
Il Borgo - 500 Fell St at Laguna. Uninspiring Italian food. My homemade fettucine in bolognese sauce was fine - chewy fresh pasta, kind of boring bolognese sauce. My bf got some sort of ravioli in tomato sauce. It was fine but nothing special. We probably won't go back.
Lolo - 3230 22nd St btwn Mission and Bartlett. Evidently it's a Turkish/Mediterranean-influenced tapas place (though it's really just appetizers and almost full size main dishes, so I'm not sure where the tapas comes in, except for them encouraging family style sharing). We quite enjoyed it - the food was interesting and good. We got the taco tropical (shrimp tacos) which were really tasty and interesting, the baked brie (which I think was actually fried) on some kind of fruity, slightly spicy, yummy sauce, and the pork chop with a kind of blue cheese butter on top that was really good.
The Little Chihuahua - 292 Divisadero btwn Page and Oak. Went here for brunch on Saturday. It's a Mexican place, with a brunch menu that had something I really wanted to try, the "Mexican French Toast". It's two pieces of flour tortilla, done french-toast style (dipped in an egg mixture and griddled), each wrapped around fried plantains and bacon, and served with maple-agave syrup. I think my bf and I could have shared one (though we both ended up finishing off our plates, so maybe not). I love fried plantains, so I quite enjoyed this, though there was a bit too much bacon for my taste after a while so I ended up pulling it out, while my bf found it odd to eat bacon inside his sweet brunch. The french toast-style tortillas were kind of like a mixture between a thin crepe and french toast. Definitely interesting to try (and I'm curious about their fried plantain and black bean burrito) but I'm not sure if I'd need to go again. Cute place, though, with good pico de gallo to go with their warm chips. My strawberry agua fresca was disappointingly watered down, but my bf seemed to enjoy his watermelon one, which was infused with bits of mint, more.
Il Borgo - 500 Fell St at Laguna. Uninspiring Italian food. My homemade fettucine in bolognese sauce was fine - chewy fresh pasta, kind of boring bolognese sauce. My bf got some sort of ravioli in tomato sauce. It was fine but nothing special. We probably won't go back.
Lolo - 3230 22nd St btwn Mission and Bartlett. Evidently it's a Turkish/Mediterranean-influenced tapas place (though it's really just appetizers and almost full size main dishes, so I'm not sure where the tapas comes in, except for them encouraging family style sharing). We quite enjoyed it - the food was interesting and good. We got the taco tropical (shrimp tacos) which were really tasty and interesting, the baked brie (which I think was actually fried) on some kind of fruity, slightly spicy, yummy sauce, and the pork chop with a kind of blue cheese butter on top that was really good.
The Little Chihuahua - 292 Divisadero btwn Page and Oak. Went here for brunch on Saturday. It's a Mexican place, with a brunch menu that had something I really wanted to try, the "Mexican French Toast". It's two pieces of flour tortilla, done french-toast style (dipped in an egg mixture and griddled), each wrapped around fried plantains and bacon, and served with maple-agave syrup. I think my bf and I could have shared one (though we both ended up finishing off our plates, so maybe not). I love fried plantains, so I quite enjoyed this, though there was a bit too much bacon for my taste after a while so I ended up pulling it out, while my bf found it odd to eat bacon inside his sweet brunch. The french toast-style tortillas were kind of like a mixture between a thin crepe and french toast. Definitely interesting to try (and I'm curious about their fried plantain and black bean burrito) but I'm not sure if I'd need to go again. Cute place, though, with good pico de gallo to go with their warm chips. My strawberry agua fresca was disappointingly watered down, but my bf seemed to enjoy his watermelon one, which was infused with bits of mint, more.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Food
I think I forgot to blog before about how I've started biking. My bf has biked to work for a year now, and is a huge advocate of biking everywhere and forgoing the bus or car. Not b/c he's super-green or anything, but b/c he doesn't have to wait for buses or deal with all the people on buses, and cars are too annoying to park in the city. He's been trying to get me to do it too, but I've been resisting b/c the last time I rode a bike, I was maybe 8, with a hand-me down bike with a banana seat, no gears, and no brakes. I tried riding his bike a couple years ago and almost slid into the bay (we were in Foster City on the trail, and yes that's an exaggeration) so I was very uncertain of the whole idea.
He finally talked me into it, though, and to make sure I stuck with it, bought me a bike for Christmas. The first weekend after getting the bike, we rode through Golden Gate Park both days of the weekend (after riding back and forth down the Panhandle for a while). The second weekend, we hit the streets and ended up biking to Sports Basement and to get ice cream in the Mission...and to get dinner all the way up at the Helmand Palace at Van Ness and Green... Totally wiped me out but made me a lot more confident of riding on the street. So, the next week (I think, I don't *think* I'm skipping a week) I found myself biking to work.
Except for one day last week where I was trying to follow my bf past two buses and a truck, the first bus started to pull out but stopped when she saw us, I shied away from the bus, and ended up getting caught in a cable car track and took a big spill on Market St, it's actually gone fairly smoothly. I ride with my bf always, which is good b/c 1) he knows where he's going and 2) he can signal while I'm not yet comfortable taking a hand off the handlebars. We've started taking Mission St to work the last couple days so I don't have to deal with dodging buses while cable car tracks loom to my left and freak me out. And I feel good that I'm getting some cardio in every day, whether I go to the gym or not.
Tonight, we were trying to find somewhere to eat dinner we could bike to. Being as how I don't bike uphill well at all, I was trying to keep it somewhere relatively unhilly to get to, which rules out most of SF =P. The Mission is flat from SOMA, though, so I found us Poc Chuc, a Mexican/Mayan place on 16th between Shotwell and S Van Ness that gets great reviews on Yelp. It was quite good! The food isn't presented in a way that seems in accordance with the prices and description in the menu - more like a plate of home-cooked food that doesn't look that elegant - but it was very tasty. By mentioning we found the place on Yelp, we got free fried plantains (yes!) which were yummy, though served with sour cream for some reason. So not necessary with the sweetness of the plantains. I got a duck dish served on a bed of Napa cabbage with tasty rice on the side, while my bf got a pork chop dish. In both cases, the dishes were just very yummy. It's funny,b/c the menu makes it sound like it's going to be another one of those midrange fancy-ish restaurants where the food looks pretty and might taste good, but it's not. I also got a really yummy huge horchata for $2, while my bf got a watermelon agua fresca he said was ok but didn't taste as fresh as the horchata. I think we'd very likely go back. Not the cheapest dinner but one of the better dinners we've had. There's some good food in the Mission.
He finally talked me into it, though, and to make sure I stuck with it, bought me a bike for Christmas. The first weekend after getting the bike, we rode through Golden Gate Park both days of the weekend (after riding back and forth down the Panhandle for a while). The second weekend, we hit the streets and ended up biking to Sports Basement and to get ice cream in the Mission...and to get dinner all the way up at the Helmand Palace at Van Ness and Green... Totally wiped me out but made me a lot more confident of riding on the street. So, the next week (I think, I don't *think* I'm skipping a week) I found myself biking to work.
Except for one day last week where I was trying to follow my bf past two buses and a truck, the first bus started to pull out but stopped when she saw us, I shied away from the bus, and ended up getting caught in a cable car track and took a big spill on Market St, it's actually gone fairly smoothly. I ride with my bf always, which is good b/c 1) he knows where he's going and 2) he can signal while I'm not yet comfortable taking a hand off the handlebars. We've started taking Mission St to work the last couple days so I don't have to deal with dodging buses while cable car tracks loom to my left and freak me out. And I feel good that I'm getting some cardio in every day, whether I go to the gym or not.
Tonight, we were trying to find somewhere to eat dinner we could bike to. Being as how I don't bike uphill well at all, I was trying to keep it somewhere relatively unhilly to get to, which rules out most of SF =P. The Mission is flat from SOMA, though, so I found us Poc Chuc, a Mexican/Mayan place on 16th between Shotwell and S Van Ness that gets great reviews on Yelp. It was quite good! The food isn't presented in a way that seems in accordance with the prices and description in the menu - more like a plate of home-cooked food that doesn't look that elegant - but it was very tasty. By mentioning we found the place on Yelp, we got free fried plantains (yes!) which were yummy, though served with sour cream for some reason. So not necessary with the sweetness of the plantains. I got a duck dish served on a bed of Napa cabbage with tasty rice on the side, while my bf got a pork chop dish. In both cases, the dishes were just very yummy. It's funny,b/c the menu makes it sound like it's going to be another one of those midrange fancy-ish restaurants where the food looks pretty and might taste good, but it's not. I also got a really yummy huge horchata for $2, while my bf got a watermelon agua fresca he said was ok but didn't taste as fresh as the horchata. I think we'd very likely go back. Not the cheapest dinner but one of the better dinners we've had. There's some good food in the Mission.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
2009!
Egads, I haven't posted in a long time. And it's 2009 already! Hm.
Well, some quick updates. Life since October, is it?
- First time ever I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years at home. As in, my own home, not my parents' home. I guess it makes it seem less like a holiday, but it sure beats going to work!
- Thanksgiving with the bf's parents in SF. Had the Four Seasons Thanksgiving buffet, which was fine, though I didn't eat any main courses. All appetizers and desserts for me. Also ate at Delfina in the Mission, which IMO is good but possibly overrated given how hard it is to get a reservation. The people in our party actually had trouble finding things they wanted to eat off the menu. Also ate at The House in North Beach again. I like the food there - the bf only likes the specials, evidently.
- When we weren't with the bf's parents, we stopped by the Bi-Rite Creamery at 18th and Dolores and discovered their ice cream is really really good. Very interesting flavors (my favorite is probably the Salted Caramel, though it combined with the Mexican Chocolate with salted peanuts was excellent), very interesting toppings (I love the caramelized graham crackers, though the peanut toffee was quite good if a little hard to chew after a while), and just downright yummy ice cream. Ended up having it for dinner the second time we went - and they remembered us from the night before! Gave us two stamps on our "buy 10 get 1 scoop free" card for the night before b/c they remembered us.
- We've gone out to eat a whole lot in the last 2 months, of course, but I can't remember where =P.
- Went to Jamaica the first week of January (Jan. 6-13). Had flight issues with US Air when they canceled our first flight from SF to Charlotte, rebooked the 6 people who were on one itinerary through Vegas 3 hours early, and rebooked me onto a SF->ORD->CLT->MBJ itinerary that would have gotten me in like 3 hours after originally planned. Because I didn't want to miss the pre-arranged shuttles from airport to villa, I rebooked onto a SF->ORD->CLT->MBJ itinerary that gave me a 41 minute layover in CLT. Oops. The ORD->CLT flight was supposedly leaving early and then sat on the runway for like 40 minutes and I ended up with a 20 minute layover in CLT. By booking it, I made my flight but of course my suitcase didn't. And my suitcase didn't arrive until late the next day. Luckily, my friends lent me spare shorts and short-sleeve shirt so I didn't have to wear my SF-winter jeans and long-sleeve shirt the whole time.
The trip itself was nice, though. We went for some friends' wedding - a low key affair without about 20 friends and family, total. They rented two villas at the Silver Sands resort, one of which slept 14 and was right on the ocean, the other only a door away. The villas came with house staff who cleaned and cooked for us, and would cook whatever we requested provided we provided them with ingredients. So thanks to some plotting by another friend, and a lot of leg work from my friends going to the fish market next door and going into Duncans, the nearby town, we were able to sample a whole range of Jamaican food. Jerk chicken and pork, of course, but also curried goat (which I liked a hell of a lot more than I expected given I hate lamb and gamy meats), oxtail, escovitch fish (red snapper, i think, prepared with vinegar and onions), another type of fish prepared with filets, lobster, conch fritters, corn festivals, johnnycakes, meat patties, and more that I probably have forgotten by now. They also made us desserts every night, so we had some delicious key lime pie, a lightly sweet coconut cream pie, rum cake, brownies, and chocolate cake. We even got to dine outdoors one night on tables they set up in the back yard, along with tiki torches and the beautiful full moon lighting everything up.
The villa also had a small pool off the main living area which our resident 18-month old loved splashing in, and a nearby swimming beach that stayed shallow very far out, with wonderfully warm, clear water to frolic in. We ended up not doing much of anything most of the time, sitting around the villa on our laptops, reading books, playing board games, watching movies, etc. I also spent a good bit of time becoming aforementioned 18-month-old's "enabler," the one he knew he could count on to pick him up and let him play with the light switches and electric fans endlessly. I guess I really am quite inclined to spoil children. I have to say though - he is really cute! Sigh... Anyway, on the Wednesday, we did go to Falmouth for their weekly flea market, reportedly the biggest market on the island. It was an interesting experience - not the least bit touristy at all, but instead clearly where the locals shopped for clothing, household goods, etc. There were aisles upon aisles of booths set up with all sorts of merchandise. Kind of like an open-air run-down mall. On Friday, I set up a trip to Ocho Rios and Dunn's River Falls via Silver Sands (having chosen Friday since there was no cruise ship in port that day). Ocho Rios itself was less than fascinating, especially since all we did there was walk to a Mother's Patties, have lunch, and walk back to the shuttle. The fern gully we drove through was more interesting though, having driven through the Pacific Northwest, not all that interesting. Though there were a lot of craft booths there, and I got a super-cute wooden crab with removable limbs there. Dunn's River Falls, though, was totally worth the trip. It was an activity entirely up my alley - don water shoes and start climbing up a series of falls in a river that spilled straight into the ocean. Playing in water, clambering up rocks, getting to slide down a natural waterslide or do a trust fall backwards into a deep pool of cool water... I loved every minute of it. Didn't even think the water was that cold, though others would definitely disagree. My only complaint is it was too short! 45 minutes flew by and we were at the top of the climbing area. Also a plus was that the guide we got didn't make us hold hands in a daisy chain like they typically do, so we were able to hold onto the rocks and climb at our own pace, more or less. All in all, it was a good trip. Very relaxing. And having the ocean right outside our window was beautiful. Oh, and the wedding was really nice too! =)
- For Christmas, my parents visited SF. My bf cooked Christmas dinner - delicious tenderloin roast with chimichurri sauce, green beans with walnuts in a maple/citrus glaze, baby arugula salad with roasted pears, cheese, and nuts, and a very dense, yummy chocolate cake. It was a huge hit, even with my parents who tend to prefer Asian cuisine. We opened a slew of presents (which quite overwhelmed my bf), played Lips, the new Xbox360 karaoke game, and just had a nice time together. While they were here, we also ate at R&G Lounge, which is one of the few places I'll go through the effort of eating crab b/c their salt and pepper crab is so delicious, Dragonfly, the Vietnamese restaurant my bf has declared just an overall good find b/c we've liked every dish we've tried there, it's not too crowded, and it's not too expensive, Kiji, the sushi restaurant in the Mission with quite yummy fish and rolls, and Esperpento, a tapas place in the Mission that turned out to be super-yummy. My bf said it was like a good, home-style tapas place - nothing too fancy or pretentious, just yummy comfort food, Spanish-style, which was all very tasty.
- Saw the Phantom of the Opera at the Orpheum. I used to listen to the soundtrack incessantly when I was like 8 or 10, but I'd only seen the actual stage show once, from stools behind the back row in Toronto. I'd forgotten how incredibly melodramatic that musical is. The Phantom I saw had a wonderful voice, but was a terrible overactor so it was hard to watch him (as opposed to listen to him). The Christine had a good voice and was quite pretty, but she was a little too Cosette-like in the quality of her voice at times, and I don't like Cosette. Plus, it's such a thankless role playing the head-in-the-clouds, terrified-half-the-time character of Christine. Raoul was fine, Carlotta was fine, Piangi had a weak voice but good comic form. I did like the Madame Giry, and Mssrs Andre and Firmin quite a lot though. We were sitting close enough for the chandelier to be right above our heads before it got pulled into the stage when it came down, but the effect was less than impressive, IMO. Too jerky, too obviously on ropes. Ah well. Now I know I don't need to see Phantom again - some good songs but far too melodramatic for my taste, no characters I can sympathize with, and several songs where you can't tell what the hell is going on...oh and several songs that go on too long. My childhood obsession with Les Miz has held up over time. Not so much the Phantom.
- New Years was a low key affair at a friends' house. Hot pot, good company, playing with aforementioned 18-month-old, Speed Racer, and catching the ball drop 10 seconds before it dropped. Oh and super yummy, way too rich dulce de leche cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.
- Doctor Who Christmas Special - yay! New Doctor...er...yay? Sad to see old Doctor go. Warily giving new Doctor room for doubt...
And now I'm back at work. =)
Well, some quick updates. Life since October, is it?
- First time ever I spent both Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years at home. As in, my own home, not my parents' home. I guess it makes it seem less like a holiday, but it sure beats going to work!
- Thanksgiving with the bf's parents in SF. Had the Four Seasons Thanksgiving buffet, which was fine, though I didn't eat any main courses. All appetizers and desserts for me. Also ate at Delfina in the Mission, which IMO is good but possibly overrated given how hard it is to get a reservation. The people in our party actually had trouble finding things they wanted to eat off the menu. Also ate at The House in North Beach again. I like the food there - the bf only likes the specials, evidently.
- When we weren't with the bf's parents, we stopped by the Bi-Rite Creamery at 18th and Dolores and discovered their ice cream is really really good. Very interesting flavors (my favorite is probably the Salted Caramel, though it combined with the Mexican Chocolate with salted peanuts was excellent), very interesting toppings (I love the caramelized graham crackers, though the peanut toffee was quite good if a little hard to chew after a while), and just downright yummy ice cream. Ended up having it for dinner the second time we went - and they remembered us from the night before! Gave us two stamps on our "buy 10 get 1 scoop free" card for the night before b/c they remembered us.
- We've gone out to eat a whole lot in the last 2 months, of course, but I can't remember where =P.
- Went to Jamaica the first week of January (Jan. 6-13). Had flight issues with US Air when they canceled our first flight from SF to Charlotte, rebooked the 6 people who were on one itinerary through Vegas 3 hours early, and rebooked me onto a SF->ORD->CLT->MBJ itinerary that would have gotten me in like 3 hours after originally planned. Because I didn't want to miss the pre-arranged shuttles from airport to villa, I rebooked onto a SF->ORD->CLT->MBJ itinerary that gave me a 41 minute layover in CLT. Oops. The ORD->CLT flight was supposedly leaving early and then sat on the runway for like 40 minutes and I ended up with a 20 minute layover in CLT. By booking it, I made my flight but of course my suitcase didn't. And my suitcase didn't arrive until late the next day. Luckily, my friends lent me spare shorts and short-sleeve shirt so I didn't have to wear my SF-winter jeans and long-sleeve shirt the whole time.
The trip itself was nice, though. We went for some friends' wedding - a low key affair without about 20 friends and family, total. They rented two villas at the Silver Sands resort, one of which slept 14 and was right on the ocean, the other only a door away. The villas came with house staff who cleaned and cooked for us, and would cook whatever we requested provided we provided them with ingredients. So thanks to some plotting by another friend, and a lot of leg work from my friends going to the fish market next door and going into Duncans, the nearby town, we were able to sample a whole range of Jamaican food. Jerk chicken and pork, of course, but also curried goat (which I liked a hell of a lot more than I expected given I hate lamb and gamy meats), oxtail, escovitch fish (red snapper, i think, prepared with vinegar and onions), another type of fish prepared with filets, lobster, conch fritters, corn festivals, johnnycakes, meat patties, and more that I probably have forgotten by now. They also made us desserts every night, so we had some delicious key lime pie, a lightly sweet coconut cream pie, rum cake, brownies, and chocolate cake. We even got to dine outdoors one night on tables they set up in the back yard, along with tiki torches and the beautiful full moon lighting everything up.
The villa also had a small pool off the main living area which our resident 18-month old loved splashing in, and a nearby swimming beach that stayed shallow very far out, with wonderfully warm, clear water to frolic in. We ended up not doing much of anything most of the time, sitting around the villa on our laptops, reading books, playing board games, watching movies, etc. I also spent a good bit of time becoming aforementioned 18-month-old's "enabler," the one he knew he could count on to pick him up and let him play with the light switches and electric fans endlessly. I guess I really am quite inclined to spoil children. I have to say though - he is really cute! Sigh... Anyway, on the Wednesday, we did go to Falmouth for their weekly flea market, reportedly the biggest market on the island. It was an interesting experience - not the least bit touristy at all, but instead clearly where the locals shopped for clothing, household goods, etc. There were aisles upon aisles of booths set up with all sorts of merchandise. Kind of like an open-air run-down mall. On Friday, I set up a trip to Ocho Rios and Dunn's River Falls via Silver Sands (having chosen Friday since there was no cruise ship in port that day). Ocho Rios itself was less than fascinating, especially since all we did there was walk to a Mother's Patties, have lunch, and walk back to the shuttle. The fern gully we drove through was more interesting though, having driven through the Pacific Northwest, not all that interesting. Though there were a lot of craft booths there, and I got a super-cute wooden crab with removable limbs there. Dunn's River Falls, though, was totally worth the trip. It was an activity entirely up my alley - don water shoes and start climbing up a series of falls in a river that spilled straight into the ocean. Playing in water, clambering up rocks, getting to slide down a natural waterslide or do a trust fall backwards into a deep pool of cool water... I loved every minute of it. Didn't even think the water was that cold, though others would definitely disagree. My only complaint is it was too short! 45 minutes flew by and we were at the top of the climbing area. Also a plus was that the guide we got didn't make us hold hands in a daisy chain like they typically do, so we were able to hold onto the rocks and climb at our own pace, more or less. All in all, it was a good trip. Very relaxing. And having the ocean right outside our window was beautiful. Oh, and the wedding was really nice too! =)
- For Christmas, my parents visited SF. My bf cooked Christmas dinner - delicious tenderloin roast with chimichurri sauce, green beans with walnuts in a maple/citrus glaze, baby arugula salad with roasted pears, cheese, and nuts, and a very dense, yummy chocolate cake. It was a huge hit, even with my parents who tend to prefer Asian cuisine. We opened a slew of presents (which quite overwhelmed my bf), played Lips, the new Xbox360 karaoke game, and just had a nice time together. While they were here, we also ate at R&G Lounge, which is one of the few places I'll go through the effort of eating crab b/c their salt and pepper crab is so delicious, Dragonfly, the Vietnamese restaurant my bf has declared just an overall good find b/c we've liked every dish we've tried there, it's not too crowded, and it's not too expensive, Kiji, the sushi restaurant in the Mission with quite yummy fish and rolls, and Esperpento, a tapas place in the Mission that turned out to be super-yummy. My bf said it was like a good, home-style tapas place - nothing too fancy or pretentious, just yummy comfort food, Spanish-style, which was all very tasty.
- Saw the Phantom of the Opera at the Orpheum. I used to listen to the soundtrack incessantly when I was like 8 or 10, but I'd only seen the actual stage show once, from stools behind the back row in Toronto. I'd forgotten how incredibly melodramatic that musical is. The Phantom I saw had a wonderful voice, but was a terrible overactor so it was hard to watch him (as opposed to listen to him). The Christine had a good voice and was quite pretty, but she was a little too Cosette-like in the quality of her voice at times, and I don't like Cosette. Plus, it's such a thankless role playing the head-in-the-clouds, terrified-half-the-time character of Christine. Raoul was fine, Carlotta was fine, Piangi had a weak voice but good comic form. I did like the Madame Giry, and Mssrs Andre and Firmin quite a lot though. We were sitting close enough for the chandelier to be right above our heads before it got pulled into the stage when it came down, but the effect was less than impressive, IMO. Too jerky, too obviously on ropes. Ah well. Now I know I don't need to see Phantom again - some good songs but far too melodramatic for my taste, no characters I can sympathize with, and several songs where you can't tell what the hell is going on...oh and several songs that go on too long. My childhood obsession with Les Miz has held up over time. Not so much the Phantom.
- New Years was a low key affair at a friends' house. Hot pot, good company, playing with aforementioned 18-month-old, Speed Racer, and catching the ball drop 10 seconds before it dropped. Oh and super yummy, way too rich dulce de leche cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory.
- Doctor Who Christmas Special - yay! New Doctor...er...yay? Sad to see old Doctor go. Warily giving new Doctor room for doubt...
And now I'm back at work. =)
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