San Francisco - Day 1 (and Day 0)

As you may have guessed from the creative title of this post, we took a vacation to San Francisco for the 4th of July weekend! Above, the canonical (that's for Gregg) SF picture. (Note: I'm going to write SF instead of the whole city name from now on...too many letters and C's that sound like S.) We spent three full days there, arriving very VERY late on Thursday and taking an 11 PM flight out on Sunday night. Getting there was a travail, as well as travel.

Arriving at the Nashville airport, we heard that all of the United computers at Chicago O'Hare had gone down on Thursday morning, and that the agents there were issuing tickets by hand...big mess that we avoided by going through Denver, which made us very happy. However, we ended up stuck in a holding pattern over Colorado, which the pilot neglected to mention. He finally did come on the intercom (and I hadn't realized that we had been in the air so long), and opened with this:

"Good evening everyone, this is the pilot speaking. We have a fuel issue."

Big oops. That's how you start a panic, right there. He then proceeded to explain weather in Denver, holding pattern, blah blah blah, and oh, by the way, we're going to Omaha. So we proceeded the wrong direction across the country for an hour, landed, gassed up, and went on our merry way, only arriving about 3.5 hours late. United was kind enough to automatically rebook us on the next flight, which we missed, being in Omaha, and we ended up sneaking on the last flight to SFO much later that night. All in all, instead of landing at 8 PM and getting to enjoy a nice late evening meal, we landed at midnight and got to enjoy Quizno's in Denver. Bleh.

In SF, Finally

Ok, so we get there and check in. I booked us at the W Hotel near the convention center (swanky, eh?). If you are not familiar with the W, take an ultra-modern-looking hotel lobby, add techno music, a DJ (the good kind, not the wedding kind), and a bunch of expensive-looking twenty- and thirty-somethings. When the cab dropped us off, Dru had to ask to make sure we were entering the hotel with our suitcases, and not some club.

If you have never been to San Francisco, it is TOTALLY AWESOME. It is certainly the most liberal city in the US and probably the greenest as well. Every shop, restaurant, and museum has at least three waste cans: Recycling for plastic, glass, paper, etc., regular trash, and compost! Even the little plastic spoons that you get with your gelatto (more on that later) are bio-degradable! Plus, in the "awesome" column, they have good beer, better wine, and great food.

So, what did we do, already?

Well, we got up late and had breakfast at the hotel. We decided to take a long walk, so we went north, up through Chinatown and into North Beach, which is an Italian neighborhood. We walked up a giant hill (betcha didn't know they had those in SF) to a building of the SF Art Institute, where we heard they had a Diego Rivera mural, which they did. The building was a converted mission, with a tower, a gorgeous courtyard with fountain, and a great view over the city and of Alcatraz.

The mural was really neat. It filled the end wall of a vaulted room with high windows and big wooden beams...looked like it might have been the chapel back in the mission days. The rest of the room was a gallery with a half dozen pieces each by two artists (students?). You can check out a bad photo of the mural here.

Bring on the food!

By now, we had worked up an appetite, since it was at least 11:30 and we hadn't eaten since 9 AM. We had a few places on our list, and we started at a small chocolatier called XOX Truffles (www.xoxtruffles.com). Sweet! In a bitter way! The shop was itty-bitty, and basically sold chocolate and coffee. We got a sampling to try. On the left are Caramel, Earl Grey Tea, and Vin Rouge, and on the right are Matcha and Cinnamon. All of them were spectacular. Dru's favorite was (and I quote): "The caramel was really good. The green tea was really good. I don't really have a favorite. I want chocolate NOW." The matcha was probably my favorite...it was a truffle that is actually covered in matcha (powdered green tea), which made it super bitter but also rich and delicious. We had a conversation with the owner, who had been there for 13 years (!), making truffles with her husband. She made sure to mention that you could order them online, so check them out if you need a Valentine or Sweetie-I'm-Sorry gift.

Next, we tried to get lunch, at a little pizza joint called Cinecitta (cinema city). Unfortunately, it was noon and they didn't open until 12:30 (what??). So we dropped into the outpost of the Rogue Nation next door for a well-deserved beer (hey, it was like 3 minutes past noon at that point). At 12:30 we headed back and got served fantastic Roman-style pizza by a sassy Roman lady. Dru elected spinach, mascarpone, ricotta, and pancetta, and I went for homemade meatballs and mozzarella.

Finally, we headed down to get some gelatto as a second desert. In the picture, gelatto plus happy-Dru with gelatto:

We wrapped up the day with a visit to SFMOMA, the SF Museum of Modern Art, which was conveniently located next door to our hotel. In addition to a spectacular permanent collection and a new roof-top sculpture garden, they were running a joint show with Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe, both of whose works we love.

The two were apparently life-long friends who impacted each-other's works. For example, after meeting Adams and several other photographers in Taos, O'Keefe began playing with viewpoints and angles, and even went to the length of creating lens effects with light...painted effects that you can only see through a lens, not by eye. We got an audio-guide for the show, which was fascinating, as it featured interviews with the artists, Adams' son, and historians. I wish we had some pictures to show, but photos were verbotten. Definitely worth a visit if you go to SF this summer.

Dinner Time

For dinner, the hotel concierge got a reservation for us at a new restaurant called Waterbar, with a seat by the window with a great view of the Bay Bridge. They focus on raw bar and seafood, was was delicious. We went for oysters and a selection of appetizers, tapas style: Hamachi ceviche with coconut milk and lime, Australian Kingfish sashimi with golden beet relish, shaved fennel and snap peas (pictured), and octopus with cucumber and paprika oil. Epitome of class: knowing that we were splitting the dishes, they actually split them and served two plates, instead of putting the whole serving in the middle of the table.

Dinner was accentuated by a bottle of sancerre and wrapped up with a brown butter cornmeal cake, served with roasted apricots and sabayon.

Whew! Days 0 and 1 were epic! Tune it tomorrow for fish, butterflies, and hippies.