Musings on SF

Hello there! I have no way to upload photos to the web right now, but I do have a mini trip report. Today I enjoyed:

• a delicious latte at Delessio
  
• a lovely soup and salad at Scala's
  
• a big cup of tea from the Border's cafe to keep me warm in the rain
• Hainan chicken rice at Hong Kong Bistro in Mountainview
• Gruet Blanc de Noirs bubbly from Bevmo--$14 and oh so tasty!
  
• a chocolate cupcake from Whole Foods

I saw half a dozen units today, and have one that I really like and one that I sort of like. Tomorrow, the hunt continues! For now, here are some things about SF that I just don't experience in LA:

• strangers offering to share food (in a totally none creepy way. The guy behind me at the bakery asked if I'd want to split a pastry because they were monster-sized. I declined, but it was really nice of him).
• being told I'm a pretty lady while walking down the street--whether by vagrants or otherwise.
• not feeling like an outcast when I walk down the street.
  
• walking 6 miles in one day and not feeling like it was out of the ordinary.
• having access to a bakery every other block.
• the 2pm cocktail--because guess what, I didn't have to drive!
• a real sense of community wherever I go: ads about zipcar and citywide composting programs, a lot more events in the local free papers, etc.

Anyway, it's great to be back. I can't wait to move up!

SF--Again

Well, readers, I'll be off line for about a week for a trip to SF:

And, in that vein, I have big news: we're moving back to San Francisco! We didn't want to count our chickens before they hatched, but in the midst of all the wedding craziness J got a job offer that we both felt good about. So off I go to apartment hunt for a week (and eat, of course--a girl's gotta keep up her energy).

I'm sure I'll have exciting photos when I get back, but you'll forgive me if I'm a bit neglectful. We're in a flurry of selling furniture, packing stuff up, saying good-bye to friends and family, and general chaos. Though it's hard to leave, I have to say leaving LA isn't as hard as leaving SF was. And it's nto just because we like SF. We always have reasons to visit LA--our families are here, as are a large number of friends. After we left SF, we didn't really have reasons to return or places to stay when we did visit, so it was really tough to visit our little city by the bay. Anyway, enough waxing poetic, Pei's got an apartment to hunt down!

Tacos Baja Ensenada

Mmmm...delicious.

We make the detour to TBE once in awhile just to enjoy the campechana, a seafood cocktail of sorts. For $10, you can get a goblet chock full of abalone, shrimp, octopus, fish, and scallops in a "soup" or tomatoes, limes, onions, and avocado. It's incredibly refreshing on a hot day, but just as delicious in the middle of what we Angelenos call winter.

Two fish tacos, rice, and beans. There's not a better deal for $4.50 in LA as far as I'm concerned.

Pitfire Pizza (Westwood)

This is sort of a flash from the past. A few days before the wedding my sisters and I headed here after running a few errands. It was surprisingly good!

The steak sandwich was filled with tender, juicy pieces of meat. The bun really did taste like it just came out of a wood oven, which is a flavor I've missed since leaving the land of naan.

An unusual salad: three tomatoes fire-roasted on the vine, atop fresh burrata, topped with a little balsamic vinegar. Simple, but incredibly delicious again because of the flavor of the wood oven.

SF Micromoon

I know the idea of not going on a honeymoon immediately after the wedding is utterly unromantic. But frankly, we were too tired, busy, mildly ill, and broke after the wedding to go anywhere. But between entertaining out of town relatives and wrapping up wedding odds and ends (you'd be surprised how much there is to do) we found two days to get away to our favorite city. I even managed to go to a few new restaurants!

I finally ate at The Slanted Door. I know, it's bizarre that I hadn't ever eaten there. I'd gone for drinks (great cocktail and wine menus) but never for food. N remedied that. I have to say, the papaya salad was great.

The famous shaking beef, however, was mediocre. I mean, c'mon, it's just stir fried beef chunks. Mangosteen and Bodega both do much better versions at much lower prices, in my humble opinion.

Dessert was delicious. Pear cobbler with Ciao Bella vanilla gelato. I could have used more ice cream for that much cobbler, but oh well.

Afternoon snack of one Oyster Rockerfeller and one Oyster Casino at Hog Island.

And a bowl of their chowder. I love that it's chock full of a few kinds of clams, has a few vegetables in it, and is creamy but not thick. Sipping this, reading a book, nursing a stuffy nose, and looking out on the ferries going in and out of the fog-covered bay was the perfect way to while away an afternoon.

Back at Hog Island for $1 happy hour oysters.

Met back up with N for before dinner drinks at Frisson, a hip lounge restaurant we'd never been to. Very tasty drinks, and it looks like $5 happy hour would be the way to go here. Additionally, their $5 non-alcoholic cocktails are available at all times for designated drivers. N had one, and it was a stunning blend of green tea, mango, and a few other things. Fruity and intense with the dry aftertaste of tea, it's the kind of drink that makes you almost not miss the alcohol.

Kokarri for dinner. This is another San Francisco classic that I never got to visit while I lived there. It was amazing! I am partial to Mezes because I like the small plates style of food, but meat and fish entrees at Kokkari are stellar. We especially enjoyed our assortment of lamb innards and the grilled squid.

The next day I had lunch at OSHA while J met up with a law school friend. I was coming down with what would become a severe cold and couldn't muster up the energy to walk with him from Embarcadero to Montgomery. I slunk into OSHA and had a tuna tower...

...and a nice hot bowl of tom ka gai soup. I also bought some ACME baguettes and Cowgirl Creamery cheese to take home with me. I got the St. Francis Drake and the Pierce Point. Both deliciously creamy, with the Pierce Point taking the winners' position by a slight margin.

It was a great micro-honeymoon, and just what we needed. This is what I miss most about SF: being able to walk out my door and see sweeping views like this one of the Bay Bridge. That spider sculpture is temporary, but that gorgeous view of the bay is always there.

Fraiche Fondue

An evening out with some friends this weekend ended at Fraiche, where we shared a fondue. $18 seemed like a reasonable deal for a pot of Valhrona and some dipping ingredients. After all, a bar of Valhrona is already $5ish.

Suffice it to say, we were impressed by what appeared at the table: a tray overflowing with apples, strawberries, bananas, shortbread, thumbprint cookies, meringues, marshmallows, and caramel popcorn. The fruit wasn't at its peak, but hey, it's January. Fraiche deserves points for this plate of plenty, which is enough for four or five post-dinner dessert fiends.

And, less interesting but also very tasty, homemade jajang noodles and a bottle of bitter lemon soda.

Providence

Well, we're married! And the hubbub has finally died down enough that I have time to post. Unfortunately, we don't really have any wedding photos in yet, and we definitely don't have any wedding food photos in yet. So you'll have to wait with bated breath for those. However, I do have some delicious pre-wedding photos in the meantime.

I wasn't interested in a traditional bachelorette party, but N and S were sweet enough to humor me with the tasting menu at Providence, possibly my #1 destination in Los Angeles--after a girls' nails day with my closest high school lady friends. I have to say, I enjoyed it a lot more than I would have enjoyed a Coyote Ugly style evening. By the week before, the stress was really getting to me. Providence was the perfect calm-me-down dinner.

We started with a gin and tonic gelee. So interesting! It had a texture similar to that of a very soft Turkish Delight.

"Mojito." This was just like the mojito ball I had at Cafe Atlantico's Minibar in DC, but I have to say Minibar's was better because the filling was fizzy and more minty. Still, I'm not going to put down an explosion of mojito flavor when I get it! This was delicious.

Fennel and saffron soup. This was possibly everyone's favorite, and by far the most unusual tasting dish of the evening. The clear orange layer is intensely tangy, and the top layer is simultaneously creamy and fennel-infused. It's a very creative marriage of contrasting flavors and textures, all in a shot glass.

Tuna tartare, wrapped with a thin slice of hearts of palm. My only quibble: too small! They gave us a huge plate of buttered toasted brioche for this, and we gobbled down the tuna in no time. Classic flavors, very well done.

Lobster "ravioli" with daikon as the skins. Very much like what I had at L'Atelier du Robuchon in Manhattan. Man, I'm starting to sound like an insufferable snob.

Er, fish? I don't remember what it was. Bad Pei. Obviously I'm not enough of an insufferable snob.

Seared scallop with mushrooms and tiny cubes of butternut squash. I love scallops, and this was nicely prepared, so no complaints there.

Veal sous vide with herbed mashed potatoes. I know people go to Providence for well-prepared, though not earth-shatteringly innovative, seafood. However, this was my favorite dish of the night. Meltingly tender veal, prepared sous vide. Maybe it was because this was my first time eating anything sous vide, or maybe it was beacause I was ready for some meat after all that seafood. Or, maybe, it was just that good.

I swear the menu said trout with orange mousse, but it looked and tasted like wild salmon to me. By this time I was pretty tipsy and full.

But no matter how full, this girl always makes room for cheese. This is probably the best cheese plate I've had in a restaurant. We seemed so excited by the selection that our server piled it all on: dried fruits, nuts, fruit paste, cheese, yum yum yum. And I'd never heard of any of the cheeses (or maybe I was just that tipsy), which is saying a lot 'cus I'm kind of a cheese head.

Pre-dessert dessert: fennel sorbet. If I ever decide to to tackle something we ate that evening, it'll probably be fennel sorbet. So airy and crisp, barely sweet and very palate cleansing, the perfect bridge between savory and sweet courses.

Real dessert! A sort of ice cream cobbler, with a knot of poached pear and chocolate sauce. A light and refreshing end to an amazingly long and fulfilling meal.

Post-dessert dessert. Truffles, super salty (in a good way) caramels, and fruit gelee. We hardly had room for all of them, but we made it work. Thanks, girls! I couldn't have asked for anything more. Really!

A-Won

Auuuuuuuuuuuugh! Only one more day! Where did the time go? Probably the same place the sunshine did. But let's think foodie thoughts:

Gilded halibut! J finally got his wish of eating live halibut. I don't know, I found it anti-climactic. It was good, but not wow-worthy (to me, at least).

A-Won does a lovely set menu $70/pp. Much better than either Odaesan did (before they closed down) or Busan (more casual). But I think I'm done with this style of menu. It's alternatingly bland and overly greasy to me. They hardly ever serve anything I've never seen before, and the game plan of the restaurant is to serve a few high quality dishes and then overwhelm you with a slew of low-quality dishes cooked with cheap ingredients.

Instead, I would suggest going to A-Won for an al bap (seaweed and fish eggs over rice) and a sashimi plate. Play to their strengths, and this is a great restaurant.

Wedding Cakes!

Happy New Year! If you're wondering why I haven't posted in awhile, you must not know me very well! I'm up to my ears in wedding details. Thank goodness help is arriving soon in the form of my friend and day-of coordinator, the beautiful and talented CC.

For now, feast your eyes on wedding sweets! My uncle owns a bakery in Taichung, and he sent three cases of goodies with my uncles and aunt who were able to make it to the wedding. Yum! Pineapple cakes, lemon cakes, cream filled sandwich cookies, nougat candy, and Taiwanese pastries.

These he didn't make, but ordered from a colleague who makes more Western style wedding sweets. Taiwanese tradition is that upon engagement, the groom's father sends the bride's family a monetary gift, with which the bride's mother buys wedding sweets to pass out to the bride's family friends as a formal engagement announcement. Between not wanting to steal my uncle's thunder (he was married this past summer) and coordinating to get something cuter than we could find in the states, these ended up being passed out two weeks before the wedding and we weren't able to get enough to give every friend. But c'est la vie, we do what we can!

Menu Hilarity

I love Mei Long Village, but their menu is in dire need of a makeover. Unless, of course, they are intentionally trying to crack me up every time I visit.