Wednesday, May 28, 2008

San Francisco, part 3

We got a car on the third day, and headed out for Napa Valley. The plan was to stop at the Cheeseboard Collective in Berkeley (thanks Scott for the recommendation), buy a variety of cheeses, and then picnic at a vineyard when we got to the valley. Well, part one of the plan went great, as we sampled maybe two dozen cheeses at the Collective before buying four or five of them for our picnic (yeah, I guess we were hungry!) But by the time we checked in at Napa, it was late afternoon on a holiday weekend, and all the vineyards were closing soon. So we drove into town and found Copia, the American Center for Wine, Food, and the Arts.

Copia was cool. There was a sauvignon blanc food festival going on which we jumped into. Picture an expo with maybe 60 or so tables, with each table either offering a variety of either sauvignon blancs or some super tasty food. Damn, I'm starting to salivate as I recall this. There were brick oven pizzas, Mexican wraps, barbecued ribs, seafood, and sandwiches of all kinds. Ironically, what I remember best of all, other than the wine, was a "New England" style clam chowder, which was perfect-- seasoned just right with some herbs I can't identify, creamy and loaded with clams and potatoes, better than any chowder I've had back home in New England.

We toured the Copia gardens for a while, and then I bought a bottle of red for later, but by the time we got back to the hotel, we were exhausted.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

San Francisco, part 2

We had a little more of an agenda on the second day: see sea lions, see Golden Gate Park, and walk the Golden Gate Bridge. All this stuff appeared to be on the western end of the city, and since we were staying on the eastern side, we decided to start the morning with a long ride on the bus. After some somewhat unsettling moments sitting across from a woman wearing a gas mask and then a person with several trash bags full of something (actual conversation- Brian: "I wonder what that man had in all those trash bags." Alice: "That wasn't a man.") we made it to the westernmost point of the city, Sutro Heights Park. We walked around the park a bit before heading toward Seal Rock, near the Cliff House Inn. Unfortunately, there were no seals or sea lions, but the views were nice:


We then walked to Golden Gate Park. After seeing some bison in the northwest area of the park, we took a bus to the Japanese Tea Garden and the arboretum, where we spent some time looking at plants before hopping back on the bus to the Golden Gate Bridge.

We walked all the way across the bridge and back (round trip about 4 miles). It's really an amazing structure, and thanks to the beautiful weather, we had fantastic views of Alcatraz and the cities across the bay.



Back on the bus, we were still determined to see sea lions, so we headed for Fisherman's Wharf. We stopped at Fort Mason, where we saw a weird statue, and then Alice found a place where, it being happy hour, we could eat really cheap food as long as we ordered really expensive beer.

We finally got to Fisherman's Wharf (a gigantic gaudy tourist trap if there ever was one) and finally got to see our sea lions. True, they mostly just sat there like giant tired slugs, but sometimes they would bark at one another and occasionally duke it out, as only noisy giant slug-like creatures with no arms can.


We took a cable car back to the hotel. You might not think that a 9 mph ride up and over the ridiculous hills of San Fran would be that exciting, but you'd be wrong. It's not exactly a roller coaster, but you do get that feeling when you crest the top of a hill and begin the downward plunge. (It only lasts a few seconds of course since the thing stays at a constant speed).

Dinner that night was at Fleur de Lys. Yes, for you Top Chef fans, this was the site of the first episode, and those famous words "You have to leave the line." I had veal sweetbreads with lobster and caviar, pan roasted halibut, noisettes of venison, and chocolate mousse. She had asparagus salad, Hawaiian prawns, Colorado lamb loin, and the FleurBurger: a "lightly spiced dark chocolate ganache, home made Biegnet Cherry milkshake, and frozen fennel-flavored ice cream 'pommes frites'."

Thursday, May 8, 2008

San Francisco, part 1

Better late than never? We actually went to San Francisco before the APC, but I never got around to blogging it. Fortunately, I sort of sub-blogged it while we were there, so I have some notes to help fill the ever-widening gaps in my memory.

The first cool thing that happened was actually at Logan Airport in Boston. At the long term parking lot, there were Hybrid-Only parking spots at the front of the lot! HA! In your face, you SUV driving earth-haters.

But then we got on the plane and reality sunk in and our overbooked flight was delayed on the runway for a while. We ended up in San Francisco later than expected, but no big deal, we didn't really have anything planned for the first day. We took the BART into downtown and found our free Marriott, and then had a surprisingly spiffy sushi lunch at Sanraku, which was located in a movie theater/shopping mall.

We walked to Chinatown for some sightseeing, and then went to the Cable Car Museum, where we saw the machinery that drives the underground network of 9 mph cables onto which the cable cars latch for locomotion. From there we walked to Japantown, an area of town that I could have stayed in all week, going from shop to shop and eating at a different restaurant every day...

That night, we had dinner at Jardiniere, where we had the daily 7-course tasting menu. Wow. We came to San Fran for the food, and the first place certainly set the bar high! Kampachi and veal, striped bass, duck breast with foie gras, filet with truffles, to name a few highlights.

Walked partway back to the hotel before giving in to the cold and hopping on the BART. Here's San Fran City Hall at night: