San Francisco Bay Area: Your favorite things to do or places to go
07-31-2007
, 04:18 AM
08-01-2007
, 12:26 PM
08-08-2007
, 06:10 AM
Long as hell bay area trip report
Tik's notes (kinda like cliff's notes): Went to San Jose cuz gf's at conference. Played some poker, positive results overall, meh food, meh food, food poisoning, yuck food, GARY DANKO's AMAZING. Fly home watch Bonds on plane, miss 756 cuz I'm on the subway. NY weather sucks. Wanna move to northern California.
I bolded all the restaurant names if you want to not read all my other ramblings.
I just got back from a trip to the Bay Area (San Jose from 8/3 - 8/4; San Francisco from 8/5 - 8/7), here's a brief trip report. I'll try to focus on the foodstuffs, though it just might turn into a general trip report.
My girlfriend's in San Jose for a math conference, so I decide to take a few days off and join her for some northern California food/poker action (amongst other kinda action
). I fly in to SFO late Thursday night/Friday morning. She's staying at the Fairview (not to be confused with the Fairmont, which is where her conference was), because she booked late and they were out of rooms at the Fairmont (beat). The Fairview though is pretty much around the corner from Bay 101 (brag), making her choice of hotel acceptable, though it would've been nice to stay at the Fairmont. So I fly in Thursday night, drive the 40 minutes down to San Jose and sleep. Friday morning, my girlfriend is up and our early conferencing and wakes me up for lunch. She had gone to the Vietnamese place called Pho Viet the day before that was located in the same strip-mallish area that our hotel was and we decide to go there for lunch. The Pho is excellent. The soup is delicious and the beef tasty. I order the large and could barely finish it. We also order the Spring Rolls and I find a hair in it. I'm not really grossed out by stuff like this (and it's not a pube; I definitely would be grossed out if it were a pube), so I end up eating the other one (the hairless one), which I must say was pretty good too.
The rest of the day, she's conferencing, and I'm still tired from the late flight and subsequent drive from the night before, so I go back to the hotel to pass out. That night, we decide to go to Scott's Seafood, which my girlfriend has heard is good. We park and take the elevator up to the top floor. The view is gorgeous and the dining area is nice and spacious and has great light (this was during the day/early evening). So far so good. For starters, we order the shrimp cocktail, err, excuse me, the Deep Water Prawn Cocktail and the chicken tortilla soup. I love shrimp cocktail, and this shrimp cocktail was good (unremarkable), though the cocktail sauce did have grated horseradish on top, which was pretty good. The chicken tortilla soup, meh. For the main course, my girlfriend decided on some seafood medley (Sautéed Prawns, Scallops, Dungeness Crab, Garlic White Wine), while I opted for the Scallops (Day Boat Scallops, Quinoa Grain, Micro Greens Salad, Cabernet Reduction). Basically, these tasted like glorified Chinese food, and we were both disappointed with our orders (mine was less Chinese-food-like than hers). The quinoa, I thought was a pretty nice touch, though the Cabernet Reduction, Chinese food-y. The service though was great and our waiter was really nice. Overall though, maybe it was just the two dishes we happened to try, but it was below expectation for the price range and the niceness of the restaurant itself. So that was the food in day one.
The rest of the evening is spent napping by me and later that night, I decide to take my first trip over to the Bay 101. I get there about eleven-ish and there're three tables of 20-40 going with a list about 15 deep. I ask the nice floor-lady to put me on the list for the 20 game and she nods to me as if to say "anything else"? So I reply "that's it." And she nods again, and I realize she needs to know my name to write down. Oh yeah, right. TIK please. We both have a laugh as she writes me down and I wait for about 45 minutes, watching some MMA action on TV while occasionally checking out the action in the games. Wow, 3-bets 3 ways on the turn on a 23593 board and AK takes it down (after the river going bet call call!!!!!!)...awesome. I eventually get called and proceed to run good and I'm up about 3 racks in about an hour and a half. Then the poker-goddess decides to hit the doom-switch and I go on a 40-BB downswing about half going to one guy on a ridiculous rush, who for an entire half an hour plays pretty much every hand and cracks every big hand of mine. Yuck. The rest of the night is spent trying to get it all back and about 8 hours later, I cash out up the same initial 3 racks before the doom-switch. I should've left 8 hours ago
. Back to the hotel, end day 1.
Day 2 (Saturday), we decide to check out San Jose's Japantown for lunch. Wow, it's really sad. It's on its last legs. Looks like all the Japanese people are moving away and the Japanese shops are all closing. It seems like the beginnings of a ghost town. We check out Kumako Ramen, which, for American ramen is quite good (obviously doesn't hold a candle to any good ramen places in Japan). We also order the gyoza as well as the Japanese-style curry rice side dishes. The gyoza is better than expected and the curry-rice is meh, though spicier than expected, so I dig. My girlfriend orders the Tonkotsu-Shoyu ramen and I order the Tonkotsu (Tonkotsu by the way means pork-bone, which is what the soup stock is made from). The noodles are better than expected and the soup is decent too. For a ramen place in America, it's pretty good.
After lunch, we check out the Japanese convenience store across the street and I buy some Hi-Chew (delicious chewy candy), and a peach juice drink (ahhh, memories of childhood trips to Japan; this stuff is delicious!).
For dinner, things get interesting. My girlfriend has a banquet to attend at the conference, and I have yet to sleep and don't feel like going, so while she's banqueting, I'm napping, and I get up around 6PM to go play some more cards. I proceed to run bad again and drop about 4 racks before I get back to down only a rack about 8 hours later. Meanwhile, I'd forgotten about dinner and at about 1 in the morning, I opt for the Bay 101's Club House sandwich and a glass of V8 (meanwhile thinking of the tomato juice thread). The club has avocado in it and is pretty damn good. I'm impressed. I stupidly take the toothpick out of the first quarter of the sandwich and as I bite down half of it ends up on my lap. [censored]...and as if to add insult to injury, I 3-bet with AJ, get called cold by J2 and lose on a A26 flop when the seemingly safe deuce comes on the turn. Ugh. I take a large swig of V8 to wash out the bad taste from the hand as well as the remnants of sandwich, and it tastes a bit off. Hmmm. Weird. I don't remember V8 tasting like this. Maybe it's because I just brushed my teeth before coming to the casino. I attribute it to the toothpaste effect and proceed to finish the sandwich and the V8 and finish up my poker session at about 8 in the morning ([censored], I have to drive to San Fran. later today) down a rack for the night... End day 2
Begin Day 3:
*****kinda gross scatological stuff******
I get back to the hotel room and get some shut-eye since I have to wake up in a few hours to drive my girlfriend to the conference and then from there to S.F. It feels like I just fell asleep and already my girlfriend is nudging me awake. But what's this? Hmm. Gotta run to the bathroom. I proceed to poop like I'm peeing. Hmm. there is liquid coming out of the wrong orifice. Strange, at least I'm not puking, I think to myself, as I projectile-poop about 2 gallons into the toilet. Hooray, food poisoning!! [censored] YOU V8.
******ok, enough of this nastiness********
The flood seems to have abated for now, and we check out of the hotel and drive over to the conference. Meanwhile the nausea kicks in and I start to feel feverish. Holy [censored]. I feel like utter poop. My girlfriend wants to eat breakfast though and I'm not man enough to keep her from her food, so breakfast it is. Today we decide on the restaurant at the Fairmont (I forget the name). She opts for the crab-cake Caesar salad, and I opt to run to the bathroom every 5 minutes to keep from soiling myself. She says the crab-cake Caesar salad is not very good, and I say the V8 at the Fairmont is fantastic. No, I'm just kidding, I didn't order the V8. I had fresh-squeezed orange juice and some unbuttered rye toast. It was marble-rye by the way, and it was EXCELLENT (the OJ was fresh-squeezed and excellent as well). It's too bad I could only stomach 1/2 a slice of the 2 slices I got. Judging from the toast and the juice, the food here is good. My girlfriend is notorious for not ordering well at restaurants (come on, crab-cake Caesar salad? I hope she doesn't read this, but if she does, I'd also like to add that she is beautiful and is lovely, and this is a math conference she's attending so she's [censored] smart to boot. I love you baby!), so I'm not surprised that it wasn't too good. Anyway, she finishes up her conferences and I start getting a fever and shivering uncontrollably. I'm dressed for the San Jose day though, so I've only got on a short-sleeved shirt, so I'm freezing. I go outside into the beautiful San Jose weather. It's mid-80s, blue skies, and sunshine with a great cool breeze, which on an ordinary day would be perfect, but today, I feel like my jaw is going to fall off because my teeth are chattering so hard. I manage to find a spot that isn't a wind-tunnel across the street from the hotel in a nice grassy area and hang out there while my girlfriend finishes up her conferencing. The weather is so damn beautiful here I want to cry thinking about what I'm gonna have to return to in a few days (NYC weather ugh).
Anyway, my girlfriend finishes up her conference and I finish up my toileting and we grab the car from the valet and we're off on our hour-long journey to San Francisco. We've booked a room at the beautiful Crowne Plaza hotel on the corner of Powell and Sutter and we pull in around 6PM. Brag: $85 a night before taxes!! Beat: $43 a day parking!! Variance: I at the moment cannot enjoy any of it because I'm feeling too [censored] to care. The nice bell-hop man shows us up to our room and we decide to take a nap for a little while since I'm really not feeling well at this point. We get up around 9 and decide to go to dinner. I suggest we go to some random crab shack on the water, since we both like crab, well, I LOVE crab, but I digress. I hope all crab-shacks in SF aren't like this because this one sucked. We went to the one on Pier 39. I know. Tourist trap, yadda yadda. I thought so too, but my mind was clouded by food poisoning and I wasn't thinking straight. Apparently the crab is cooked in their special secret sauce, which I cleverly deduced to be liberal amounts of butter and garlic with maybe a pinch of parsley and a fistful of salt. Now that my memory is working better, the name of the place was the Crab House. Gross. Don't ever go there. I vow to never go to a tourist trap restaurant ever again. I should know better, being from a touristy area myself. (Aside: Anyone know any GOOD crab shacks in SF?) Anyway, with that meal done, we both head back to the hotel after hailing a cab (crazy [censored] cab-driver by the way; I don't know how he still had an undercarriage to his vehicle the way he drove on these hills), and we pass out 'til morning...end Day 3
Begin Day 4
For the morning, we have a trip to UC Berkeley planned since my girlfriend is planning on applying to their PhD program. We arrive around 11:00 since we want to eat breakfast/brunch before she has to meet with some people in the math department. I have an old HS friend who's a PhD candidate in the Italian Literature department there, so I pick him up and we decide to go to lunch. We actually decide to go to Doña Tomás(sp??) for lunch and get there to find it closed. So, my friend suggested La Note restaurant. A cute little French place for breakfast. We all get the same thing, the ham and cheese omelette, which comes with a side of home-fried potatoes. Delicious. OJ is fresh-squeezed as well. Doubly delicous. The place is great. Cute as hell. I love it. Even the bathroom is cute. I'm eating this [censored] up. Lovely. The rest of the afternoon my girlfriend spends speaking with some people in the math department and I, with my friend giving me a tour of campus, annoying everyone with our cigarette-smoke plume the entire way. The campus really is beautiful by the way.
Fast forward to a couple of hours later. My girlfriend is done with her talks, my friend and I part ways... Holy [censored], I forgot to mention, while my girlfriend is off on her own, my friend takes me to this new ice cream shop. I, for the life of me cannot remember the name of the place. The cones are hand-made on the premises and have chocolate in the bottom to keep the ice cream from leaking out (I didn't try the cones, though they looked and smelled delicious). They had some unusual flavors too (which I now forget, sorry). My friend opted for one scoop of caramel banana and another of malted vanilla with chocolate chip, while I also went for a scoop of the malted vanilla with chocolate chip, but with a second scoop of plain chocolate. I tried the caramel-banana, and though I'm not usually a fan of banana, this was fantastic. The malted vanilla chocolate chip was excellent. And the chocolate was not too sweet, and very dark (i.e. fan-[censored]-tastic). So back to the story. My girlfriend is now done, we part ways, and we're off to the best meal of our trip...RESTAURANT GARY DANKO
We have reservations at 6:00, we arrive at 5:30, and we're seated immediately. We are taken to our table in the dining room to the left of the entrance, where we find a table for two with place settings side-by side, aww so cute...like in the movies. We decide to have some champagne before our meal and are presented with a list of options. I don't know much about champagne, except that I like it dry and I like it to flow freely, though my designated-driver status precluded the latter. The drink-lady is quick to pick one for us from a selection of about 5, and pour us two glasses (oh so gently, might I add). I forget which one she picked, but it was delicious.
We are then presented with menus, and while we're analyzing these, they bring us some consomme with little shavings of zucchini and cute little tomatoes. Absolutely delicious. Our great waiter now comes by to help us with our menus. The menu is split into two parts. The left side is the tasting menu a preselected meal consisting of five courses, one from each section of the menu, which is divided into Appetizers, Fish and Seafood, Meat and Game Birds, Cheese, and Desserts; while on the right side, you basically pick how many courses you want, and choose however many of the options from however many of the sections you want (e.g. 2 appetizers, 1 meat and game birds = 3 courses, or 1 appetizer, 1 fish and seafood, 1 cheese course + dessert = 4 courses). I, being the indecisive one opted for the tasting menu, while my girlfriend, being the more courageous one opted to choose her own adventure. That evening, the tasting menu consisted of Glazed Oysters with Osetra Caviar, Zucchini Pearls and Lettuce Cream as the appetizer, Horseradish Crusted Salmon Medallion with Dilled Cucumbers for the Fish and Seafood course, Roasted Loin of Bison with King Trumpet Mushrooms, Onion and Herb Spaetzle for the Meat and Gamebirds course, 4 Cheeses from a cheese tray consisting of about 20 different cheeses, and Baked Chocolate Soufflé for dessert. My girlfriend opted for 3 courses (well 3.5 actually) Sweet White Corn Soup with Corn Truffle Ravioli and Summer Truffles for appetizer, Roast Maine Lobster with Yellow Chanterelle Mushrooms, Corn and Tarragon for her Fish and Seafood course,
Lemon Herb Duck Breast with Duck Hash and Plum Compote for her Meat and Game Birds course, and my dessert.
My review:
Starting with the service, it is wonderful. Glasses are always filled, timing on the dishes is perfect. Everything is choreographed and impeccable. The sommelier knows his [censored] (one of the couple next to us got the tasting menu with the wine pairing and played 20 questions for every wine). This place is [censored] awesome. Anyway on to the food.
APPETIZER
Glazed Oysters with Osetra Caviar, Zucchini Pearls and Lettuce Cream
I didn't notice when looking at the menu that this dish contained both Oysters and Caviar. This would have turned me off from it because Oysters and Caviar even alone have very strong tastes, and caviar is very salty. I'm glad I didn't read the menu because this dish was amazing. The cream sauce offset the saltiness and "sea" taste of the oysters and caviar perfectly, while at the same time preserving the oyster and caviar flavors, which melded beautifully in my mouth. God, my mouth waters from thinking about it again.
Final verdict: Excellent.
GF's dish: Sweet White Corn Soup with Corn Truffle Ravioli and Summer Truffles GF says: "Wow, now this is what corn soup is supposed to taste like." She gives me a spoonful and I concur.
Final verdict: Excellent
Fish and Seafood
Horseradish Crusted Salmon Medallion with Dilled Cucumbers
I love salmon. I ESPECIALLY love this salmon. Cooked to perfect rarity, the inside is pink but not raw. The top is the crust consisting of some breading-type stuff, and it rests on a bed of thinly sliced cucumbers, with a very very light horseradish sauce. Jesus. Amazing.
Final verdict: EXCELLENT
GF's Dish: Roast Maine Lobster with Yellow Chanterelle Mushrooms, Corn and Tarragon
As I mentioned before my girlfriend and I both like crab. But she LOVES lobster, in fact, if it were legal, she would probably marry lobster (and drop me in a second). So this was naturally her selection for the seafood course. She was not disappointed. She gave me a bite and I wasn't either. Cooked to perfection. I don't remember this very well since I was too enthralled with my salmon, but from my one bite, it was damn good. From the crazed, glazed-over look my girlfriend got during this course, I think she seconded that opinion.
Final verdict: EXCELLENT
Meat and Game Birds
Roasted Loin of Bison with King Trumpet Mushrooms, Onion and Herb Spaetzle
Bison meat is very lean. I would compare it to beef filet, but with a bit more flavor. The sauce, while not mentioned in the description complimented the meat perfectly, which rested atop a bed of the aforementioned spaetzle. This was my first encounter with spaetzle. It's basically noodles, but with a bit doughier consistency. The closest thing (in consistency) I would compare it to would be matzo-balls in matzo-ball soup. Again, with the sauce and bison-meat, perfect compliment and starch-pairing with the meat.
Final Verdict: Out of the 5 courses, probably my least favorite, but still, EXCELLENT
GF's dish: Lemon Herb Duck Breast with Duck Hash and Plum Compote
Goddamn. If I could do it all over again, I would order this as two of my courses. Few times in my life have I ever had duck cooked so perfectly. Duck goes great with fruitiness. I only got to try a piece, because again, my girlfriend got that crazed look in her eye, had a knife in hand and I didn't want to induce a stabbing.
Final Verdict: EXCELLENT
Cheese
Basically, the waiter wheeled out a cheese platter consisting of about 20 cheese, divided into the types of milk used: Goat's milk, sheep's milk, and cow's milk, and ranging from very mild cheese to very very stinky cheese. I got to pick four. I chose one sheep's milk cheese, which was pretty mild, and the rest cow's milk cheeses. Of the 3 cow's milk cheese I picked, the last was a blue cheese (the stinkiest of the bunch). These, our waiter sliced onto a plate with slices of wonderful walnut bread, and grapes to cleanse the palate between cheeses. I wish I had written down the cheeses I chose because they were all excellent, my favorite being the blue cheese, which my girlfriend nearly gagged from eating. I ate it and then proceeded to try to kiss her. I finish the cheese and commend my waiter because for the blue cheese, I told him to "surprise me".
Final Verdict: I love cheese. EXCELLENT.
DESSERT
Baked Chocolate Soufflé
Finally, dessert. I'm not much of a dessert man, so I gave it to my girlfriend. She gave me a taste and when I went for more, she invoked the no-backsies rule and tried to stab me with her fork.
Final Verdict: EXCELLENT
OVERALL VERDICT: [censored] amazing. EAT HERE ASAP.
For all this, with a 30% tip, it didn't even break $300. Now, I realize it's because we didn't get a bottle of wine since I was still sorta recovering from food poisoning, and my girlfriend can't drink a bottle by herself. But the 5-course meal cost $94. It's less if you order less courses. I didn't check out the wine-list at all, but I'm sure a restaurant of this caliber would have a pretty decent wine-cellar. Anyway, I can't say enough how good the food was. Go. You won't be disappointed.
Oh, and they give you an apricot muffin all packaged like a present for the next morning and along with dessert, they give you a plate full of delicious mini-pastries.
Anyway, back to the trip. The rest of the trip was uneventful. Got some bread for my mom the next morning at Acme in the marketplace, drove to the airport, flew home. Caught Bonds' first at-bat on the plane but missed the important record-breaking one riding the subway. I hope you enjoyed the trip report (if you're still reading).
Tik's notes (kinda like cliff's notes): Went to San Jose cuz gf's at conference. Played some poker, positive results overall, meh food, meh food, food poisoning, yuck food, GARY DANKO's AMAZING. Fly home watch Bonds on plane, miss 756 cuz I'm on the subway. NY weather sucks. Wanna move to northern California.
I bolded all the restaurant names if you want to not read all my other ramblings.
I just got back from a trip to the Bay Area (San Jose from 8/3 - 8/4; San Francisco from 8/5 - 8/7), here's a brief trip report. I'll try to focus on the foodstuffs, though it just might turn into a general trip report.
My girlfriend's in San Jose for a math conference, so I decide to take a few days off and join her for some northern California food/poker action (amongst other kinda action
). I fly in to SFO late Thursday night/Friday morning. She's staying at the Fairview (not to be confused with the Fairmont, which is where her conference was), because she booked late and they were out of rooms at the Fairmont (beat). The Fairview though is pretty much around the corner from Bay 101 (brag), making her choice of hotel acceptable, though it would've been nice to stay at the Fairmont. So I fly in Thursday night, drive the 40 minutes down to San Jose and sleep. Friday morning, my girlfriend is up and our early conferencing and wakes me up for lunch. She had gone to the Vietnamese place called Pho Viet the day before that was located in the same strip-mallish area that our hotel was and we decide to go there for lunch. The Pho is excellent. The soup is delicious and the beef tasty. I order the large and could barely finish it. We also order the Spring Rolls and I find a hair in it. I'm not really grossed out by stuff like this (and it's not a pube; I definitely would be grossed out if it were a pube), so I end up eating the other one (the hairless one), which I must say was pretty good too.The rest of the day, she's conferencing, and I'm still tired from the late flight and subsequent drive from the night before, so I go back to the hotel to pass out. That night, we decide to go to Scott's Seafood, which my girlfriend has heard is good. We park and take the elevator up to the top floor. The view is gorgeous and the dining area is nice and spacious and has great light (this was during the day/early evening). So far so good. For starters, we order the shrimp cocktail, err, excuse me, the Deep Water Prawn Cocktail and the chicken tortilla soup. I love shrimp cocktail, and this shrimp cocktail was good (unremarkable), though the cocktail sauce did have grated horseradish on top, which was pretty good. The chicken tortilla soup, meh. For the main course, my girlfriend decided on some seafood medley (Sautéed Prawns, Scallops, Dungeness Crab, Garlic White Wine), while I opted for the Scallops (Day Boat Scallops, Quinoa Grain, Micro Greens Salad, Cabernet Reduction). Basically, these tasted like glorified Chinese food, and we were both disappointed with our orders (mine was less Chinese-food-like than hers). The quinoa, I thought was a pretty nice touch, though the Cabernet Reduction, Chinese food-y. The service though was great and our waiter was really nice. Overall though, maybe it was just the two dishes we happened to try, but it was below expectation for the price range and the niceness of the restaurant itself. So that was the food in day one.
The rest of the evening is spent napping by me and later that night, I decide to take my first trip over to the Bay 101. I get there about eleven-ish and there're three tables of 20-40 going with a list about 15 deep. I ask the nice floor-lady to put me on the list for the 20 game and she nods to me as if to say "anything else"? So I reply "that's it." And she nods again, and I realize she needs to know my name to write down. Oh yeah, right. TIK please. We both have a laugh as she writes me down and I wait for about 45 minutes, watching some MMA action on TV while occasionally checking out the action in the games. Wow, 3-bets 3 ways on the turn on a 23593 board and AK takes it down (after the river going bet call call!!!!!!)...awesome. I eventually get called and proceed to run good and I'm up about 3 racks in about an hour and a half. Then the poker-goddess decides to hit the doom-switch and I go on a 40-BB downswing about half going to one guy on a ridiculous rush, who for an entire half an hour plays pretty much every hand and cracks every big hand of mine. Yuck. The rest of the night is spent trying to get it all back and about 8 hours later, I cash out up the same initial 3 racks before the doom-switch. I should've left 8 hours ago
. Back to the hotel, end day 1.Day 2 (Saturday), we decide to check out San Jose's Japantown for lunch. Wow, it's really sad. It's on its last legs. Looks like all the Japanese people are moving away and the Japanese shops are all closing. It seems like the beginnings of a ghost town. We check out Kumako Ramen, which, for American ramen is quite good (obviously doesn't hold a candle to any good ramen places in Japan). We also order the gyoza as well as the Japanese-style curry rice side dishes. The gyoza is better than expected and the curry-rice is meh, though spicier than expected, so I dig. My girlfriend orders the Tonkotsu-Shoyu ramen and I order the Tonkotsu (Tonkotsu by the way means pork-bone, which is what the soup stock is made from). The noodles are better than expected and the soup is decent too. For a ramen place in America, it's pretty good.
After lunch, we check out the Japanese convenience store across the street and I buy some Hi-Chew (delicious chewy candy), and a peach juice drink (ahhh, memories of childhood trips to Japan; this stuff is delicious!).
For dinner, things get interesting. My girlfriend has a banquet to attend at the conference, and I have yet to sleep and don't feel like going, so while she's banqueting, I'm napping, and I get up around 6PM to go play some more cards. I proceed to run bad again and drop about 4 racks before I get back to down only a rack about 8 hours later. Meanwhile, I'd forgotten about dinner and at about 1 in the morning, I opt for the Bay 101's Club House sandwich and a glass of V8 (meanwhile thinking of the tomato juice thread). The club has avocado in it and is pretty damn good. I'm impressed. I stupidly take the toothpick out of the first quarter of the sandwich and as I bite down half of it ends up on my lap. [censored]...and as if to add insult to injury, I 3-bet with AJ, get called cold by J2 and lose on a A26 flop when the seemingly safe deuce comes on the turn. Ugh. I take a large swig of V8 to wash out the bad taste from the hand as well as the remnants of sandwich, and it tastes a bit off. Hmmm. Weird. I don't remember V8 tasting like this. Maybe it's because I just brushed my teeth before coming to the casino. I attribute it to the toothpaste effect and proceed to finish the sandwich and the V8 and finish up my poker session at about 8 in the morning ([censored], I have to drive to San Fran. later today) down a rack for the night... End day 2
Begin Day 3:
*****kinda gross scatological stuff******
I get back to the hotel room and get some shut-eye since I have to wake up in a few hours to drive my girlfriend to the conference and then from there to S.F. It feels like I just fell asleep and already my girlfriend is nudging me awake. But what's this? Hmm. Gotta run to the bathroom. I proceed to poop like I'm peeing. Hmm. there is liquid coming out of the wrong orifice. Strange, at least I'm not puking, I think to myself, as I projectile-poop about 2 gallons into the toilet. Hooray, food poisoning!! [censored] YOU V8.
******ok, enough of this nastiness********
The flood seems to have abated for now, and we check out of the hotel and drive over to the conference. Meanwhile the nausea kicks in and I start to feel feverish. Holy [censored]. I feel like utter poop. My girlfriend wants to eat breakfast though and I'm not man enough to keep her from her food, so breakfast it is. Today we decide on the restaurant at the Fairmont (I forget the name). She opts for the crab-cake Caesar salad, and I opt to run to the bathroom every 5 minutes to keep from soiling myself. She says the crab-cake Caesar salad is not very good, and I say the V8 at the Fairmont is fantastic. No, I'm just kidding, I didn't order the V8. I had fresh-squeezed orange juice and some unbuttered rye toast. It was marble-rye by the way, and it was EXCELLENT (the OJ was fresh-squeezed and excellent as well). It's too bad I could only stomach 1/2 a slice of the 2 slices I got. Judging from the toast and the juice, the food here is good. My girlfriend is notorious for not ordering well at restaurants (come on, crab-cake Caesar salad? I hope she doesn't read this, but if she does, I'd also like to add that she is beautiful and is lovely, and this is a math conference she's attending so she's [censored] smart to boot. I love you baby!), so I'm not surprised that it wasn't too good. Anyway, she finishes up her conferences and I start getting a fever and shivering uncontrollably. I'm dressed for the San Jose day though, so I've only got on a short-sleeved shirt, so I'm freezing. I go outside into the beautiful San Jose weather. It's mid-80s, blue skies, and sunshine with a great cool breeze, which on an ordinary day would be perfect, but today, I feel like my jaw is going to fall off because my teeth are chattering so hard. I manage to find a spot that isn't a wind-tunnel across the street from the hotel in a nice grassy area and hang out there while my girlfriend finishes up her conferencing. The weather is so damn beautiful here I want to cry thinking about what I'm gonna have to return to in a few days (NYC weather ugh).
Anyway, my girlfriend finishes up her conference and I finish up my toileting and we grab the car from the valet and we're off on our hour-long journey to San Francisco. We've booked a room at the beautiful Crowne Plaza hotel on the corner of Powell and Sutter and we pull in around 6PM. Brag: $85 a night before taxes!! Beat: $43 a day parking!! Variance: I at the moment cannot enjoy any of it because I'm feeling too [censored] to care. The nice bell-hop man shows us up to our room and we decide to take a nap for a little while since I'm really not feeling well at this point. We get up around 9 and decide to go to dinner. I suggest we go to some random crab shack on the water, since we both like crab, well, I LOVE crab, but I digress. I hope all crab-shacks in SF aren't like this because this one sucked. We went to the one on Pier 39. I know. Tourist trap, yadda yadda. I thought so too, but my mind was clouded by food poisoning and I wasn't thinking straight. Apparently the crab is cooked in their special secret sauce, which I cleverly deduced to be liberal amounts of butter and garlic with maybe a pinch of parsley and a fistful of salt. Now that my memory is working better, the name of the place was the Crab House. Gross. Don't ever go there. I vow to never go to a tourist trap restaurant ever again. I should know better, being from a touristy area myself. (Aside: Anyone know any GOOD crab shacks in SF?) Anyway, with that meal done, we both head back to the hotel after hailing a cab (crazy [censored] cab-driver by the way; I don't know how he still had an undercarriage to his vehicle the way he drove on these hills), and we pass out 'til morning...end Day 3
Begin Day 4
For the morning, we have a trip to UC Berkeley planned since my girlfriend is planning on applying to their PhD program. We arrive around 11:00 since we want to eat breakfast/brunch before she has to meet with some people in the math department. I have an old HS friend who's a PhD candidate in the Italian Literature department there, so I pick him up and we decide to go to lunch. We actually decide to go to Doña Tomás(sp??) for lunch and get there to find it closed. So, my friend suggested La Note restaurant. A cute little French place for breakfast. We all get the same thing, the ham and cheese omelette, which comes with a side of home-fried potatoes. Delicious. OJ is fresh-squeezed as well. Doubly delicous. The place is great. Cute as hell. I love it. Even the bathroom is cute. I'm eating this [censored] up. Lovely. The rest of the afternoon my girlfriend spends speaking with some people in the math department and I, with my friend giving me a tour of campus, annoying everyone with our cigarette-smoke plume the entire way. The campus really is beautiful by the way.
Fast forward to a couple of hours later. My girlfriend is done with her talks, my friend and I part ways... Holy [censored], I forgot to mention, while my girlfriend is off on her own, my friend takes me to this new ice cream shop. I, for the life of me cannot remember the name of the place. The cones are hand-made on the premises and have chocolate in the bottom to keep the ice cream from leaking out (I didn't try the cones, though they looked and smelled delicious). They had some unusual flavors too (which I now forget, sorry). My friend opted for one scoop of caramel banana and another of malted vanilla with chocolate chip, while I also went for a scoop of the malted vanilla with chocolate chip, but with a second scoop of plain chocolate. I tried the caramel-banana, and though I'm not usually a fan of banana, this was fantastic. The malted vanilla chocolate chip was excellent. And the chocolate was not too sweet, and very dark (i.e. fan-[censored]-tastic). So back to the story. My girlfriend is now done, we part ways, and we're off to the best meal of our trip...RESTAURANT GARY DANKO
We have reservations at 6:00, we arrive at 5:30, and we're seated immediately. We are taken to our table in the dining room to the left of the entrance, where we find a table for two with place settings side-by side, aww so cute...like in the movies. We decide to have some champagne before our meal and are presented with a list of options. I don't know much about champagne, except that I like it dry and I like it to flow freely, though my designated-driver status precluded the latter. The drink-lady is quick to pick one for us from a selection of about 5, and pour us two glasses (oh so gently, might I add). I forget which one she picked, but it was delicious.
We are then presented with menus, and while we're analyzing these, they bring us some consomme with little shavings of zucchini and cute little tomatoes. Absolutely delicious. Our great waiter now comes by to help us with our menus. The menu is split into two parts. The left side is the tasting menu a preselected meal consisting of five courses, one from each section of the menu, which is divided into Appetizers, Fish and Seafood, Meat and Game Birds, Cheese, and Desserts; while on the right side, you basically pick how many courses you want, and choose however many of the options from however many of the sections you want (e.g. 2 appetizers, 1 meat and game birds = 3 courses, or 1 appetizer, 1 fish and seafood, 1 cheese course + dessert = 4 courses). I, being the indecisive one opted for the tasting menu, while my girlfriend, being the more courageous one opted to choose her own adventure. That evening, the tasting menu consisted of Glazed Oysters with Osetra Caviar, Zucchini Pearls and Lettuce Cream as the appetizer, Horseradish Crusted Salmon Medallion with Dilled Cucumbers for the Fish and Seafood course, Roasted Loin of Bison with King Trumpet Mushrooms, Onion and Herb Spaetzle for the Meat and Gamebirds course, 4 Cheeses from a cheese tray consisting of about 20 different cheeses, and Baked Chocolate Soufflé for dessert. My girlfriend opted for 3 courses (well 3.5 actually) Sweet White Corn Soup with Corn Truffle Ravioli and Summer Truffles for appetizer, Roast Maine Lobster with Yellow Chanterelle Mushrooms, Corn and Tarragon for her Fish and Seafood course,
Lemon Herb Duck Breast with Duck Hash and Plum Compote for her Meat and Game Birds course, and my dessert.
My review:
Starting with the service, it is wonderful. Glasses are always filled, timing on the dishes is perfect. Everything is choreographed and impeccable. The sommelier knows his [censored] (one of the couple next to us got the tasting menu with the wine pairing and played 20 questions for every wine). This place is [censored] awesome. Anyway on to the food.
APPETIZER
Glazed Oysters with Osetra Caviar, Zucchini Pearls and Lettuce Cream
I didn't notice when looking at the menu that this dish contained both Oysters and Caviar. This would have turned me off from it because Oysters and Caviar even alone have very strong tastes, and caviar is very salty. I'm glad I didn't read the menu because this dish was amazing. The cream sauce offset the saltiness and "sea" taste of the oysters and caviar perfectly, while at the same time preserving the oyster and caviar flavors, which melded beautifully in my mouth. God, my mouth waters from thinking about it again.
Final verdict: Excellent.
GF's dish: Sweet White Corn Soup with Corn Truffle Ravioli and Summer Truffles GF says: "Wow, now this is what corn soup is supposed to taste like." She gives me a spoonful and I concur.
Final verdict: Excellent
Fish and Seafood
Horseradish Crusted Salmon Medallion with Dilled Cucumbers
I love salmon. I ESPECIALLY love this salmon. Cooked to perfect rarity, the inside is pink but not raw. The top is the crust consisting of some breading-type stuff, and it rests on a bed of thinly sliced cucumbers, with a very very light horseradish sauce. Jesus. Amazing.
Final verdict: EXCELLENT
GF's Dish: Roast Maine Lobster with Yellow Chanterelle Mushrooms, Corn and Tarragon
As I mentioned before my girlfriend and I both like crab. But she LOVES lobster, in fact, if it were legal, she would probably marry lobster (and drop me in a second). So this was naturally her selection for the seafood course. She was not disappointed. She gave me a bite and I wasn't either. Cooked to perfection. I don't remember this very well since I was too enthralled with my salmon, but from my one bite, it was damn good. From the crazed, glazed-over look my girlfriend got during this course, I think she seconded that opinion.
Final verdict: EXCELLENT
Meat and Game Birds
Roasted Loin of Bison with King Trumpet Mushrooms, Onion and Herb Spaetzle
Bison meat is very lean. I would compare it to beef filet, but with a bit more flavor. The sauce, while not mentioned in the description complimented the meat perfectly, which rested atop a bed of the aforementioned spaetzle. This was my first encounter with spaetzle. It's basically noodles, but with a bit doughier consistency. The closest thing (in consistency) I would compare it to would be matzo-balls in matzo-ball soup. Again, with the sauce and bison-meat, perfect compliment and starch-pairing with the meat.
Final Verdict: Out of the 5 courses, probably my least favorite, but still, EXCELLENT
GF's dish: Lemon Herb Duck Breast with Duck Hash and Plum Compote
Goddamn. If I could do it all over again, I would order this as two of my courses. Few times in my life have I ever had duck cooked so perfectly. Duck goes great with fruitiness. I only got to try a piece, because again, my girlfriend got that crazed look in her eye, had a knife in hand and I didn't want to induce a stabbing.
Final Verdict: EXCELLENT
Cheese
Basically, the waiter wheeled out a cheese platter consisting of about 20 cheese, divided into the types of milk used: Goat's milk, sheep's milk, and cow's milk, and ranging from very mild cheese to very very stinky cheese. I got to pick four. I chose one sheep's milk cheese, which was pretty mild, and the rest cow's milk cheeses. Of the 3 cow's milk cheese I picked, the last was a blue cheese (the stinkiest of the bunch). These, our waiter sliced onto a plate with slices of wonderful walnut bread, and grapes to cleanse the palate between cheeses. I wish I had written down the cheeses I chose because they were all excellent, my favorite being the blue cheese, which my girlfriend nearly gagged from eating. I ate it and then proceeded to try to kiss her. I finish the cheese and commend my waiter because for the blue cheese, I told him to "surprise me".
Final Verdict: I love cheese. EXCELLENT.
DESSERT
Baked Chocolate Soufflé
Finally, dessert. I'm not much of a dessert man, so I gave it to my girlfriend. She gave me a taste and when I went for more, she invoked the no-backsies rule and tried to stab me with her fork.
Final Verdict: EXCELLENT
OVERALL VERDICT: [censored] amazing. EAT HERE ASAP.
For all this, with a 30% tip, it didn't even break $300. Now, I realize it's because we didn't get a bottle of wine since I was still sorta recovering from food poisoning, and my girlfriend can't drink a bottle by herself. But the 5-course meal cost $94. It's less if you order less courses. I didn't check out the wine-list at all, but I'm sure a restaurant of this caliber would have a pretty decent wine-cellar. Anyway, I can't say enough how good the food was. Go. You won't be disappointed.
Oh, and they give you an apricot muffin all packaged like a present for the next morning and along with dessert, they give you a plate full of delicious mini-pastries.
Anyway, back to the trip. The rest of the trip was uneventful. Got some bread for my mom the next morning at Acme in the marketplace, drove to the airport, flew home. Caught Bonds' first at-bat on the plane but missed the important record-breaking one riding the subway. I hope you enjoyed the trip report (if you're still reading).
08-09-2007
, 03:53 AM
08-13-2007
, 07:45 PM
