Monday, 4/27/26

 Straggled home. I fell asleep watching TV in the afternoon, but then rallied enough for a quick trip to the grocery store. Jason  (bless him) made pizza for dinner: provolone, pepperoni and pepperoncinis, semi deep dish. The last one was a tiny bit doughy, but we let this one cook as long as we dared and the results were worth it. Nice and crunchy. Early bed.

I feel like we made some really good eating decisions on my vacation. No super fancy places, which was fine. A couple of really good meals (Copra, Kuma Sushi, Kinara) and ate a few really good things (pastry from Parachute, I will never forget you). One slight tactical error was planning such early dinners most days, as it meant that we felt like we didn't have as much time during the day (the siren song of getting home early and relaxing was hard to ignore). I was also let down by having my knee hurt so much. I would have liked to explore more, especially at the beach, but stairs were dreadful, I missed being able to take a walk in the afternoons while Jessica napped. But overall an excellent trip.

Sunday, 4/26/26

 Even though I didn't have to leave for the airport until 8pm, it still felt like not a real full day. We had breakfast at Le Marais, a French cafe not too far away (they used to have a spot in the Ferry Building that we tried last time I was in town). I had a sweet crepe with butter and sugar, plus a croissant type thing with asparagus and goat cheese; Jessica had le Complete, which is a buckwheat crepe with egg, ham and cheese. My only mistake was ordering just a drip coffee--it was weak and they served it with milk instead of half & half. I needed to find a hat for Carter; we assumed we could find one in one of the many souvenir shops at Fisherman's Wharf, but no. You can buy hats for the 49ers and the Golden State Warriors but not the Giants? That is how we found ourselves in a Lyft on the way to Giants Stadium. On a game day. Bedlam, as you would expect. But they sure had plenty of hats! Mission accomplished, we did a few little errands: stopped for a snack of chips and guacamole at the Ferry Building (meh), picked up a little more candy from See's, and went to the library to pick up Jessica's hold. For dinner we tried a neighborhood place called Gusto Pinsa Romana, a cute little place specializing in Roman style pizza (very puffy and light crust). We shared a margherita and one with spicy salami, ricotta and hot honey. They were both very good, but it was too much; if I could rewind we would have split one pizza and a salad. I can honestly say I had enough pizza and sushi this trip. Then off to SFO for the dreaded overnight flight home.

Saturday, 4/25/26

 A somewhat lazy day...started out morning with the pastries from Arsicault (chocolate croissant for Jessica, kouign-amann for me, plus we shared a bacon scone), The were all very good but I should have taken the time to warm then up a bit. Finally headed out and over to North Beach for lunch at Flour+Water, a pizza place I had been hearing about for years. There were mozzarella sticks on the menu to of course I had to get that, plus a salad with snap peas, ricotta, salsa verde, pistachios and dill (lovely) and we shared a pizza with mortadella, crescenza, ricotta, spinach, green garlic, lemon oil and asparagus: great flavors, perfect crust, I didn't need the mortadella. Things were going great until we each ordered the salted caramel soft serve (like I was going to be able to say no to that). It was too filling but I couldn't stop....I got two ice cream headaches and was also cold for the next hour. We ducked back in to MoMA for a bit as I wanted to look at the Kara Walker exhibit more closely. I also demanded that we grab some cookies from Jane in case we wanted dessert later (spoiler: we didn't). It was too dank and chill to really walk around much so we just went home and relaxed for the evening. Dinner was Jessica's delayed birthday meal at Kuma Sushi. The good news is that it's only a couple of blocks away; the bad news was that we couldn't get a table until 8. Honestly, we still weren't even that hungry by then but it didn't stop us from hosting down a crazy amount of raw fish at dizzying speed, like little sushi trolls. For some reason, I insisted on having miso soup (still recovering from being cold, maybe? It was great) then we shared a bunch of stuff:

hamachi crudo with ponzu and jalapeno

hamachi belly sashimi

sweet potato roll

Fresca roll: Spicy tuna, pineapple, and avocado, topped with walu ceviche and spicy oroshi.  (my favorite of the rolls)

Hey Girl roll: Tempura shrimp, cucumber topped with layers of tuna and avocado, spicy mayo, and unagi sauce (good but if somethat had to go this would have been it)

Golden Boy roll: spicy hamachi, tuna, mango, pole sauce and yuzu tobiko

This was a ridiculous amount of food which is why I am ashamed to say we ate ate it all in under a half hour. It was all so good! Who knew I wanted pineapple with my fish?

terrible shot

Friday, 4/24/26

 Started our morning at a nearby breakfast place called Heist: eggs, toast, homefries, avocado, and a lavender latte. Quite good, but I suspect it is called Heist because it is so expensive you kind of feel robbed? Anyway, we then walked downtown to check out SFMoMA which I thought had some very cool exhibits. Then out to the Richmond to finally have lunch at Mandalay! The tea leaf salad was as wonderful and unusual as I remember; we also had a noodle dish with chicken but we know why I was there.

pre mixing

Stopped in at Arsicault, a somewhat nearby bakery, for some pastries for the morning. I impulsively picked up a chocolate chip cookie too and honestly it was one of the best ones I have ever had (thin, crispy/chewy, with big slabs of dark chocolate). We didn't have time for dinner (!) because we were going to an event that was part of the SF Cookbook Week; there were snacks there but the weren't exactly ample (bags of nuts, as various hand pies that were not helped by being served cold). We weren't sure what to expect, but it was a mixture of cookbook writers talking about themselves, some unexpected improv, a pretend game show (boring) and a little drag performance. How did Jessica and I not know that one of the chefs from Noodle Night was also a drag queen? I guess we did not do our research. I would say it was 75% very enjoyable which isn't bad. Then a long Lyft home from the Presidio and bed.

Thursday, 4/23/26

 The weather forecast revealed that this was going to be the nicest day of my visit, so after breakfast at Jane  (really good quinoa bowl with sweet potatoes, kale and black beans) I dragged Jessica down to ocean beach. I wish my knee hadn't been acting up because I would have liked to do more walking, but it was still great. We tried and failed (my fault!) to have lunch at Mandalay, and ended up at a Shake Shack instead (fine; I was sad that they were out of the Korean chicken tenders). Dinner was with Stephanie at a place called Copra that I had really been looking forward to and it did not disappoint. Buckle up:

Started with oysters with tamarind, fermented chilis and white soy

Heirloom beets salad with charred citrus, amarinth, honey vinaigrette

Chutney palette with poppadoms

Rassam poori with passion fruit, mint and sprouted chickpea (it's a good vacation when you get pani poori twice)

Chaat with Madras mixture, green grapes, cashews, date chutney (texture-wise not my favorite)

Dosa (by a large margin my favorite: gigantic, served with the potato mixture on the side to avoid sogginess, and sort of seasoned on the outside? SO good!)

Something called vegetable of the day that was sort of curried and really really good

We split two desserts: something called wattalapan, that reminded me of a tropical flan, and one called jigarthanda, which it hard to describe but a little bit like a Dove bar, with candied cashews. Tasty but tricky to eat.

The room was beautiful, the service very good and overall a delightful meal. The kind where I almost wished I was alone and didn't have to politely share anything.

Fancy dessert

Ruins of the Sutro baths

Cute cups at Jane

Wednesday, 4/22/26

 Since we had cleverly brought home empanadas, there was breakfast ready to go. We tried:chicken, asparagus-gouda, and banana dulce de leche. Delicious but the asparagus was my favorite. We had a fairly leisurely morning, then went out for manicures and conveyor belt sushi in Japantown. Just as fun as it looks, and the sushi was actually quite good. There was a mochi donut place nearby, so we had a few of those, too. Jessica had never tried one and it wasn't as gross as she feared. We headed back to the neighborhood, and fearing that we were frittering the day way with no Culture, stopped in at The Tenderloin Museum. Quire small but pretty interesting.

Dinner was "Noodle Night at Che Fico", one of a series of events put on during SF Cookbook Week. There was no menu provided beforehand, so we went into it completely blind, only knowing who the chefs would be. The space was so pretty, and the service was excellent; some dishes were better than others, but there were some standouts (more deviled eggs for me, please!). I was challenged right away by a salad with snow fungus (actually delightful) and braised pig ear (chewy and crunchy at the same time; not unpleasant but not really pleasant, either) The second course brought clams which I gamely ate, and one of the desserts had the texture of the bounciest damn jello you have ever had. But overall very fun and some tasty things in there, as well

the favorite dessert

The focaccia was amazing; had some kind of salty spicy delicious stuff on the outside

 

Tuesday, 4/21/26

 I woke up early and starving, so we left the house way too early for our ferry to Sausalito. We stopped for coffee and pastries at the Ferry Building at a place called Parachute Bakery. On a whim I picked a sort of croissant thing:

YUZU, OLIVE OIL + BLACK SUGAR:  Croissant pastry, olive oil cake, yuzu cremeux, blood orange marmalade and black sugar meringue.

Honestly one of the best pastries I have ever had. Better than a Cronut. Jessica's "Strawberry Cube" was good but couldn't compare.

So we strolled around Sausalito until it was time to meet Stephanie at Poggio. We shared a bunch of things: 

Sformatino: porcini custard, fontina fonduta, asparagus, brown butter, grana padano

Burrata: english pea purée, confit green garlic, arugula, fried shallots, crostini

Fegatini: chicken liver mousse crostini, strawberries, pistachios, aceto balsamico (Jessica and I were too polite to decline this suggestion, and both gamely tried it)

Tartare; raw yellowfin tuna, horseradish crème fraiche, capers, arugula, pine nuts, crostini

Gnudi: spinach ricotta pillows, beef ragù, parmigiano reggiano (the winner! The ragu was so delicious)

Plus some roasted asparagus that was honestly not very good, and quite fibrous.

Overall I would say the food was solid but not amazing. The garnishes didn't add anything? but we had a nice time! Then more dawdling around to catch the ferry home. Stopped to pick up empanadas for breakfast (plus an excellent if unnecessary alfajor for me).

Home to rest, than a quick trip to the GIANT main branch of the library, followed by pizza at this place I wanted to try (Outta Sight Pizza). We split three slices and they were great:

Cheese, hot honey burrata, and pepperoni

TV and bed.