Enough procrastination already. Our trip to San Francisco was over a month ago and I need to post about now before it's completely faded from my short term memory. In short, the trip was spectacular. The places we visited were fantastic and the weather was unexpectedly sunny and warm, or at least, it appeared that way from inside all the resturaunts. :o)
The trip was a piggyback on Jason's cousins wedding in Carmel at the end of April. The itinerary had us flying into San Francisco, proceeding to Carmel for the wedding and then, on no real schedule, wandering back to San Francisco to eat, drink and see the sights.
The trip started in Carmel, and wow, I love Carmel. I fell in love with the picturesque rocky coastline and the din of crashing waves. It was utterly serene. I would live there in a second, but of course my bank account isn't able to afford me that luxury.
The eating began as soon as we got there, but the real gastronomic highlight in Carmel was the rehersal dinner at Flaherty's Oyster Bar. Where we were served enormous amounts of seafood, starting with giant appetizer platters, loaded with superb selections of shrimp scampi, calamari, roasted garlic, baked brie and fresh sourdough. Then once we'd polished those off (and several bottles of wine) we moved on to dinner, which was no disappiontment either. I had an excellent breaded halibut fillet with a delicate wild mushroom cream sauce. Generally I think that everyone had a good time, which was probably due, at least in part, to the free flowing wine. Yeah it was a fun evening.
On the food front the morning of the wedding was much less exciting, as I somehow ended up at the Denny's in Monterey with all the groomsman. I'm not sure how I got myself into that one, but once I'd had my first bite of a crispy, greasy "Moons over my Hamy" I managed to forget everything else. It might not have been the foody highlight of my trip, but a "Moons over my hamy" sandwich is a fast food treasure and is always welcome.
After all the wedding festivities were over Jason and I continued up along the coast highway on route to San Francisco. But first we were looking for a place along the beach where we could spend the night. Unbelievably, that's a hard thing to find along the coast highway, as there isn't much built right on the ocean. There is however, the Ritz Carlton Halfmoon Bay. Looking at it from the highway I'm not sure what possessed us to drive in, but we did. I guess we were secretly hoping they would tell us the rooms were only $99 a night or something. Turns out we were only about $500 off. The view was spectacular though and we had the best calamari that we'd ever eaten, so all was not lost.
As it turned out Halfmoon Bay had more to offer than just the Ritz. We found a perfect little bed and breakfast called Landis Shores Inn. It was cozy looking, located right on the ocean and somewhat importantly, much more affordable. Ken, the owner was also incredibly friendly and accommodating. The rooms were luxuriously equipped with jetted tubs, gas fire places and tile floors with in-floor heating. But most amazingly you can hear, and almost feel the ocean from the rooms. Shortly after getting settled into our room Ken brought us a tray of assorted meats, cheeses and crackers accompanied by two glasses of wine. Ahh... It was heaven.
Our dinner that evening was a pretty no-thrills event. I was really craving Mexican food, a cuisine that's hard to find here in Alberta, so Ken suggested to us a little walk in tacqeria just off the highway when your coming into town. Unfortunately I can't remember what it's called, so I apologize. I ordered a beef burrito that was pretty good and I swear the friggin' thing weighed 5 lbs. It was huge! We also had chips and salsa and enchiladas. Overall the food was good, and as weird as it sounds now, it was a nice break from the tons of seafood we'd consumed in Carmel. Breakfast the next morning at Landis consisted of ham, cheese and tomato omelette's, fried potatoes, fresh grapefruit, toast and fresh orange juice. It was the best place we stayed during our trip. I was sad to leave. Thanks for the great stay Ken!
Then it was off to San Francisco were I had decided we should stay on the wharf. So when we arrived in SF we found an Internet cafe and surfed for a place to stay and it was then that we discovered the Travel Lodge, which in hind sight was an extremely bad choice. The accommodation was over priced and downright nasty. Big yikes! Of course, I didn't notice all of this until they'd charged my credit card, so we locked our stuff in the car and fled for the safety of the wharf. Once there we enjoyed shrimp sandwiches and clam chowder while we wandered looking at the various shops. Then we stopped at the candy store and stocked up on some essentials like fudge and chocolate dipped strawberries that we munched on while we sat watching the lazy sea lions. True tourists.
For dinner that night we met Jason's cousin at the Cheesecake Factory at Macy's in Union Square. I was originally disappointed in the choice of restaurant, because I had all these places marked out to eat, but it was a neat experience sitting on the patio and looking down on the bustle of Union Square at night. The food wasn't too bad either. I had a slice of Pecan Pie cheesecake and that made the trip worth the while.
The next morning, before heading out to Golden Gate Park, it was off to Dottie's True Blue Cafe, a find which I owe to Orion from The Confabulist. Orion was a great help when I was planning the trip and he offered me a wealth of information on food and restaurants in San Francisco and the Bay Area. Boy am I glad I listened to him on this one. Dottie's was undoubtedly the best breakfast I've ever had. The omelet was out of this world, loaded with andouille sausage, mushrooms, tomato and cheese. I'd love to know how they put that puppy together. Jason and I liked it so much that we tried to get in again on the Saturday morning before we left. Yeah, I know that all of you familiar with Dottie's are sitting there and smiling to yourselves. The lineup was about 35 people long! So, it didn't happen. But I'll be back, you'll see!
Wow! It seems like all we did was eat, but we did see a lot of stuff while we were there too. We made sure to take the tour of Alcatraz, which was really neat to see, and we wandered the Japanese Tea Garden and the Conservatory of Flowers at Golden Gate Park. We also spent a day in Sausalito, where we had a great burger from a little hole in the wall on the main drive. The cheese was as big as the burger. Well we had to eat sometime!
Several places we ate were worth mention. Once again on a recommendation from friends in Calgary, we searched out Swan's Oyster Bar. It's a really great place to eat and an equally cool in the dining experience. For some weird reason it reminded me a bit of Cheers, not that it looks like that at all. It just seemed so friendly. We had seafood cocktails and clam chowder. The seafood was fresh, but the clam chowder wasn't their strongest point. Still it's worth a visit just to see. Very cool.
We also ate two nights in North Beach. But there were so many places to choose from that I was overwhelmed and resorted to asking a clerk at a corner store. On her suggestion we headed to Ideale for dinner. It was a nice restaurant and the food was quite enjoyable. Our appetizer of cured beef (name?), arugula, Parmesan, capers and drizzled with olive oil was fresh and different. Jason's veal ravioli with cream sauce was sublime and although my tomato pasta wasn't as tasty it was still delicious. To end the night we had a primo sampling of lemoncello sorbet.
Our other North Beach experience was more for Jason's sake. He wanted to put Italian pizza to the test. As it turned out the experiment was a bit of a disappointment, so I don't feel too bad about forgetting the name of the place. Then there was the night we ate at Nick's Crispy Taco. Like I mentioned earlier, good Mexican food is hard to find in Calgary so we needed to get our fill. I had a pork, chicken and fish taco and they were so good. My fave was the pork taco, but the fish would probably have come out ahead if it wasn't for that icky cilantro hidden in there. Yuck!
Being a bit of a Market hound I made sure to drag Jason down to the Ferry Building market. We wandered around looking at the shops and then I stopped and grabbed some crispy imperial rolls from "Out The Door", the take out counter for the "Painted Door". I'd already eaten lunch, but I'd been told I shouldn't miss this place, plus you get a discount on parking if you have proof of purchase, so I made the sacrifice. And I'm glad I did because they were the most wonderful spring rolls ever. Comparing them to regular Vietnamese spring rolls isn't really fair, because they're not remotely similar.
But besides from the food we toured Union Square, stuffed ourselves into cable cars, gazed upon the Golden Gate Bridge, watched Beach Blanket Babylon at Club Fugazi (an absolutely an unforgettable show), shopped enthusiastically in China Town and wandered in awe under the canopy of the Muir Woods. It was a spectacular trip and upon this reflection of all the food that was consumed, I see that we probably should have considered walking home. And still there were so many places that we never got to. So for all those I guess there's always next time.
Sounds like you had a wonderful time in SF and Carmel. I went to Carmel once when I was a teenager, and it was fabulous. Scott and I went to SF last November for a week. We had so much fun, that city has a great vibe.
Posted by: Sara | June 15, 2005 at 09:05 AM
Sara,
It really was a great place. I'd love to go back and do a wine tour. We were supposed to do that on this trip, but there just wasn't enough time.
Liz
Posted by: Liz | June 15, 2005 at 01:21 PM