San Francisco

San Fran was a fabulous change as Seattle got colder and wetter.  We watched the forecast daily and as Seattle temperatures kept dropping past 5 degrees Celsius  the SF weather forecast predicted warm weather, sun and blue skies.

Our primary reason for going, touristing aside, was to visit Nuwan’s school friend Sat who’s completing a semester of her MBA in town. San Francisco is known for its foodie attractions, I read somewhere that it had more restaurants per capita than any other American city.  Sat is an established foodie, which made the trip even more exciting.

Her day plans for us were around food, e.g. on your way to this amazing Mexican restaurant be sure to check-out Chinatown.

Day 1

Our first day we started with a walk to the trendy Filmore area of SF. Sat met us at our apartment and we walked up and down the hills of SF to a chain of French Patisseries called Le Boulange. Le Boulange has great pastries, tea and coffee and chai that comes in a bowl.

Filmore has a great hill that you can walk to the top of and get a great vista of the bay. It was a beautiful day for a walk and Nuwan and I headed up to the top. Nuwan took photos and I stared at the steep descent nervously. It had steps on the footpath, to help you walk down. It was that steep. Needless to say, we walked back the way we came.

From the top of Filmore

Union Square

The Bay Bridge

We took a bus to union square and walked around while we waited for lunch time.  While waiting by the water for Sat to finish class we photographed the Bay Bridge and dear Facebook mistakenly tagged it as the Golden Gate. Whoops!

We headed to the Ferry Building for lunch, a must do for any foodie. It was clam chowder but a truly unique version. Light, with clam shells you could see and served by the water.  

After a wander back through town we ended up at Peruvian Restaurant for dinner.  Here I tried my first empanada and Nuwan and Sat tried some proper ceviche. Yumm!

Day 2

We started day 2 with a trip to the famous SF painted ladies, of Full House fame. The houses are directly opposite the Alamo Park and even on this particular day is full of tourists taking photos of the famous painted ladies.

The painted ladies...from Full House!

We headed to Chinatown from there, up another almighty hill or 5. Chinatown is full of intriguing shops and bazaars. There’s food everywhere and plenty of tea-houses.  We walked around for quite a few hours, taking in the sights and heading to a restaurant that I will refer to as the MSG duck palace.

Beautiful lanterns in Chinatown

Love is apparently around the corner. Maybe the fortune cookie knows something we don't?

 It’s famous for it’s crispy skinned Peking duck that is served with plum sauce and steamed buns.  It was delicious and after enjoying it I headed to the ladies room. The ladies room door was adjacent to the kitchen and always on the prowl for a cooking secret I peered inside. There was a chef slicing frozen chicken using a ham slicer but I was more intrigued by the 20kg bag of something dumped on the floor. I peered in further and saw the following words emblazoned on the bag.

Mono-Sodium Glutamate….MSG.

No wonder the duck was so delicious!

Getting ready for MSG duck. 

All around Chinatown they advertise for tea tastings and we decided to join the tea tasting brigade. We went to Tea Ren and learned about tea pots, tea funnels and tea needles. We also walked out with some Ginseng brew for Nuwan and caffeine free white tea for moi!

Nuwan and I spent the afternoon at a vantage point for the actual Golden Gate Bridge. It was lovely and sunny and in full of little children playing soccer.  I waited and people-watched while Nuwan wondered up and down along the water with his camera.

Dinner was at Nopalitas, an amazing organic Mexican restaurant that is always packed. The highlights being the delicious fish tacos Nuwan and I had developed a taste for and the amazing bitter dark chocolate popsicle I had at the end.

Day 3

During Niki’s visit to Seattle some months ago he regaled us with tales of a fabulous mens amenities shop called Nancy Boy. Nancy Boy is full of bath products, shaving products, creams and lotions for the man who is so inclined. Nuwan and I made a special plan to go there, just to check it out. I walked out with some bath salts only to get home and discover that our bath plug has gone walk about.

Nuwan did considerably more shopping than I. 

We went to Foreign Cinema for lunch that day, apparently a SF institution. We walked through the Mission District  and would have missed the place entirely were it not for Sat. A tiny entrance, a long hallway with a huge, beautiful restaurant at the end. It was all open air and perfect for the warm sunny day. We ate oysters (well Sat and Nuwan did) and drank delicious cocktails and mocktails. Nuwan had a Persian omelette and Sat and I both had braised pork with poached eggs. Delicious! And then there’s their famous caramelized bacon….wow!

Amazing oysters at Foreign Cinema. 

My lemon tart....mmmm yum!

At Dolores Park.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walked and eventually made our way to the Tartine bakery. It reminds me of Bourke St Bakery, with it’s ridiculous line outside. The line moves quickly though and we went inside and I got a lemon tart. Nuwan had their famous tres leches cake, a coconut chiffon layered cake. We walked up to the famous Dolores park and found a spot under the tree to people watch and eat our sweet treats.  The park was beautiful and packed. Sat and Nuwan ventured to the top and claimed that the higher you go the higher you got.  Intriguing sentiment.

We went to the famous Burma Superstar for dinner. Highly rated everywhere, it’s a tiny restaurant and we spent the night in there when the SF Giants won the play-offs. Unfortunately we were all full from a day of eating and we hardly had appetite and didn’t do the Burma Superstar justice. I must comment on the amazing rainbow salad which has something like ingredients and their world famous coconut rice. Though I must say Ammi’s kiribath is better.

Though we’d woken up to sunny days and blue skies every day since arrive in SF our fourth and last day was met with fog and clouds. Quite appropriate for our venture onto Alcatraz.

Since our holidays recounts are primarily around food I can’t help but recount the story of our delayed  arrival at Alcatraz. Nuwan had all the buses planned you see, we took the first one with little drama. We arrived at the bus-stop and watched as bus after bus passed us by. You see none of the timetables were for Mondays it seemed, so we ran up and down the road, tried unsuccessfully to call a taxi and finally ended up arriving with only 20 minutes till our boat left. This meant that the only place to grab some breakfast was the Alcatraz café. Perhaps the first sign of things to come were when I asked for English breakfast tea and the “barista” asked me to just grab the “Chinese Breakfast”  Errr….no thanks.

Alcatraz was, as you would expect. Dreary, depressing and full of conspiracy.  The fog made for a fabulous atmosphere and Nuwan and I walked through with our trusty headphones. There were speakers, much like the Yeoman Warders at the tower of London who you followed around as they talked of the 4 four men who escaped Alcatraz and were never seen again. You see they still don’t know how they got out.

Alcatraz Island 

Poor Nuwan :(

We headed back on the boat and wandered along Fisherman’s Wharf. We stopped at Pier 23 for a spot of crab….just one big grab to share between Nuwan and I. We made it all the way to the Ghirardelli Square for a dessert of Ice cream with milk and dark chocolate fudge. Admittedly I think they were both dark chocolate, but what do we know? We took the trolley back up the hill.... Nuwan decided to scare his poor pregnant wife by hanging out the window. 

Hanging off the edge

Tell me that isn't scary :S

We finished up our trip with a trip to DOSA, a chain of Indian fusion restaurants famous for their…you guessed it….DOSA.  We had the paper dosa, crispy and delicious with the duck vindaloo and rice. Yum! Definitely digging the fusion thing.

What a fabulous introduction to SF… thanks SAT!

I am thankful for…

The beautiful dinner spread....delicious!

Thanksgiving is a big deal over here. For us, it was a collection of stereotypes that we’d accumulated over 25 years of watching American television.

There was a Turkey,  some sort of parade, men watching sport of tv (assume a football game somewhere as it’s winter), cranberries seemed to be essential as were many many pumpkins.

I guess what’s been established since we arrived here is that  it’s a lot more than turkeys and cranberry sauce. It’s really about spending time with family and being thankful for all that you have. In typical American-style as well it’s also about acknowledging that you are thankful and why you are thankful.

My thanksgiving started at the school where I volunteer a couple of times a week. That second-grade class had its own thanksgiving feast. We moved the tables into one big row. Students bought in food and drink and they all sat and ate to together. The critical part was that before the meal everyone recounted what they were thankful for; the sun, trees, fresh air, teachers and of course family. There were plenty of family there to watch as well which was lovely, parents and siblings joining in.

We’ve made quite a few expat friends over-here, Aussies that have left our land girt by sea and travelled to a much colder part of the world. It was with them that we were lucky enough to spend thanksgiving.

Perhaps I should be upset that it was left to the wives to plan the menu but I prefer to think of it as the experts sticking to what they are good at!

My friend Nat and I, self-confessed dessert addicts, were given the task of cooking dessert.  The only request being to keep some traditional elements in the mix. Traditional thanksgiving desserts include

·      Pecan pie

·      Pumpkin pie

·      Anything with cinnamon and nutmeg

·      Lots of cranberries

·      Apple something or rather

I forgot to mention that of the people we have met here we’ve made friends with a lot of intolerances. Our menu had to therefore be Gluten free, wheat free, apple free, high-fructose corn syrup free but of course tasty.

After my school thanksgiving feast Nat and I settled down for four hours of cooking. The second oven finally got a work-out, and not just for the hell of it.

We made

·      Sweet potato cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese icing

·      Mini- pumpkin cheesecakes with a ginger pecan crust

·      Pecan pie with a sour cream crust (Donna Hay style, the Americans put way too much corn-syrup in everything)

·      Pavlova (Nat’s specialty) with whipped cream and a cranberry sauce

Pecan pie

·      Upside-down apple cake

Mini-cheesecakes (pumpkin)

We all headed to Simon and Gill’s on Thanksgiving day, around 1ish. We wanted to help with the cooking and also help with the set-up.

The table was set-up beautifully and Gill had bought all the ladies an apron each. I got a frilly one. (wonder why?).

We nibbled on cheese and Gill’s famous bacon and date rolls.

The turkey was a 22 pounder. Terrifying in it’s sheer size. I suspect that the ovens here are so big to partially accommodate the turkey’s alone. Stuffed with herbs and onions it smelled amazing coming out. Carved up and served with William Sonoma’s famous turkey gravy it was delicious.

In pursuit of the famous turkey gravy

Having only ever had turkey once in Australia, for Nuwan, Jill and I’s orphan Christmas I’d been turned off turkey. In Australia the turkey had been quite flavor-less and by the time we’d eaten 3 kilos of it in various incarnations we were well and truly sick of it.  This bird was truly tasty. We’ve come to the theory that they must save the best turkeys for the Americans and ship the left overs to Australia, the opposite of what happens with lamb.

We had a multitude of sides to go with the delicious turkey   mashed-potato, stuffing, cranberry sauce, roast vegetables and greens.  Of course we also had the typical American dish of sweet-potatoes with marshmallows on top.

Our first thanksgiving was a huge success; fun, happy and full of laughter.

Can’t wait to see what next thanksgiving will bring!

The beautiful dinner table

The turkey

Sweet potato cupcakes with cinnamon icing

Oh....and what am I thankful for. I'm thankful that even though we've only been here 5 months, we've made such lovely friends that we can be thankful for :)

Tearing up the Windy City

October turned into our travel month - a rushed day trip to San Jose, Chath coming back from Sydney, and a couple of weekend trips to explore the US of A. First up - a trip to the Windy City to catch up with some old friends. Shish and Sandeep being in the US at the same time was too much of a coincidence to let pass by, so we jumped on a plane one late Friday night and winged our way to Chicago.

After we'd all convened from our various inbound flights at a cafe near Bloomingdales, we set out to explore Chicago. Then it started raining. Typical, we leave a state with a reputation for some of the highest rainfall in the US in the middle of a record dry spell, and it rains on holiday. Undaunted, we tackled the Field Museum, making friends with Sue the T-Rex, proudly sponsored by McDonald's, as well as some extreme mammals in one of their special exhibits, courtesy of evolutionary theory (the creationists would have had a heart attack!) Despite the rain, we wandered our way through the city, exploring the weird and wonderful art at Millenium Park, got rained on some more (I sense a theme for the weekend coming on), before closing out an unsuccessful attempt to use public transport by jumping in a taxi... after being rained on some more.

Our attempt to view the Chicago skyline by night was foiled by the zero-visibility situation at the top of the John Hancock observation deck, so we settled instead with visiting a jazz club in a slightly seedier part of the city. Apparently we managed to snag the booth that Al Capone would always sit in when he frequented the Green Mill, to enjoy the funky, soulful sounds of Cyrille Aimee. Check out the clip of a similar performance in NY here - she was actually a lot better when we saw her live! Being the old codgers that we are, we quit after the second of three sets to hunt down some dinner. The Ethiopian restaurant across the road obliged, provided my first experience of authentic African food - Shish assured me that it was the real deal, and he's more than qualified to know what's what!

The next day saw yet more rain (we're really getting used to this), but we took a punt and took went up to the John Hancock observation deck. We got our timing just right, and got the only window of visibility of the day, before the rains rolled in yet again and reduced visibility to zero. Once they eased up, more wandering through the city, admiring the old-new architectural styles that are dotted throughout the city. Our meanderings took us down to the Navy Pier to check out the McDonald's Dessert Centre of the Future (I'm not kidding!) and the various tourist traps on offer. Before long, our time was up - our quick weekend away was over, and we had to say goodbye to old friends before heading to the airport and flying our separate ways.

Things we learnt on this trip:

• Shish reads our blog - Sandeep doesn't!
• Shish has an unhealthy obsession with the Cheesecake Factory
• Chicago feels quite windy, but isn't necessarily windier than any other US city. It was also burnt to the ground in 1871 (by a cow kicking over a kerosene lamp, as the story goes), which triggered the rebuild of one of the most economically significant cities in the US
• Pizza is great when it's done deep-dish
• United is a budget airline at full-service prices. I will rant no more
• Visiting Chicago returned Shish back to his Sim City metropolis-building days; walking around the city was like transporting him back to this wonderful game

Last but not least, pizza! Chicago deep dish pizza has made its way to such luminary pizza establishments as Pizza Hut and Crust in Sydney, so when in Chicago... :) we tried two well-known pizzeria chains to sample their deep dish offerings:

• Giordanos - more of the stuffed pizza variety than deep dish, these pizzas were very cheesy, and quite delicious, although between the four of us we couldn't quite finish off the two pizzas we ordered. Possibly a little too cheesy...
• Lou Malnati's Pizzeria - more traditional deep dish pizza. The crust wasn't too heavy, despite there being lots of it, and the toppings were well matched and flavoursome. We ordered four pizzas and polished them off with ease, with dessert to boot. A great example (for tourists at least) of the deep-dish variety

So now there's nothing left to do except put up photos!

John Hancock Tower 

Sue the t-rex

Funky artwork at Millenium Park

The Bean!

We had great hopes for this McDonald's store, alas...