I had no particular plans for the 4th of July this year, so when a friend called me up the night before and asked if my bf and I wanted to go hiking, we were all for it.
The particular hike we did was the Matt Davis/Steep Ravine/Dipsea Loop in the Mount Tamalpais State Park. It started at Stinson Beach, climbed up through the trees and the hill (mountain?) side, up and up...before looping around and descending again. The total loop was 7.3 miles of moderate hiking - enough to test my lungs and burning thighs on the ascent, and to stress my knees on the descent, but not challenging to anything except my fitness level.
The hike was quite nice. The initial part of the day was foggy and damp, with the trees periodically crying on us, and the views almost nonexistent in the shifting layers of fog and cloud. That actually worked quite well, though, since it coincided with the climbing part of the hike, so we didn't get too hot or worn out. Also, that part of the hike went up and up through trees and forest that at times felt like the Costa Rican cloudforest (lots of moss and ferns and twisted trees..not enough ephiphytes) so the clouds through the trees looked quite neat, while there wasn't much of a view (I don't think) because the trees blocked the way. We eventually broke the tree line (or something) and ended up hiking across what seemed like golden (yellow) fields (or ridges) of wheat (not actually wheat), periodically broken by stands of trees. We chose to lunch around 2pm in a flat spot on one of these sections, breaking out the various sandwich making goods, salami, trail mix, fruit, and other stuff we'd carried along, and taking a nice long rest. After lunch, the day started clearing up, and on our descent we found ourselves going through sun and bright blue skies. For a while, we were still in the woods, which were charming with the babbling brooks, fallen trees lying picturesquely across the brooks (or the paths, where they had been sawed off to allow people to pass), and tall trees. At one point, we had to descend a ladder along the side of a brook to get to the next part of the trail. Eventually we came out of the woods to descend down a gentle hill that sloped back towards Stinson Beach, with beautiful views of the beach and the bay behind it.
Overall, the hike was a beautiful one, though tough on my weak knees, and it was a nice way to spend the day. Of course, we were pretty well wiped out by the end of it, and ended up staying in and not seeing any fireworks. But that was totally fine with me.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Biscuity goodness
For the longest time, I've wanted to go to Brenda's Soul Food Cafe. The only time I actually physically got to the door, I found out they weren't open on Sundays. This week, since I'm not working, I've been determined to get myself to this restaurant to try out their "beignet flight," but discovered that it's now open on Sundays but *not* open on Tuesdays, my original planned day to visit.
Argh!
*Finally* I got myself there today, after deciding to postpone my workout until the afternoon and forget all the other projects I was hoping to get done today.
Was it all it was hyped up to be? Well, I can't completely answer that, since I only had the beignets and a biscuit, and none of the other food people rave over (po'boys, croque monsieur, gumbo, pancakes, french toast, grits and grillades, etc etc). The wait wasn't nearly as bad as people made it sound - I was there at 1pm, had maybe 5 people ahead of me, had to wait maybe 10 minutes, and then was quickly seated at the first available table (to my feeling of guilt - there was a couple behind me, yet I was one person seated at a table that could fit 3 - they later very apologetically asked if I'd be willing to move to a 2-person table, and I happily did so). The place seats 30 max (I counted) at several tables and one counter. The service was very friendly - all 3 waiters/waitresses had smiles whenever they walked by, and were very nice.
As for the food? Well I've only had beignets once before, at the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, and actually wasn't all that impressed there. I think beignets are not really my thing. To my surprise, my very favorite beignet was the first I ate - the savory crawfish beignet. It wasn't at all spicy, but it was warm, salty, cheesy, and tasty, and I enjoyed every last bite. I didn't at all expect that b/c I'm a sweets lover and not a huge crawfish fan. As for the rest of the beignets... the Cafe du Monde beignet was fluffy and soft and spilled powdered sugar *everywhere*. The ones at Brenda's were fried in a more crispy way, and a couple of them had somewhat hard edges. This helped them to retain their structural integrity *and* keep the powdered topping on, but did change the texture somewhat. The plain beignet with sugar on top was fine, and made better by adding the homemade jam on the table. The chocolate one was all right, the apple cinnamon one was all right..neither was particularly special. Not bad, mind you, just not amazing. If I were to go back and order beignets again, I think I'd order the crawfish one...and maybe not the others. But like I said, I'm not a connoisseur of beignets - I didn't even like the one at the source of supposedly the best beignets ever in New Orleans.
After I finished my beignets, I wrestled my conscience a bit and then ordered a biscuit because people had raved about them and the photo on the website: Brenda's Soul Food looked delectable. Turned out to be a very good decision for my taste buds, if not my stomach. That was the best biscuit I ever had - warm, flaky, buttery, oh-so-subtly sweet, and delicious. I added a little bit of jam at one point but it was so very good by itself. Didn't need the butter pat at all. I was stuffed when I was done but so happy to have gotten the biscuit. Wow that was good. I also got the watermelon sweet tea, and despite not being the hugest fan of watermelons *or* tea, really enjoyed it. It's a subtly sweet, refreshing drink.
All-in-all, I'm kind of wishing I got the croque monsieur or the bbq chicken po'boy on the specials menu instead of the beignets, but I'm glad I tried them to satisfy my curiousity. The food seems as good as advertised, and I'd love to try something else there... BTW by 2pm (it closes at 3) there was pretty much no wait. They're open 8-3pm every day except Tuesday. Must try them again...
Argh!
*Finally* I got myself there today, after deciding to postpone my workout until the afternoon and forget all the other projects I was hoping to get done today.
Was it all it was hyped up to be? Well, I can't completely answer that, since I only had the beignets and a biscuit, and none of the other food people rave over (po'boys, croque monsieur, gumbo, pancakes, french toast, grits and grillades, etc etc). The wait wasn't nearly as bad as people made it sound - I was there at 1pm, had maybe 5 people ahead of me, had to wait maybe 10 minutes, and then was quickly seated at the first available table (to my feeling of guilt - there was a couple behind me, yet I was one person seated at a table that could fit 3 - they later very apologetically asked if I'd be willing to move to a 2-person table, and I happily did so). The place seats 30 max (I counted) at several tables and one counter. The service was very friendly - all 3 waiters/waitresses had smiles whenever they walked by, and were very nice.
As for the food? Well I've only had beignets once before, at the Cafe du Monde in New Orleans, and actually wasn't all that impressed there. I think beignets are not really my thing. To my surprise, my very favorite beignet was the first I ate - the savory crawfish beignet. It wasn't at all spicy, but it was warm, salty, cheesy, and tasty, and I enjoyed every last bite. I didn't at all expect that b/c I'm a sweets lover and not a huge crawfish fan. As for the rest of the beignets... the Cafe du Monde beignet was fluffy and soft and spilled powdered sugar *everywhere*. The ones at Brenda's were fried in a more crispy way, and a couple of them had somewhat hard edges. This helped them to retain their structural integrity *and* keep the powdered topping on, but did change the texture somewhat. The plain beignet with sugar on top was fine, and made better by adding the homemade jam on the table. The chocolate one was all right, the apple cinnamon one was all right..neither was particularly special. Not bad, mind you, just not amazing. If I were to go back and order beignets again, I think I'd order the crawfish one...and maybe not the others. But like I said, I'm not a connoisseur of beignets - I didn't even like the one at the source of supposedly the best beignets ever in New Orleans.
After I finished my beignets, I wrestled my conscience a bit and then ordered a biscuit because people had raved about them and the photo on the website: Brenda's Soul Food looked delectable. Turned out to be a very good decision for my taste buds, if not my stomach. That was the best biscuit I ever had - warm, flaky, buttery, oh-so-subtly sweet, and delicious. I added a little bit of jam at one point but it was so very good by itself. Didn't need the butter pat at all. I was stuffed when I was done but so happy to have gotten the biscuit. Wow that was good. I also got the watermelon sweet tea, and despite not being the hugest fan of watermelons *or* tea, really enjoyed it. It's a subtly sweet, refreshing drink.
All-in-all, I'm kind of wishing I got the croque monsieur or the bbq chicken po'boy on the specials menu instead of the beignets, but I'm glad I tried them to satisfy my curiousity. The food seems as good as advertised, and I'd love to try something else there... BTW by 2pm (it closes at 3) there was pretty much no wait. They're open 8-3pm every day except Tuesday. Must try them again...
Monday, June 30, 2008
Seattle living
After almost 7 years at my first job out of college, I finally left to try something new. My last day of work was June 20, and I don't start my new job until July 7, so I'm in the middle of two weeks of downtime. Most people seem to think I should be taking a vacation, relaxing, whatever, but I just keep thinking about how many projects I want to get done that I usually don't have time to do, and how little time I have left to do them!
Of course, that didn't stop me from taking off on a moment's notice to visit my sister in her new digs in Seattle (Redmond, actually). She just started work on *her* first job out of college on Monday. My mom was there with her the first week before she started work to help find an apartment, buy furniture, etc. I went up when I found a $159 fare on Virgin America for Wed through Sat ... on Tuesday. Virgin America is kind of nice - brand new planes (with odd blue and purple lighting), in-seat entertainment units with 20 channels (and ability to order food from your seat, though I didn't use that), cheap fares... I may be using them a bunch to visit my sister, though the really cheap fares seem to be (of course) midweek.
Unfortunately, my sister doesn't have internet hooked up in her new apartment yet - Comcast won't hook it up until she has a TV for them to test the cable (she got a combination package). I was planning on spending my days while she was at work at the library using their free wi-fi to work on my webpage, but somehow spent most of my time researching TVs for her, driving down to Costco and Fry's, researching the TVs online, buying the TV, turning around and exchanging it for the larger one... Ah well. I did finally fulfill a longtime goal - every time I visit Seattle I want to visit Sushi Land, a sushi place my bf told me about years ago when he was contracting with a company in Bellevue, but I've never been able to make it happen. I finally did, and discovered why my bf was so happy with the place. It was one of those places with a long conveyor belt with the sushi traveling by you, and the prices set by the color of the plate. The prices? $1, $1.50, $2, and $3. The fish was good, too - maybe not the very best fish ever, but fresh and tasty and fine with me. I had sake, maguro, and tamago nigiri, two rolls (tuna & cream cheese, shrimp tempura), and sesame balls for $10. If I wasn't waiting for the sesame balls to travel around the room (I was near the kitchen, but the belt flowed in the other direction), I could have finished my lunch in about 20 minutes. Great turnover for them! We also went to Jeem Asian Restaurant in the Safeway plaza in Redmond one night (we needed dinner around 9:30pm) which didn't look very hopeful from the outside but turned out to be quite an interesting Chinese restaurant inside - extensive menu with interesting and different looking dishes on it. We got strawberry spareribs (yum) and beef tenderloin udon with satay sauce (pretty good - my sister liked it more than me). Got lunch at Noodle Land, a Thai restaurant in the Redmond town center that was quite yummy as well - good pad thai that came with every lunch combo.
Oddly, on Friday afternoon, we were driving back to my sister's apartment so she could help me carry her new TV into her apartment, and we saw a firetruck with sirens and lights blazing coming out of her apartment complex's driveway. I thought it odd to have the lights on coming *out* of a place and asked if they had a fire station in her complex - no - and then joked maybe they meant to go to the Avalon complex next door and went in the wrong driveway. Imagine my surprise and chagrin when we got out of the car, looked back, and discovered a big plume of black smoke coming out of the Avalon complex... I guess I was more right than I knew! I don't know what happened but it seemed to be a pretty big fire, judging from the amount of smoke. I think they got it under control pretty fast after they responded, but yeesh.
I got back from Seattle Saturday night just in time to go to a friend's 30th birthday party - a rather elaborate deal with hired blackjack/craps/roulette dealers and catered food since he loves gambling, that was quite fun. Beforehand, we went to dinner at Acquapazza Ristorante, an Italian restaurant in San Mateo. I liked my dish - Strozzapreti - pasta with prosciutto, mushrooms, and peas in cream sauce - but my bf was less than impressed with his veal parmigian - he said it was overly breaded.
For lunch yesterday, I returned to Frjtz's to try the two crepes I was curious about - the one with roasted pears, nutella, toasted almonds and whipped cream, and the one with the roasted pineapple, toasted coconut, etc. Neither were particularly interesting so my curiousity about Frjtz's is pretty well satisfied, and I'm likely to never go back. For dinner, I went to Kitchen Kura, a little restaurant on Irving between 16th and 17th that servers homestyle Japanese food. I loved it - they have a list of entrees, where you pick two and get a whole meal of 2 entrees, an appetizer, a salad, miso soup, and green tea for $10.50, or a la carte options. I picked the sukiyaki (which I was craving all day) and nanban chicken (deep fried chicken that was lightly breaded and lightly fried but unfortunately a bit tasteless for my taste and too much fried food after a while). My bf picked the white butter shoyu fish - mahimahi with onion and zucchini in a butter soy sauce and the nanban chicken. Given the choice again I would have totally gotten the sukiyaki and fish - both came with a delicious sweet salty sauce that I loved. Totally hit the spot and was what I was craving yesterday. Unfortunately, my bf only likes sushi when it comes to Japanese food, we've realized - not fond of noodles or the other dishes - so he didn't particularly enjoy it. Guess I can only go back when he's not around!
Of course, that didn't stop me from taking off on a moment's notice to visit my sister in her new digs in Seattle (Redmond, actually). She just started work on *her* first job out of college on Monday. My mom was there with her the first week before she started work to help find an apartment, buy furniture, etc. I went up when I found a $159 fare on Virgin America for Wed through Sat ... on Tuesday. Virgin America is kind of nice - brand new planes (with odd blue and purple lighting), in-seat entertainment units with 20 channels (and ability to order food from your seat, though I didn't use that), cheap fares... I may be using them a bunch to visit my sister, though the really cheap fares seem to be (of course) midweek.
Unfortunately, my sister doesn't have internet hooked up in her new apartment yet - Comcast won't hook it up until she has a TV for them to test the cable (she got a combination package). I was planning on spending my days while she was at work at the library using their free wi-fi to work on my webpage, but somehow spent most of my time researching TVs for her, driving down to Costco and Fry's, researching the TVs online, buying the TV, turning around and exchanging it for the larger one... Ah well. I did finally fulfill a longtime goal - every time I visit Seattle I want to visit Sushi Land, a sushi place my bf told me about years ago when he was contracting with a company in Bellevue, but I've never been able to make it happen. I finally did, and discovered why my bf was so happy with the place. It was one of those places with a long conveyor belt with the sushi traveling by you, and the prices set by the color of the plate. The prices? $1, $1.50, $2, and $3. The fish was good, too - maybe not the very best fish ever, but fresh and tasty and fine with me. I had sake, maguro, and tamago nigiri, two rolls (tuna & cream cheese, shrimp tempura), and sesame balls for $10. If I wasn't waiting for the sesame balls to travel around the room (I was near the kitchen, but the belt flowed in the other direction), I could have finished my lunch in about 20 minutes. Great turnover for them! We also went to Jeem Asian Restaurant in the Safeway plaza in Redmond one night (we needed dinner around 9:30pm) which didn't look very hopeful from the outside but turned out to be quite an interesting Chinese restaurant inside - extensive menu with interesting and different looking dishes on it. We got strawberry spareribs (yum) and beef tenderloin udon with satay sauce (pretty good - my sister liked it more than me). Got lunch at Noodle Land, a Thai restaurant in the Redmond town center that was quite yummy as well - good pad thai that came with every lunch combo.
Oddly, on Friday afternoon, we were driving back to my sister's apartment so she could help me carry her new TV into her apartment, and we saw a firetruck with sirens and lights blazing coming out of her apartment complex's driveway. I thought it odd to have the lights on coming *out* of a place and asked if they had a fire station in her complex - no - and then joked maybe they meant to go to the Avalon complex next door and went in the wrong driveway. Imagine my surprise and chagrin when we got out of the car, looked back, and discovered a big plume of black smoke coming out of the Avalon complex... I guess I was more right than I knew! I don't know what happened but it seemed to be a pretty big fire, judging from the amount of smoke. I think they got it under control pretty fast after they responded, but yeesh.
I got back from Seattle Saturday night just in time to go to a friend's 30th birthday party - a rather elaborate deal with hired blackjack/craps/roulette dealers and catered food since he loves gambling, that was quite fun. Beforehand, we went to dinner at Acquapazza Ristorante, an Italian restaurant in San Mateo. I liked my dish - Strozzapreti - pasta with prosciutto, mushrooms, and peas in cream sauce - but my bf was less than impressed with his veal parmigian - he said it was overly breaded.
For lunch yesterday, I returned to Frjtz's to try the two crepes I was curious about - the one with roasted pears, nutella, toasted almonds and whipped cream, and the one with the roasted pineapple, toasted coconut, etc. Neither were particularly interesting so my curiousity about Frjtz's is pretty well satisfied, and I'm likely to never go back. For dinner, I went to Kitchen Kura, a little restaurant on Irving between 16th and 17th that servers homestyle Japanese food. I loved it - they have a list of entrees, where you pick two and get a whole meal of 2 entrees, an appetizer, a salad, miso soup, and green tea for $10.50, or a la carte options. I picked the sukiyaki (which I was craving all day) and nanban chicken (deep fried chicken that was lightly breaded and lightly fried but unfortunately a bit tasteless for my taste and too much fried food after a while). My bf picked the white butter shoyu fish - mahimahi with onion and zucchini in a butter soy sauce and the nanban chicken. Given the choice again I would have totally gotten the sukiyaki and fish - both came with a delicious sweet salty sauce that I loved. Totally hit the spot and was what I was craving yesterday. Unfortunately, my bf only likes sushi when it comes to Japanese food, we've realized - not fond of noodles or the other dishes - so he didn't particularly enjoy it. Guess I can only go back when he's not around!
Friday, June 13, 2008
Food, fun, and music
It seems like recently I have weeks where nothing happens, and then weeks where I have three nights in a row of plans (which, for me, is a lot).
Tuesday night a couple friends, my bf, and I met for a belated birthday dinner for my bf. We decided to go to One Market, right by the Ferry Building, for their Dine About Town. The restaurant is quite big and airy, and has a nice feel to it with big windows that overlook the ferry building, and big tables with long benches in the booths. Yelp claims it's "dressy" but we didn't feel out of place in our jeans. Three of us went for the DAT menu, with two of us getting the exact same thing - spring vegetable mix salad, braised Berkshire pork spareribs, and fresh strawberry/grand marnier trifle. The third one got the black bean soup, skatewing, and the trifle. My bf decided to do something different and got the duck breast off the regular menu, and, I think, the Valrhona Organic Chocolate Tart for dessert. My bf loved his food - the duck breast was excellent - good texture, great taste - and came with a vanilla sweet potato puree he loved. My friend and I both liked the spring vegetable salad, which consisted of asparagus, carrots, peas, beans, and other spring vegetables, I believe steamed, and in a balsamic vinaigrette. The pork spareribs were good, though in my opinion nothing exceptional. The dessert was excellent - layers of strawberries, grand marnier-infused cream, and a kind of spongy cake, that was all very tasty. The black bean soup my friend got was poured into a bowl with calamari, lime, and cilantro in the middle - it looked really thick, like a black been puree. He said he liked the spring vegetable salad better, but I'm not sure if that meant he disliked the soup. The skatewing was evidently good as well. My bf says he'd definitely go back.
Wednesday night, we met another group of friends for dinner at Foreign Cinema at 21st and Mission, again for Dine About Town. And again, my bf didn't get the DAT option. I did, getting the Marin mixed lettuce salad (yummy and fresh but nothing special), the salmon (buttery and lemony, and quite good), and the lemon creme brulee (which I traded for my bf's apricot crisp, which was disappointing but largely b/c I don't think I like apricots). My bf got the lamb (I think), which he said was fine. Several of our friends got the fried paprika chicken (at least one of them not realizing it was fried chicken) which I hear was very tasty (though $18 fried chicken had better be good!). We sat indoors, rather than outdoors, so we didn't get to see the cinema part of the foreign cinema. The restaurant was charming enough (we sat at a large wood table rather than a white tablecloth-covered table like smaller tables) and the food was pretty good.
Thursday night, we went to see Hairspray at the Orpheum Theater. My bf and I first stopped at Bossa Nova, a Brazilian restaurant at 8th St and Minna, only a block and a half from the theater. It's a cute place that I almost walked by, b/c they don't have any signs that stick out and it's not large. It's got a nice airy feel to it, though, with windows bringing in the sunshine and the door open to let in the breeze (it was a nice day). I think the Bossa Nova is more about the drinks than the food - extensive drink menu, smaller dinner menu - but the food was quite good. My bf got the flat iron steak "grande" plate which was very yummy with a great texture to the meat. It came with potato wedges that were quite flavorful and crispy, which was nice. He also ordered a side of fried plantain chips, but expected something different than plantains fried like potato chips (we've had too many fried plantains in Costa Rica that were not fried into dryness). I got the small plate of the ribeye on two skewers with 3 sauces (mango, green tomato, and bell pepper - I liked the mango the best). The flavor was good, and some of the pieces were nice and tender and yummy, but others were extremely chewy and hard to eat. The flatiron steak was definitely better. I also got a side of chicken croquettes which were in the shape of Hershey kisses (but larger), and had fried exteriors I couldn't stab my fork through, but were quite yummy to pick up, dip, and eat. Overall, we liked the meal and thought the food was well done.
Seeing Hairspray was a great deal of fun. I didn't know much at all about the musical going in - I knew it was John Waters, and had some iteration of movies to musicals to movies to musicals in its history, and had a man dressed up as the mother, and a "plus-sized" girl as the lead who wanted to dance, but I didn't know anything beyond that. Not the music, not most of the plot, nothing. The show was excellent! It's been a long time since I saw a musical in the old tradition of song and dance - usually these days it's heavy plotting, lots of dialogue, or maybe sung-through but without the dance (like Les Miz). I was blown away by the cast - they must be exhausted night after night! It's not a large cast and they're on stage practically every song, energetically dancing and jumping and twirling and singing. The music was great, the comedy was fun (with cute little character moments and nuances that enhanced the comedy), the performances were excellent (especially the girl playing Penny, Tracy's best friend, Sharon Malane - who was comedically perfect, always bringing something to the scene even when she was in the background), and the dancing was incredibly energetic and always on. I enjoyed a lot of the singing - Taylor Frey, who played Link the love interest, looked like a very young Ben Affleck but with much better moves and a lovely singing voice, the woman playing Motormouth Maybelle (whose name I didn't look up) had a commanding presence in her rallying song, and I thought in general the vocal performances were very smooth. My one issue was that Tracy is supposed to be an excellent dancer but she didn't impress all that much, particularly in front of that highly energetic cast (especially Link/Taylor, who seemed to put twice as much energy into every dance move), but she led the cast nicely and the rest of her performance was good. The show was a lot of fun and I'm very glad I went. Little piece of advice for people who may go in the future though - 3rd row center orchestra are great seats, except they're almost *too* close - you can see the makeup, and the forehead mikes, and stuff a little too closely, and it's harder to keep an eye on the dance as a whole as opposed to the individual dancers who may actually be looking directly at you while they perform. But how can I complain about getting such good seats? That was a fun night at a theater, and I highly recommend it to anyone.
Oh before I forget, I finally got to Frjtz's in Hayes Valley after it reopened. I've been wanting to go there for a while since I think I like Belgian food, even though they basically just have Belgian fries. Reading the Yelp reviews, people kept talking about getting hairs in their fries, which didn't make any sense to me but sure enough... We'd been eating fries for a while and then I stopped to take a closer look at one, and discovered these curly black hairs fried into the side of the fries. Gross..and strange. Every other fry I picked up after that had the same. I'm not convinced it's human hair, because how could anyone shed *that* much hair into the fryer, but I don't know what it is. Maybe the fries aren't peeled all the way and it's the bits of roots that start growing out of older potatoes, shriveled up in the frying oil?? Who knows. It did put my appetite off for the fries though. Which is fine, I keep ordering fries thinking I want them and I keep not wanting to finish them - the Frjtz fries were nothing special. We got two dipping sauces - ponzu ketchup and the smokey honey-mustard. The ponzu taste was way too strong in the former, and it wasn't a very good ponzu, while the mustard part of the smokey honey-mustard was too strong for this honey mustard-loving, regular mustard-hating girl. Disappointing. My food was better - I got the Velasquez sandwich, which was basically an open face sandwich on a thick slice of foccacia with lots of prosciutto (almost too much in places), mozzarella, roasted pineapple (so yummy) and roasted pepper mayo. Quite enjoyed that. My bf got a savory crepe, I forget which one, and seemed to like it. I really want to try the dessert crepes though - there's a roasted pineapple one, a caramelized apple one, and a roasted pear one, all of which look really really good. We were too full that day..maybe sometime in the future I'll come back for crepes but *not* fries.
Tuesday night a couple friends, my bf, and I met for a belated birthday dinner for my bf. We decided to go to One Market, right by the Ferry Building, for their Dine About Town. The restaurant is quite big and airy, and has a nice feel to it with big windows that overlook the ferry building, and big tables with long benches in the booths. Yelp claims it's "dressy" but we didn't feel out of place in our jeans. Three of us went for the DAT menu, with two of us getting the exact same thing - spring vegetable mix salad, braised Berkshire pork spareribs, and fresh strawberry/grand marnier trifle. The third one got the black bean soup, skatewing, and the trifle. My bf decided to do something different and got the duck breast off the regular menu, and, I think, the Valrhona Organic Chocolate Tart for dessert. My bf loved his food - the duck breast was excellent - good texture, great taste - and came with a vanilla sweet potato puree he loved. My friend and I both liked the spring vegetable salad, which consisted of asparagus, carrots, peas, beans, and other spring vegetables, I believe steamed, and in a balsamic vinaigrette. The pork spareribs were good, though in my opinion nothing exceptional. The dessert was excellent - layers of strawberries, grand marnier-infused cream, and a kind of spongy cake, that was all very tasty. The black bean soup my friend got was poured into a bowl with calamari, lime, and cilantro in the middle - it looked really thick, like a black been puree. He said he liked the spring vegetable salad better, but I'm not sure if that meant he disliked the soup. The skatewing was evidently good as well. My bf says he'd definitely go back.
Wednesday night, we met another group of friends for dinner at Foreign Cinema at 21st and Mission, again for Dine About Town. And again, my bf didn't get the DAT option. I did, getting the Marin mixed lettuce salad (yummy and fresh but nothing special), the salmon (buttery and lemony, and quite good), and the lemon creme brulee (which I traded for my bf's apricot crisp, which was disappointing but largely b/c I don't think I like apricots). My bf got the lamb (I think), which he said was fine. Several of our friends got the fried paprika chicken (at least one of them not realizing it was fried chicken) which I hear was very tasty (though $18 fried chicken had better be good!). We sat indoors, rather than outdoors, so we didn't get to see the cinema part of the foreign cinema. The restaurant was charming enough (we sat at a large wood table rather than a white tablecloth-covered table like smaller tables) and the food was pretty good.
Thursday night, we went to see Hairspray at the Orpheum Theater. My bf and I first stopped at Bossa Nova, a Brazilian restaurant at 8th St and Minna, only a block and a half from the theater. It's a cute place that I almost walked by, b/c they don't have any signs that stick out and it's not large. It's got a nice airy feel to it, though, with windows bringing in the sunshine and the door open to let in the breeze (it was a nice day). I think the Bossa Nova is more about the drinks than the food - extensive drink menu, smaller dinner menu - but the food was quite good. My bf got the flat iron steak "grande" plate which was very yummy with a great texture to the meat. It came with potato wedges that were quite flavorful and crispy, which was nice. He also ordered a side of fried plantain chips, but expected something different than plantains fried like potato chips (we've had too many fried plantains in Costa Rica that were not fried into dryness). I got the small plate of the ribeye on two skewers with 3 sauces (mango, green tomato, and bell pepper - I liked the mango the best). The flavor was good, and some of the pieces were nice and tender and yummy, but others were extremely chewy and hard to eat. The flatiron steak was definitely better. I also got a side of chicken croquettes which were in the shape of Hershey kisses (but larger), and had fried exteriors I couldn't stab my fork through, but were quite yummy to pick up, dip, and eat. Overall, we liked the meal and thought the food was well done.
Seeing Hairspray was a great deal of fun. I didn't know much at all about the musical going in - I knew it was John Waters, and had some iteration of movies to musicals to movies to musicals in its history, and had a man dressed up as the mother, and a "plus-sized" girl as the lead who wanted to dance, but I didn't know anything beyond that. Not the music, not most of the plot, nothing. The show was excellent! It's been a long time since I saw a musical in the old tradition of song and dance - usually these days it's heavy plotting, lots of dialogue, or maybe sung-through but without the dance (like Les Miz). I was blown away by the cast - they must be exhausted night after night! It's not a large cast and they're on stage practically every song, energetically dancing and jumping and twirling and singing. The music was great, the comedy was fun (with cute little character moments and nuances that enhanced the comedy), the performances were excellent (especially the girl playing Penny, Tracy's best friend, Sharon Malane - who was comedically perfect, always bringing something to the scene even when she was in the background), and the dancing was incredibly energetic and always on. I enjoyed a lot of the singing - Taylor Frey, who played Link the love interest, looked like a very young Ben Affleck but with much better moves and a lovely singing voice, the woman playing Motormouth Maybelle (whose name I didn't look up) had a commanding presence in her rallying song, and I thought in general the vocal performances were very smooth. My one issue was that Tracy is supposed to be an excellent dancer but she didn't impress all that much, particularly in front of that highly energetic cast (especially Link/Taylor, who seemed to put twice as much energy into every dance move), but she led the cast nicely and the rest of her performance was good. The show was a lot of fun and I'm very glad I went. Little piece of advice for people who may go in the future though - 3rd row center orchestra are great seats, except they're almost *too* close - you can see the makeup, and the forehead mikes, and stuff a little too closely, and it's harder to keep an eye on the dance as a whole as opposed to the individual dancers who may actually be looking directly at you while they perform. But how can I complain about getting such good seats? That was a fun night at a theater, and I highly recommend it to anyone.
Oh before I forget, I finally got to Frjtz's in Hayes Valley after it reopened. I've been wanting to go there for a while since I think I like Belgian food, even though they basically just have Belgian fries. Reading the Yelp reviews, people kept talking about getting hairs in their fries, which didn't make any sense to me but sure enough... We'd been eating fries for a while and then I stopped to take a closer look at one, and discovered these curly black hairs fried into the side of the fries. Gross..and strange. Every other fry I picked up after that had the same. I'm not convinced it's human hair, because how could anyone shed *that* much hair into the fryer, but I don't know what it is. Maybe the fries aren't peeled all the way and it's the bits of roots that start growing out of older potatoes, shriveled up in the frying oil?? Who knows. It did put my appetite off for the fries though. Which is fine, I keep ordering fries thinking I want them and I keep not wanting to finish them - the Frjtz fries were nothing special. We got two dipping sauces - ponzu ketchup and the smokey honey-mustard. The ponzu taste was way too strong in the former, and it wasn't a very good ponzu, while the mustard part of the smokey honey-mustard was too strong for this honey mustard-loving, regular mustard-hating girl. Disappointing. My food was better - I got the Velasquez sandwich, which was basically an open face sandwich on a thick slice of foccacia with lots of prosciutto (almost too much in places), mozzarella, roasted pineapple (so yummy) and roasted pepper mayo. Quite enjoyed that. My bf got a savory crepe, I forget which one, and seemed to like it. I really want to try the dessert crepes though - there's a roasted pineapple one, a caramelized apple one, and a roasted pear one, all of which look really really good. We were too full that day..maybe sometime in the future I'll come back for crepes but *not* fries.
Monday, June 9, 2008
Updates
Wow, haven't blogged in a while. Should probably be less wordy than usual in updating, then!
A few weeks back, I took a class down in Santa Clara for work, and they were kind enough to spring for hotel so I didn't have the do the 2+ hour commute each day. I stayed at the Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale, which was actually quite cute. It was designed to have a fairly tropical feel - open lobby, pool with little bungalows around it in the middle, open (though roofed) hallways, tropical-looking canopy over the beds, etc. I didn't spend any time at the pool, though I walked by it to get to breakfast each day, but it gave it a nice feel. The rooms were pretty nice as well - not huge, but comfortable with a large desk where I got some studying in. Free wireless, free breakfast. My one complaint was that the alarm clock in the room next door to me went off (beeping) at 6am one day and kept going for an hour (and I couldn't get the "Guest Services" button on my phone to work). Then the next morning, I was woken at 3:30AM by a radio alarm in that room, heard the people move around and then leave..and then at 6AM, was woken again by the bloody beeping alarm! After 10 minutes, I called the front desk (just took a chance and dialed 0) and told them that this alarm was going off, had gone off for an hour yesterday, and that I was pretty sure there was no one in there, and could they *please* do something about it. A few minutes later, it stopped. Yay! No one I know needs a hotel in the Bay Area, but if they do, I quite liked that one.
Two weeks ago, I had a fairly busy week since we had tickets lined up to see the Flight of the Conchords on Tuesday and then A Midsummer Night's Dream on Wednesday. Both were rather interesting experiences.
Flight of the Conchords is a duo from New Zealand who mix comedy and music in often hilarious ways. Unfortunately, as I discovered, it helps to have familiarity with their material before going to see them live, because it was exceedingly difficult to understand what they were saying (especially since the people around us *did* know them well and kept whooping and cheering and laughing and drowning them out). I like their music, but the humor gets lost when you can't hear it. Still was an enjoyable show, I just think I would have liked it way better if I had familiarized myself with more than Business Time and one song I recognized but have since forgotten what it was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream was a restaging of Shakespeare's classic play by Indian and Sri Lankan performers. On seeing the information about it on the Best of Broadway SF website, I got the impression it was a Bollywood-esque interpretation, an extravaganza of dance, acrobatics, singing, etc that used the play as its basis. I was wrong. There were some elements of it - some dance, some acrobatics with ropes and dangling cloths, and such. But it was fairly minimal and far less than expected. Instead, the play was largely comprised of its multiethnic cast performing Shakespeare's play in seven different languages - English and six Indian and Sri Lankan dialects. I have a hard enough time understanding Shakespearean dialogue to begin with. Shakespearean dialogue performed in Indian/Sri Lankan accents and frequently interspersed with long stretches of language I don't understand is even harder to follow. Without the extremely detailed insert describing the plot, we all would have been incredibly lost. The use of the sets was fairly interesting - a big frame structure hung over with billowing white sheets that got torn and climbed all over over the course of the evening provided the background, there was a hanging platform, and ropes/cloths hanging all over the set. The guy playing Puck also was the set rearranger, wandering around and unhooking or rehooking the ropes, setting up one of the more interesting visual scenes, putting out the cloth for the actors to sit on in various scenes... I don't know. All in all it probably didn't help that what we saw didn't match our expectations of the big Bollywood extravaganza, but none of us enjoyed the play particularly much. And I've never seen so many people just get up and leave during the first act.
That same week, we had a Lost night to watch the finale. That was interesting. Lost is weird for me - it's a show where attention and memory for detail pays off big, and it's a show where the details completely slip my mind very quickly. When the finale opened I was actually confused - it'd only been 2 weeks since we saw the previous episode and I couldn't remember what had happened, who was where, and why. Strange. I enjoyed it though, and am curious to see where they go next season.
Before "Flight of the Conchords," we went to eat at the Nob Hill Cafe, a small Italian restaurant which was just about the only reasonably priced place within 4 blocks and which was extremely popular and crowded (always is pre-show at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, evidently). We quite enjoyed it - it was good, basic Italian that was quite tasty.
Before "Midsummer Night's Dream," we went to eat at Kim Thanh, a Vietnamese restaurant only a couple blocks from the Orpheum. It was also pretty good, basic Vietnamese/Chinese - we had a decent salt and pepper crab, a decent if standard wonton soup, a fairly tasty vegetables in oyster sauce, and a quite yummy pork vermicelli. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to go back, but if I happened to be in the area, I wouldn't mind going again. The waiters were nice and one helped us figure out how to eat some of the stuff.
Before Lost, we had dinner at RNM in lower Haight, where we'd eaten before, and which was still good.
Last week, I hung out with a friend and ate at the Alembic in Haight-Ashbury (Haight btwn Cole and Shrader). It's a bar with a small food menu. Literally small, both in the number of options and the size of the dishes. Yummy, though. We got the charcuterie plate, which had some tasty cuts of salami, prosciutto, and other meats. I got the Berkshire Pork Belly which was very fatty as pork belly should be, melty, yummy, bad for me, and tiny. Both my companions got the Flat Iron Steak (a special for the day), which I tried a piece of and was quite yummy. Very small portions, not that cheap, but the food was well done and the bartender (we ate at the bar) nice and friendly. It's not a place really designed for dinner - there are very few tables - but the food was surprisingly good.
Spent most of the weekend in Boston for my sister's college graduation. It rained kindly on us on Friday - as we sat down before graduation, the skies opened up, but luckily we'd been provided with ponchos that mostly kept us dry, except occasional rain that would seep in the sleeves (only happened to me). The rain stopped by the time the procession started, which was a small plus. It then was extremely hot and humid on Saturday, the day we packed up her room and moved her out. I intelligently walked from my hotel in Brookline to her dorm in Cambridge, which wouldn't have been a bad walk had I not been carrying my bags and walking in the humidity. Ah well. I do like Boston, though. We had dinner at Le's Restaurant (formerly Pho Pasteur) in Harvard Square, and I had my old favorite yellow noodles dish. So very very yummy. My sister kept stealing some off my plate b/c it was so yummy. The Pho Pasteur in Chinatown does their corresponding dish (which they call chow mein) differently, somehow. It just doesn't have that distinctive yummy sauce I've never found anywhere else. Also had a pineapple shake (ah condensed milk) which was much happiness.
What else, what else.
Ah yes. I just gave notice today and am starting a new job in a month. Only my second job since college. I'm scared and excited.
A few weeks back, I took a class down in Santa Clara for work, and they were kind enough to spring for hotel so I didn't have the do the 2+ hour commute each day. I stayed at the Wild Palms Hotel in Sunnyvale, which was actually quite cute. It was designed to have a fairly tropical feel - open lobby, pool with little bungalows around it in the middle, open (though roofed) hallways, tropical-looking canopy over the beds, etc. I didn't spend any time at the pool, though I walked by it to get to breakfast each day, but it gave it a nice feel. The rooms were pretty nice as well - not huge, but comfortable with a large desk where I got some studying in. Free wireless, free breakfast. My one complaint was that the alarm clock in the room next door to me went off (beeping) at 6am one day and kept going for an hour (and I couldn't get the "Guest Services" button on my phone to work). Then the next morning, I was woken at 3:30AM by a radio alarm in that room, heard the people move around and then leave..and then at 6AM, was woken again by the bloody beeping alarm! After 10 minutes, I called the front desk (just took a chance and dialed 0) and told them that this alarm was going off, had gone off for an hour yesterday, and that I was pretty sure there was no one in there, and could they *please* do something about it. A few minutes later, it stopped. Yay! No one I know needs a hotel in the Bay Area, but if they do, I quite liked that one.
Two weeks ago, I had a fairly busy week since we had tickets lined up to see the Flight of the Conchords on Tuesday and then A Midsummer Night's Dream on Wednesday. Both were rather interesting experiences.
Flight of the Conchords is a duo from New Zealand who mix comedy and music in often hilarious ways. Unfortunately, as I discovered, it helps to have familiarity with their material before going to see them live, because it was exceedingly difficult to understand what they were saying (especially since the people around us *did* know them well and kept whooping and cheering and laughing and drowning them out). I like their music, but the humor gets lost when you can't hear it. Still was an enjoyable show, I just think I would have liked it way better if I had familiarized myself with more than Business Time and one song I recognized but have since forgotten what it was.
A Midsummer Night's Dream was a restaging of Shakespeare's classic play by Indian and Sri Lankan performers. On seeing the information about it on the Best of Broadway SF website, I got the impression it was a Bollywood-esque interpretation, an extravaganza of dance, acrobatics, singing, etc that used the play as its basis. I was wrong. There were some elements of it - some dance, some acrobatics with ropes and dangling cloths, and such. But it was fairly minimal and far less than expected. Instead, the play was largely comprised of its multiethnic cast performing Shakespeare's play in seven different languages - English and six Indian and Sri Lankan dialects. I have a hard enough time understanding Shakespearean dialogue to begin with. Shakespearean dialogue performed in Indian/Sri Lankan accents and frequently interspersed with long stretches of language I don't understand is even harder to follow. Without the extremely detailed insert describing the plot, we all would have been incredibly lost. The use of the sets was fairly interesting - a big frame structure hung over with billowing white sheets that got torn and climbed all over over the course of the evening provided the background, there was a hanging platform, and ropes/cloths hanging all over the set. The guy playing Puck also was the set rearranger, wandering around and unhooking or rehooking the ropes, setting up one of the more interesting visual scenes, putting out the cloth for the actors to sit on in various scenes... I don't know. All in all it probably didn't help that what we saw didn't match our expectations of the big Bollywood extravaganza, but none of us enjoyed the play particularly much. And I've never seen so many people just get up and leave during the first act.
That same week, we had a Lost night to watch the finale. That was interesting. Lost is weird for me - it's a show where attention and memory for detail pays off big, and it's a show where the details completely slip my mind very quickly. When the finale opened I was actually confused - it'd only been 2 weeks since we saw the previous episode and I couldn't remember what had happened, who was where, and why. Strange. I enjoyed it though, and am curious to see where they go next season.
Before "Flight of the Conchords," we went to eat at the Nob Hill Cafe, a small Italian restaurant which was just about the only reasonably priced place within 4 blocks and which was extremely popular and crowded (always is pre-show at the Nob Hill Masonic Center, evidently). We quite enjoyed it - it was good, basic Italian that was quite tasty.
Before "Midsummer Night's Dream," we went to eat at Kim Thanh, a Vietnamese restaurant only a couple blocks from the Orpheum. It was also pretty good, basic Vietnamese/Chinese - we had a decent salt and pepper crab, a decent if standard wonton soup, a fairly tasty vegetables in oyster sauce, and a quite yummy pork vermicelli. I don't know if I'd go out of my way to go back, but if I happened to be in the area, I wouldn't mind going again. The waiters were nice and one helped us figure out how to eat some of the stuff.
Before Lost, we had dinner at RNM in lower Haight, where we'd eaten before, and which was still good.
Last week, I hung out with a friend and ate at the Alembic in Haight-Ashbury (Haight btwn Cole and Shrader). It's a bar with a small food menu. Literally small, both in the number of options and the size of the dishes. Yummy, though. We got the charcuterie plate, which had some tasty cuts of salami, prosciutto, and other meats. I got the Berkshire Pork Belly which was very fatty as pork belly should be, melty, yummy, bad for me, and tiny. Both my companions got the Flat Iron Steak (a special for the day), which I tried a piece of and was quite yummy. Very small portions, not that cheap, but the food was well done and the bartender (we ate at the bar) nice and friendly. It's not a place really designed for dinner - there are very few tables - but the food was surprisingly good.
Spent most of the weekend in Boston for my sister's college graduation. It rained kindly on us on Friday - as we sat down before graduation, the skies opened up, but luckily we'd been provided with ponchos that mostly kept us dry, except occasional rain that would seep in the sleeves (only happened to me). The rain stopped by the time the procession started, which was a small plus. It then was extremely hot and humid on Saturday, the day we packed up her room and moved her out. I intelligently walked from my hotel in Brookline to her dorm in Cambridge, which wouldn't have been a bad walk had I not been carrying my bags and walking in the humidity. Ah well. I do like Boston, though. We had dinner at Le's Restaurant (formerly Pho Pasteur) in Harvard Square, and I had my old favorite yellow noodles dish. So very very yummy. My sister kept stealing some off my plate b/c it was so yummy. The Pho Pasteur in Chinatown does their corresponding dish (which they call chow mein) differently, somehow. It just doesn't have that distinctive yummy sauce I've never found anywhere else. Also had a pineapple shake (ah condensed milk) which was much happiness.
What else, what else.
Ah yes. I just gave notice today and am starting a new job in a month. Only my second job since college. I'm scared and excited.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Another weekend, another bunch of travel
I am so tired of traveling. If I could sleep in strange places, or on planes, I think I'd be a happier camper. But since I can't, traveling every weekend means sleep deprivation all weekend, which makes me a very whiny person. Luckily, this should be my last travel weekend in a while, though I am planning on sleeping in a hotel for several nights next week. Have a class for work down in Santa Clara and don't want to do the almost 3 hours commute during rush hour per day it'll be to get down there. But it'll just be me in the hotel room, and it'll be a stable place to stay, so it should be ok.
Nothing about this past weekend was stable. I flew on a redeye Thursday night to Boston, getting maybe 2 hours of sleep on and off during the flight. I got to my sister's dorm room around 9:30am, tried to nap on her bed (and only partially succeeding b/c it was stuffy as hell in her dorm room and she came in and out a few times to talk to my other sister, who was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor) until around 12:30 and then got up to meet my mom. Spent the afternoon with her, walking to Chinatown (and walking back with a bunch of drinks that were nice and heavy) in the rain, getting noodles at Pho Pasteur, and generally chatting with her. Skipped dinner because we had such a late and large lunch, and went directly to my little sister's a capella concert to meet up with my older sister. The concert was lovely - my sister had an amazing solo to "The Tower" by Vienna Teng, which sounded even better than the first recording of it I'd heard despite the fact that she'd been fighting a cough for weeks. It was the last concert of the year so they were saying goodbye to all the seniors, so the evening was an interesting blend of the touching/sentimental, the humorous (they did little skits), and just great singing.
Then it was to bed around 1-1:30AM only to not be able to fall asleep *at all* while sharing a double with my mom. I finally moved to the living room (this was my mom's friend's apartment) to sleep on the couch at 4:30AM and got about 2 hours of sleep between 5-7AM. Then it was time to taxi over to the airport, pick up a rental car, and drive the 5.5 hours to Ithaca, NY, stopping at Syracuse on the way to pick up a friend from the airport (who had his own share of travel difficulties). Had enough time to try to nap for 45 minutes (no luck, the rooms faced a central pool area and there were kids playing and screeching), get dressed, and run off to the wedding we were in Ithaca for. The wedding itself was really nice - on the shores of one of the Finger Lakes, on a sunny day, with the sun shining on the glimmering water behind the happy couple. The reception was also outdoors so I ended up wearing my bf's suit jacket most of the night. Had Chilean sea bass for the first time, which was quite yummy - all melty and not fishy at all. Actually danced a bit even though I'm a crappy-ass self-conscious dancer, and had fun laughing at my friends as they goofed on the dance floor. We knew a number of people at the wedding, so we had a nice evening. I left early, though, around 10:30PM, so I could try to grab some sleep before driving back to Boston the next day.
In bed around 12:30-ish, bf returned at 2AM, waking me up by mistake, woke up again at 4am with a terribly dry mouth..finally woke up for good at 8:30AM thinking I was rested enough, and taking off for Boston around 9:45AM or so. Apparently I wasn't entirely right. The drive the day before had been not great b/c I was tired and my judgment towards the end of the drive was pretty off (pulling into parking places right next to large SUVs that were opening their door), but at least I was pretty much alert and awake if not thinking 100% straight. The drive on Sunday was harder b/c I was sleepier and closer to falling asleep for more of it. Maybe because I wasn't drinking a steady stream of milk tea while driving, as I had the day before. I made it to Boston safely, though, in time to grab an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my sisters and mom for Mother's Day (they had a 45 minute wait even at 3:45PM!). Managed to spend almost 1.5 hours with them before running for the airport in order to return my car and make it to my 6:40PM flight. Finally got home around 11PM only to discover the huge load of laundry I'd left on my bed Thursday night, so I had to fold all that before I could go to sleep.
All in all, a very tiring weekend with some pleasant moments - a nice afternoon with my mom, a great concert for my sister and her group, a nice wedding and some time to hang out with friends - and a lot of driving, travel, and sleeplessness. Whine...
Nothing about this past weekend was stable. I flew on a redeye Thursday night to Boston, getting maybe 2 hours of sleep on and off during the flight. I got to my sister's dorm room around 9:30am, tried to nap on her bed (and only partially succeeding b/c it was stuffy as hell in her dorm room and she came in and out a few times to talk to my other sister, who was sleeping on an air mattress on the floor) until around 12:30 and then got up to meet my mom. Spent the afternoon with her, walking to Chinatown (and walking back with a bunch of drinks that were nice and heavy) in the rain, getting noodles at Pho Pasteur, and generally chatting with her. Skipped dinner because we had such a late and large lunch, and went directly to my little sister's a capella concert to meet up with my older sister. The concert was lovely - my sister had an amazing solo to "The Tower" by Vienna Teng, which sounded even better than the first recording of it I'd heard despite the fact that she'd been fighting a cough for weeks. It was the last concert of the year so they were saying goodbye to all the seniors, so the evening was an interesting blend of the touching/sentimental, the humorous (they did little skits), and just great singing.
Then it was to bed around 1-1:30AM only to not be able to fall asleep *at all* while sharing a double with my mom. I finally moved to the living room (this was my mom's friend's apartment) to sleep on the couch at 4:30AM and got about 2 hours of sleep between 5-7AM. Then it was time to taxi over to the airport, pick up a rental car, and drive the 5.5 hours to Ithaca, NY, stopping at Syracuse on the way to pick up a friend from the airport (who had his own share of travel difficulties). Had enough time to try to nap for 45 minutes (no luck, the rooms faced a central pool area and there were kids playing and screeching), get dressed, and run off to the wedding we were in Ithaca for. The wedding itself was really nice - on the shores of one of the Finger Lakes, on a sunny day, with the sun shining on the glimmering water behind the happy couple. The reception was also outdoors so I ended up wearing my bf's suit jacket most of the night. Had Chilean sea bass for the first time, which was quite yummy - all melty and not fishy at all. Actually danced a bit even though I'm a crappy-ass self-conscious dancer, and had fun laughing at my friends as they goofed on the dance floor. We knew a number of people at the wedding, so we had a nice evening. I left early, though, around 10:30PM, so I could try to grab some sleep before driving back to Boston the next day.
In bed around 12:30-ish, bf returned at 2AM, waking me up by mistake, woke up again at 4am with a terribly dry mouth..finally woke up for good at 8:30AM thinking I was rested enough, and taking off for Boston around 9:45AM or so. Apparently I wasn't entirely right. The drive the day before had been not great b/c I was tired and my judgment towards the end of the drive was pretty off (pulling into parking places right next to large SUVs that were opening their door), but at least I was pretty much alert and awake if not thinking 100% straight. The drive on Sunday was harder b/c I was sleepier and closer to falling asleep for more of it. Maybe because I wasn't drinking a steady stream of milk tea while driving, as I had the day before. I made it to Boston safely, though, in time to grab an early dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with my sisters and mom for Mother's Day (they had a 45 minute wait even at 3:45PM!). Managed to spend almost 1.5 hours with them before running for the airport in order to return my car and make it to my 6:40PM flight. Finally got home around 11PM only to discover the huge load of laundry I'd left on my bed Thursday night, so I had to fold all that before I could go to sleep.
All in all, a very tiring weekend with some pleasant moments - a nice afternoon with my mom, a great concert for my sister and her group, a nice wedding and some time to hang out with friends - and a lot of driving, travel, and sleeplessness. Whine...
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
New Orleans
I have a friend who says she blogs in order to keep up her writing skills.
I apparently blog to brain dump, without taking the time to make sure my syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc are even remotely close to correct. I wonder if that means this blog is actually degrading my writing skills. Oh well.
My surgery 2 weeks ago had the fortunate timing of needing to happen when I wasn't out of the country - in Argentina or Canada. It had the unfortunate timing of happening in the middle of 5 consecutive weekends of planned travel. I cancelled one trip (sigh) but this past weekend had another planned, to New Orleans for a friend's bridal shower/bachelorette party type trip. Luckily, I was already feeling almost close to normal, so going on this trip wasn't as much of a post-op issue as I had feared.
I've never been to New Orleans before, and it was neat to visit a new city in the US. My rather short time there was spent primarily in the French Quarter and at Jazz Fest, since I arrived around 1AM Friday night/Saturday morning and left around 6:30PM Sunday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really quite liked the French Quarter - the narrow streets lined with little boutiques, shops, and restaurants, the Southern architecture with the wide balconies and verandas (my new fact of the day - verandas are covered balconies), the generally quaint feel that wasn't quite European but certainly wasn't like the big Eastern/Western cities I've visited in the US. The one odd thing was the plethora of SUV and minivan taxis. Not something I'm used to seeing. Our wanderings took us down Royal St to Jackson Square, which was quite pleasant, to Cafe Du Monde (ridiculously long but fast-moving line!) for beignets (to be honest, slightly disappointing - I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't fried dough). We then wandered over to the French Market, which I liked quite a lot. It was a covered open air structure, several blocks long, with a number of stalls and tables set up with all sorts of neat little arts, crafts, souvenirs, etc. I think I particularly liked that it wasn't cramped and it wasn't crowded, and it was quite bright, so the whole experience was just pretty pleasant. I got a $20 set of pewter jewelry (looks like bright silver, kind of) that I quite liked, and also bought a scented candle for my mom (b/c the other girls were all getting some and they needed a certain number to ship).
After the French Market, we made our way back to the Windsor Court Hotel for afternoon tea. Tea is such a female thing to do - I looked around and there was only one man in there the entire time we were there, and he didn't look too happy to be there. It's all soft music and sitting around in elegant tables with tea and cute little sandwiches and cakes. It was pretty nice, though, I'll admit. I'm not a fan of tea at all but I decided to try the Jasmine b/c it was supposed to be very light... and then poured in a lot of milk and sugar. I think I liked the four fruit tea a lot better when I finally tried it. But the food was good, and plentiful - I didn't end up being able to eat my dessert chocolate covered strawberry or chocolate truffles or cream puff, I was so full. Then it was back to the hotel to veg a bit and do some bridal shower activities - a couple games, opening presents. Then napping and relaxing until dinner.
For dinner, my friends were all determined to get boiled crawfish by the pound. We went to one restaurant that was well known for it, but the line was long and slow, so we ended up going to Felix's across the street, which had more crawfish for a better deal and almost no line. I'm lazy and not particularly inclined to work hard for my food, so I was the one person who didn't get crawfish - I got a Cajun sampler instead, consisting of jambalaya (too spicy for me), crawfish etouffe (ok), and red beans and rice (surprisingly my favorite). It was amusing watching my friends busily cracking into their pile of crawfish, which they all seemed to enjoy immensely. Afterwards, we wandered around Bourbon St a bit. From an observer's standpoint (which is what I tend to be), it was rather interesting - a whole street closed down and reserved for pedestrian traffic, all the open bars and restaurants and such which made it so people would just wander in and out of the street, people carrying drinks down the street... it was like one big open air party. The only thing is, I don't particularly like being around drunk people, particularly drunk people I don't know who approach me and try to give me beads, or call one of my friends uptight. So after the novelty wore off, I was a bit over it. Probably doesn't help that I don't drink, I don't actually like bars or clubs, and I was getting a bit tired from the long day. After getting daiquiries and jello shots at one of the numerous daiquiri stands lining the street, which resembled soda fountains except with daiquiri machines lining the wall instead of a soda fountain, and which sold pizza by the slice, my friends walked me back to the hotel before wandering out for a couple more hours.
Sunday morning opened with brunch at the Court of Two Sisters, which was quite nice. We sat in the cute outdoor pavilion with a fountain nearby, gazebo next to us, little well across the way, and live music in the back. The food was pretty yummy (it's too bad my appetite has been diminished since the surgery since I would have liked to eat more) and it was a nice way to start the day. We then split up so 3 of us went to Jazz Fest (one was leaving early, one kept her company, and one was very interested in historical stuff so she went to do a tour of the Katrina areas). Jazz Fest was neat - it was basically on a horse racetrack/fairgrounds, with several large stages set up all around, arts and crafts booths, and a ton of food. What particularly appealed to me was that they had 3 or 4 large tents set up that actually had folding chairs and bleachers *and* were covered from the sun, so we spent some time enjoying blues in one tent and jazz in another (I like blues better). The arts and crafts were cute, though more enjoyable to look at earlier in the day when there were less people, and it was kind of fascinating reading the signs and seeing just how many things you can do with crawfish. We wandered by a few of the other stages, but the main stage was set up so loud and with such booming bass that it felt like the bass was trying to make our hearts beat a new rhythm, which was quite uncomfortable. So we didn't stay near any stage for longer than a song or so. The overall experience was nice though - interesting music of different varieties, interesting food (I tried half a chicken po'boy, and half a pulled pork po'boy - liked the pork better), and interesting sights. We had to leave around 3PM so we missed the big names (Santana, etc) but by then it was getting really crowded and really hot, so we weren't too sad to go.
Overall, it was a fun weekend, and an interesting glimpse at New Orleans.
I apparently blog to brain dump, without taking the time to make sure my syntax, grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc are even remotely close to correct. I wonder if that means this blog is actually degrading my writing skills. Oh well.
My surgery 2 weeks ago had the fortunate timing of needing to happen when I wasn't out of the country - in Argentina or Canada. It had the unfortunate timing of happening in the middle of 5 consecutive weekends of planned travel. I cancelled one trip (sigh) but this past weekend had another planned, to New Orleans for a friend's bridal shower/bachelorette party type trip. Luckily, I was already feeling almost close to normal, so going on this trip wasn't as much of a post-op issue as I had feared.
I've never been to New Orleans before, and it was neat to visit a new city in the US. My rather short time there was spent primarily in the French Quarter and at Jazz Fest, since I arrived around 1AM Friday night/Saturday morning and left around 6:30PM Sunday. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I really quite liked the French Quarter - the narrow streets lined with little boutiques, shops, and restaurants, the Southern architecture with the wide balconies and verandas (my new fact of the day - verandas are covered balconies), the generally quaint feel that wasn't quite European but certainly wasn't like the big Eastern/Western cities I've visited in the US. The one odd thing was the plethora of SUV and minivan taxis. Not something I'm used to seeing. Our wanderings took us down Royal St to Jackson Square, which was quite pleasant, to Cafe Du Monde (ridiculously long but fast-moving line!) for beignets (to be honest, slightly disappointing - I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't fried dough). We then wandered over to the French Market, which I liked quite a lot. It was a covered open air structure, several blocks long, with a number of stalls and tables set up with all sorts of neat little arts, crafts, souvenirs, etc. I think I particularly liked that it wasn't cramped and it wasn't crowded, and it was quite bright, so the whole experience was just pretty pleasant. I got a $20 set of pewter jewelry (looks like bright silver, kind of) that I quite liked, and also bought a scented candle for my mom (b/c the other girls were all getting some and they needed a certain number to ship).
After the French Market, we made our way back to the Windsor Court Hotel for afternoon tea. Tea is such a female thing to do - I looked around and there was only one man in there the entire time we were there, and he didn't look too happy to be there. It's all soft music and sitting around in elegant tables with tea and cute little sandwiches and cakes. It was pretty nice, though, I'll admit. I'm not a fan of tea at all but I decided to try the Jasmine b/c it was supposed to be very light... and then poured in a lot of milk and sugar. I think I liked the four fruit tea a lot better when I finally tried it. But the food was good, and plentiful - I didn't end up being able to eat my dessert chocolate covered strawberry or chocolate truffles or cream puff, I was so full. Then it was back to the hotel to veg a bit and do some bridal shower activities - a couple games, opening presents. Then napping and relaxing until dinner.
For dinner, my friends were all determined to get boiled crawfish by the pound. We went to one restaurant that was well known for it, but the line was long and slow, so we ended up going to Felix's across the street, which had more crawfish for a better deal and almost no line. I'm lazy and not particularly inclined to work hard for my food, so I was the one person who didn't get crawfish - I got a Cajun sampler instead, consisting of jambalaya (too spicy for me), crawfish etouffe (ok), and red beans and rice (surprisingly my favorite). It was amusing watching my friends busily cracking into their pile of crawfish, which they all seemed to enjoy immensely. Afterwards, we wandered around Bourbon St a bit. From an observer's standpoint (which is what I tend to be), it was rather interesting - a whole street closed down and reserved for pedestrian traffic, all the open bars and restaurants and such which made it so people would just wander in and out of the street, people carrying drinks down the street... it was like one big open air party. The only thing is, I don't particularly like being around drunk people, particularly drunk people I don't know who approach me and try to give me beads, or call one of my friends uptight. So after the novelty wore off, I was a bit over it. Probably doesn't help that I don't drink, I don't actually like bars or clubs, and I was getting a bit tired from the long day. After getting daiquiries and jello shots at one of the numerous daiquiri stands lining the street, which resembled soda fountains except with daiquiri machines lining the wall instead of a soda fountain, and which sold pizza by the slice, my friends walked me back to the hotel before wandering out for a couple more hours.
Sunday morning opened with brunch at the Court of Two Sisters, which was quite nice. We sat in the cute outdoor pavilion with a fountain nearby, gazebo next to us, little well across the way, and live music in the back. The food was pretty yummy (it's too bad my appetite has been diminished since the surgery since I would have liked to eat more) and it was a nice way to start the day. We then split up so 3 of us went to Jazz Fest (one was leaving early, one kept her company, and one was very interested in historical stuff so she went to do a tour of the Katrina areas). Jazz Fest was neat - it was basically on a horse racetrack/fairgrounds, with several large stages set up all around, arts and crafts booths, and a ton of food. What particularly appealed to me was that they had 3 or 4 large tents set up that actually had folding chairs and bleachers *and* were covered from the sun, so we spent some time enjoying blues in one tent and jazz in another (I like blues better). The arts and crafts were cute, though more enjoyable to look at earlier in the day when there were less people, and it was kind of fascinating reading the signs and seeing just how many things you can do with crawfish. We wandered by a few of the other stages, but the main stage was set up so loud and with such booming bass that it felt like the bass was trying to make our hearts beat a new rhythm, which was quite uncomfortable. So we didn't stay near any stage for longer than a song or so. The overall experience was nice though - interesting music of different varieties, interesting food (I tried half a chicken po'boy, and half a pulled pork po'boy - liked the pork better), and interesting sights. We had to leave around 3PM so we missed the big names (Santana, etc) but by then it was getting really crowded and really hot, so we weren't too sad to go.
Overall, it was a fun weekend, and an interesting glimpse at New Orleans.
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