Pink House

Scenes of San Francisco Part 2

We took another City Guides Walking Tour while we were in San Francisco. Love these history/art/architecture-based tours of different neighborhoods in San Francisco, organized by the SF Public Library and the Historical Society. This tour was of Architecture of SOMA district. Love the juxtaposition of sleek modern buildings against the aged historic ones.

So much public art in SF! Then we hopped in a cab and headed up to Filmore District to check out a newly opened Bahn Mi place that I had read about in Eater SF. On my bucket list was to have an authentic Bahn Mi sandwich (because we don't have any of the deletable Vietnamese goodies in our town) and so we headed to this tiny but BUSY place for lunch called "Bun Mee". It did not disappoint!

The Caramalized Chicken Bahn Mi sandwich and mango salad at "Bun Mee". Very yummy! Cross it off the list!

The tiny shop where you order at the counter and they bring the food to you if you're lucky enough to find a table to sit at. We counted only 18 seats in the restaurant but they were hopping busy the entire time and lots of the orders were take-out.

That's how tiny the storefront is. Maybe 12 feet across, tops. But they say good things come in small packages. And it was a good thing. Packed into a fun neighborhood with lots of locally-owned small businesses. Filmore District. Loved it.

That evening we met Sean and Steve for drinks after work at Prospect in SoMa and then went on to Town Hall for dinner. Loved both places and I finally got to have my fried oysters at Town Hall. Divine! Later that night we met up with friends from Billings at the Top of the Mark for live jazz and dancing. Celebrate good times, yes sir!

Saturday we tooled all around the city, met for brunch at Absinthe (loved it) then shopped around Hayes Valley again. Later that evening we went back to the Davies for a Buddy Guy concert with a group. We then met up for late-night dessert with a group of Sean's friends. I love how all the restaurants stay open so late in San Francisco. You can actually go out after a concert. The nice places don't lock their doors at nine.

One thing I love about visiting San Francisco is how much we pack into a single day. From morning until late-night we go, see, do, experience, and cover so much ground. It's really fun for me. Good-bye San Francisco - until next time!

Scenes from San Francisco - Part 1

We had such a fun, event-filled visit. It began with an open house where Sean works. Amazing view from this top floor office space. And..as the room filled up, I couldn't help but noticing that we were the oldest ones there.

It was fun to visit with the Olin West group and a bunch of their friends at the open house too.

The next morning we took a walking tour of Alamo Square (park) and the Victorian homes around that neighborhood. Very fun. I love to get out in the neighborhoods of San Francisco and away from downtown.

We even got to take an inside tour of this beautiful home below. So many great historic details.

After the tour, we took off walking all around the neighborhood and down into Hayes Valley. LOVE the Hayes Valley neighborhood.

We stopped for lunch at Bar Jules which has been written about in just about every major food magazine. A small french bistro with a new and fresh menu everyday. And there was the chef and her assistant right there working in the open kitchen.

Next we continued to walk down Hayes Street and stop at a number of little interesting shops and boutiques. Then we happened upon a wine shop that also had a patio out back for its patrons. A wine garden? Yes, please. The weather was warm and we sat for a while and enjoyed the venue.

We also came across a very cool optical shop in this neighborhood, names Through the Hayes. So clever and lots of trendy, cool eyeglass frames.

Next up, we saw some people working in an open, fenced city block and asked, "What's that?" It was a community garden - open to the public, funded by neighborhood association, and worked by volunteers. So cool! We talked to some volunteers who were shoveling some fertilizer (cow manure) into the planting ground and seemed quite happy to be doing it too! A cheerful place.

After heading on down Hayes Street sfurther, we caught a trolley on back to the hotel. This was one of those perfect kind of days and the highlight was still to come. We changed and headed out to Davies Symphony Hall downtown for the main purpose of our trip: The spring concert of the SFGMC.

A beautiful performing arts center filled with a sold out crowd. There were many dignitaries in the crowd who were asked to stand and be introduced to the audience at times during the concert. It was the inagural concert for the new director and an excited buzz in the air because of it.

Proud parents! See the city hall through the window behind us?

Part 2 coming soon!

 

 

Maui Dining at Mala Ocean Tavern

Finally going to finish up the Hawaii trip photos and move onto the rest of life. I've been working on lots of projects at home...lots of things going on, so have slowed down a bit on the posts, but hoping to catch up very soon with the arrival (or hope of, anyway) SPRING and some creative projects that go with that. Winter tends to slow me down........

One of our favorite restaurants in Maui was Mala Ocean Tavern on the north end of Lahaina. A friend recommended it, and so we made our way there one evening with another couple. It didn't look like much from the outside, and looked very small (it is!). But in the evening the place is hopping and you can't get in without reservations. There is a tiny dining room, a tinier bar area, and then a small deck overlooking the ocean out back. Probably only seats less than 60 total.

On our first visit we were lucky to get a table out on the deck. Even though it was dark and we couldn't really SEE the ocean at least we could HEAR it and it was fun to sit on the dark deck under small patio lights. A bit difficult to read the menu and really see your food too, and my photos turned out quite dark too.

Baby Green Salad with Goat Cheese

We liked it so much that we returned our last night on Maui for one more visit. The first time there, the other couple had ordered the whole fried fish and Kev and I were pretty jealous watching them devour it and proclain how wonderful it was. So on our last visit, we too ordered the whole fried fish (served on a platter for two people to share), served on top of rice and vegetables with a ginger soy sauce. SO SO good! Yummers!

Our favorite appetizer, Fresh Beretta (cheese) with toasts and Heirloom Tomatoes

As we walked back to our car, along the dark coastline, I tried to savor every second, the smells, the sounds, the warm night air, knowing that the next morning we would be flying early back to cold Montana.

 

Honua Kai - A bit of paradise on Maui

The couples stayed at a new resort on the north end of Kaanapali, called Honua Kai. There are two main buildings,with 1 to 3 bedrooms in each building. Probably about 200 condo units in all. They sit right on the beach - away from the crowds of Kaanapali area. Beautiful.

The resort has their own ocean-front restaurant, called Duke's, right in the middle of the resort. It's so convenient and the food is pretty good too. We ended up eating most of our lunches here - just walked over from the poolside for a little fresh mahi mahi sandwich and iced tea, then headed back to the pool. Rough schedule.

There are three pools in the development. We steered away from the kiddie pool with the water slide, and sandy "beach", and instead opted for the quietest pool area we could find. Heavenly.

We shared an ocean view 2-bedroom condo with one other couple. We spent a lot of time out on the deck, watching the ocean, the passing cruise ships, the whales,the sunrise, the sunset, and just sitting and enjoying the view. We had a fifth-floor room at the front of the building, toward the ocean. So great views all around.

Above is the view from the lobby of Honua Kai, looking out to the courtyard patio and toward the ocean. Not too shabby at all.

That's our condo up there. On the left, second from the top. The gardens and grounds were kept so nice at Honua Kai. Every other morning when I took my coffee out to the terrace, I would see a crew of gardeners working on the landscaping. It was perfectly tidy!

The ocean-front beach walk (like a boardwalk between the condos and the sandy beach) went from our condo development to the north way past Kaanapali and ended on the south end. Three miles long. We began each morning (after coffee and view-watching) with this walk...it was so lovely and heavenly. Perfect temps. Perfect views. Everyone was happy. No grumps anywhere. Just like paradise. We found it. There on Maui.

The best vacation EVER!

Mama's Fish House on Maui

Of course, all foodies everywhere know that if you take a trip to Maui, you MUST go to Mama's Fish House. There's a lot of hype around the Paia-area restaurant-on-the-beach and it's way too pricey, but this really is a special-occasion type of place that lives up to the hype.

One evening eight of us had a reservation and drove up to the North Shore, past the surfers crowds and the flip-flopped youngsters crowding the sidewalks and bars of Paia, just north of that to the tucked-away beach house of Mama's Fish House. The last time we went here was 12 years ago, and the place had expanded considerably. The place was packed full. Our group was seated at a cool round table near the front open-air window.This was our view (below).

The dinner began with an amuse-bouche of asparagus soup in tiny cups.

Many of us ordered the house signature dish for our entree: Crab and Shrimp-Stuffed Coconut-Crusted Ono. It was OUTSTANDING! The kind of dish that just makes you want to savor each bite! Presentation was nice too.

Followed by a banana rum crisp topped with coconut ice cream! Yummy!

We had wanted to arrive before dark to enjoy the ocean view and beach-front location. But as we left after dark, it was also fun to see the warm night lighting that is set up around the property. The place was still buzzing at 9:30 p.m. when we headed back to our condos.

As the valets run to fetch our cars (Where do they put all of those? there's literally no room to park for the hundreds of diners here on any given night!), we look around to take in one last look at this lovely one-of-a-kind place.

Diavola - best restaurant in Sonoma Coast area

Our favorite restaurant of our visit to Sonoma area was a casual Italian restaurant in Geyserville: Diavola. We went for lunch in the middle of a day of winery touring and were so surprised by how much we liked it. Apparently a lot of other people do too - the place was packed at lunch time. But diners seemed happy to wait for a table.

We were seated in the middle of the long dining room, across from the bar. Exposed brick walls, wooden plank floors, open kitchen. In a historic storefront building in the tiny town of Geyserville just a few miles north of Healdsburg. Definitely worth the drive if you're in the Russian River and Sonoma area.

We started with a small minestrone soup and it was absolutely fantastic. The best I'd ever had! Seriously good.

The guys had sandwiches featuring the house specialties: salumis and cured meats. We all wanted to try one of the pizzas from their brick oven pizza..which came from Italy, but this time we opted for something else on the menu.

I had the chicken and butternut squash raviolies in browned butter sauce, and ...oh yum. I so LOVED this dish! It was so tasty and well-prepared. I savored every bite.

If I could go back, I'd order one of their pizzas for sure. All around us people were enjoying the plates of thin-crusted pizzas coming from the ovens and they looked great!

Much love for Diavola - best Italian food I've had anywhere including the north end of Boston!

Zin in Healdsburg

One evening we drove into Healdsburg to go to dinner at a restaurant called "Zin". I had read about it on the website of another blogger. Just one block away from the town square. The menu is focused on locally grown, fresh food straight from the nearby farms.

We shared a fun appetizer: tempura-battered green beans! Very tasty with a spicy dipping sauce.

For my dinner entree, I ordered their special that evening which was Chicken and Dumplings. A unique, up-scale version with whole pieces of chicken and whole roasted vegetables and two dumplings served on the side. I really enjoyed it.

We all enjoyed our visit to Zin. We left happy and satisfied. There is a focus on simple food, prepared well, with a bit of an upward twist. Loved this little display of pickled vegetables and relishes by the front door.

Flour + Water

One of my favorite treats of traveling, especially to a great city like San Francisco, is getting to dine at small chef-owned restaurants. This trip, our son who lives there chose the restaurants, but I approved of the list. All of the places were great!

The first night we arrived, Sean picked us up at the airport and we drove straight to the first restaurant on our list for a late reservation. Flour & Water in the Mission district. You'd think that at 9:30 p.m. on a weeknight would mean you'd have the place to yourself. But not in this city. The place was packed and we had to wait a bit for our table.

No problem though, as I love to check out the place, people-watch, and get our bearings before being seated. Flour + Water is another great SMALL restaurant in the neighborhoods of San Francisco. My favorite type of restaurants to visit when traveling are off the beaten tourist-path. And this place hit the spot. Four + Water has been nominated for a bunch of awards including Best New Restaurant by the James Beard Foundation. Located at 2401 Harrison Street - on a small corner location, it's a little gem.

From the moment we stepped inside, there was a cool, industrial-meets-farmhouse kind of vibe going on. Dark and cozy. Love it. The service was great too. The staff was friendly and relaxed. The place was packed...with people much younger than Kev and I. Oh well :) I'm getting used to being the oldest person in the place. My tastes are younger than my age.

As you can predict from the name of the restaurant, Flour & Water, is an Italian restaurant. But it's much more updated than traditional northern or southern style. It's about fresh pasta, pizza, and locally grown produce. The menus are printed each day because the chef decides what to offer based on what's available. The waitress suggested we share some small plates and each have our own entree. And that's what we did. We began with a salad (above) described as: "Sierra Beauty apples with marisa cheese, shaved fennel, mustard greens & wild arugula". Tasty!

We then shared one of their thin-crust pizzas: "Salsiccia - with braised artichokes, cardoons, clams, pork sausage & crack black pepper". Very interesting and delicious too. For my main entree I chose a pasta called "Agnolotti dal plin" which were like large ravioli stuffed with a pork and vegetable filling. Very tasty.

Flour + Water was a fun and tasty restaurant experience. When you're in this kind of place, you can almost pretend you're a local. You feel at home.

 

Lunch at Harris Wine Cellars

When I was in Portland a couple of weeks ago, I met my niece at St. Honore Bakery (love it!) in Northwest Portland. After lunch, we took a little stroll around the neighborhood and I came upon THIS building:

I was so surprised to recognize it as the location of an old favorite lunch place that my friends and I would go to once or twice a week when I worked in Northwest Portland about 30 years ago! This used to be called Harris Wine Cellars, located on the corner of NW 23rd & Thurman. Inside this front door was a tiny, dusty, wine shop kept by an older gentleman wearing a tweed jacket and bowtie who sat at a big oak desk in the corner reading the New York Times through his gold half-eye spectacles. I have a clear picture of it in my mind. At the time, I wasn't into wine, so I never stopped to look at his collection, but I'm sure there were some rare and aged vintages in that small shop. But my friends and I, we would be on our short hour lunch break from work, and rush on through that room to the large open lunchroom through a doorway in the back of this wine shop. From 1981 to 1985, my work friends and I would go here weekly for lunch.

Harris Wine Cellars was a great place. The large high-ceilinged room had long tables in rows, and you took a seat at the tables with other people - communal seating style. It was kind of like a cafeteria with class. Two older ladies would calmly work the room, and came to offer you the menu with a quiet smile: a single typed half-sheet of paper. As I remember there were usually two daily soups, four sandwiches, and just a few desserts offered on the menu. There was a bit of a French-flair to it and indeed, the entire building including the wine shop made you feel as if you were having lunch somewhere in Europe. Paris, perhaps. As I remember back, this place may have been one of my first introductions to the finer things in life (well that and my summer job at Waverly Country Club, but that's another story for another day). There was something slightly aristocratic about the place and menu. And it held a mystique and appeal to me.

But my friends and I weren't concerned about that at the time. We ordered coffee or iced tea, a sandwich, and would often share a dessert while we talked about weekend plans and the latest office gossip. Our plates would arrive and we'd eat our lunches, I still remember the taste of good-quality Dijon mustard on the whole grain, thinly-sliced dense bread, with "country" ham. It was simple, yes, but not ordinary.

I moved away from Portland in 1985 and never thought again about Harris Wine Cellars until I saw this place across the street on our walk...25 years later. The neighborhood has obviously changed in the past 25 years, but there are still some small historic buildings with small businesses. With a little internet search, I discovered that the Harris family sold the building to the city of Portland, who converted the historical building into a branch of the Multnomah County Library (good choice!), and it appeared to be in full use. Rows of book shelves and people reading at library tables where we used to eat lunch and chat.

If anyone from Portland area has any info about the Harris Wine Cellars - especially their menu or recipes from that time - I would LOVE to hear about it. Please send any info my way. In my online research I only found a recipe for their Shrimp Salad Sandwich. I remember an Egg Salad sandwich on rye, delicious soups, and a Peanut Butter Pie. Does anyone else remember that? Or have access to the recipes? How I wish I had a copy of that old menu now....

Good memories. Harris Wine Cellars lunchroom.

Irving Street Kitchen in the Pearl District

When we were in Portland last week, we went to a newly opened restaurant with friends one evening. Irving Street Kitchen in the Pearl District. I loved it! The interior was warm and inviting, interesting decor that crossed the industrial-theme of the gentrified neighborhood and a farmhouse vibe. Really interesting and fun. I'd highly recommend it. Recycled barn wood on the walls, concrete floors, wine served in Mason jar "carafes", and candles in jars on the table (which totally reminded me of capturing fireflies in jars!). A casual but elegant feel.

The restaurant is housed in a remodeled warehouse building in what was once the industrial part of Portland, Oregon. I actually used to drive through this area every day on my way to work during my first job after college. The area has been converted into a live-work neighborhood in the last 20 years with lots of warehouses converted into retail/restaurant space on the street-level and condos on the upper levels. The Portland Streetcar system (electric - so quiet!) now makes twice hourly loops through downtown, the Pearl District, and Northwest Portland making all of these areas very easy to get around.

This restaurant is actually owned by the same owners of the successful Town Hall and Anchor & Hope (I've been there too!) restaurants in San Francisco. They ventured out of the Bay area and selected the Pearl District to open their next place. Lucky Portland! Their menu is interesting - a combination of the familiar farm-to-table theme, with some unexpected southern food influences.(Sorry for the dark photos! I wanted some photos of the food but refuse to use a flash so I won't bother other diners!)

While we waited for our friends to arrive, we sampled the artisan cheeses (all locally produced) and charcuturie (house-made). Very tasty!  They served the cheese with a fig compote and house made rye crackers. I loved the combination of sweet, savory, and the creaminess of the cheeses.

The food magazine article I had read about Irving Street Kitchen mentioned specifically the butterscotch pudding dessert and so we ended our meal by sharing that. Very fun in that it was served in a little canning jar! All of the food here was wonderful. We sampled fresh green salads, perfectly prepared oysters, pork tenderloin and light fried organic chicken (a house specialty). All of their food come from LOCAL purveyors and farms. Everything was delicious!

One very unique aspect of this restaurant is their wine storage and serving system. They have several different wines "on tap" that they get in stainless steel "kegs" from the local Oregon wineries and then use a tap system to chill and serve the wines to keep them fresh. In the photo above you can see the stainless steel spigots that are used to dispense these "tap wines". We sampled a few Oregon whites and reds from this system and thought they were great. They could offer over 25 wines by the glass because of this tap system which keeps the wine fresh over a period of time.

We closed down the place that night and got to talk with the manager for awhile at the end of the evening. It's always fun to learn about a restauarant from the staff when they have time to chat. If I lived in this fun Portland neighborhood, Irving Street Kitchen would be my go-to place for a night out. It's wonderful!