Week of October 11th 2010: Foreign Cinema

So - a couple of weeks ago I was invited out by a new acquaintance, and we ended up going to Foreign Cinema. Foreign Cinema is one of those places that you hear about often living in San Francisco. The kind of place that everyone talks about, and you always mean to go to but never get around to it. Needless to say, I was very excited to find out that's where we were headed for dinner.

The concept of the restaurant is very cute and original. They have very nice food and wine and then they project a movie onto the back wall of their patio, hence the name. The website says what movie will be playing that week and we had "Where the Wild Things Are" going in the background. If you care at all about watching the movie, I would recommend going for one you've seen as the sound is very low and it's pretty tough to pay attention. Since I hadn't seen the movie before I just decided to ignore it's presence all together.

The food was amazing though. I wish I had taken pictures. My appetizer was duck with endive and a pea puree. I love duck but I have to admit... I've been wanting to try a pea puree ever since pea-gate on Top Chef. It tasted like... peas. I mean, better than just plain peas but after all the hype on the show, I had imagined pea puree to be God's gift to foodies. The duck was incredible though. Duck is such a hit or miss for me... I've had very greasy, overcooked duck before. This was not that duck. It was rare and tasty and amazing. The endive was very good as well. I'd only had it on one other occasion and had found it to be quite bitter but this one was not.

My friend got the calamari which was also tasty. However, it was grilled instead of fried which some people don't like. The grilled side was a good texture and the taste was spot on but the other side was not grilled and a little slimy.

My entree was also incredible. I got what was essentially called the "Meat Trio" or something like that. It was pork belly, quail and lamb. I was in heaven. I don't think I've ever had just a big chunk of pork belly like that and it was as tasty as I had dreamed. There isn't too much to say about my other meats except that they were good too. I was very proud that I had eaten 4 animals for dinner.

For dessert I had the spiced apple cake with sticky toffee and rum whipped cream. I'm not going to lie... I was pretty much sold on ordering it when I saw "rum whipped cream." It was also really good although I'm not a huge dessert person and it didn't have quite as much rum flavor as I would have liked.

This post reminds me of the episode of the Simpsons where Homer is a food critic but likes everything too much! I love food too much to be too critical...

I also want to apologize for being awful about posting. Between watching some amazing Giants playoffs games and doing more than one new thing a week, I've been pretty busy! I promise that I've been doing some fun stuff (with some pictures) and I can't wait to share them with you!

And GO GIANTS!!!

Week of October 4th 2010: Attend a Major Leauge Baseball Playoff Game

I love sports. There is nothing like being in a stadium cheering on your favorite team. Whether it's at home or away, having a couple of beers and proceeding into a sporting tent to support my favorite teams is one of my favorite things to do. As a Cal fan and SF Giants fan, it's been a rough couple of years for any sort of post season excitement so you can only imagine how exciting it was to land a ticket to the Giant's first home playoff game.

A lot of people have been asking how I got the ticket in the first place. My company actually has a pair of season tickets and they were able to purchase post season tickets as well that they planned to raffle off to the employees. The catch though was that you had to answer a series of Giants questions. I'm not going to lie.. I knew some of the answers but I definitely needed a little help. Luckily, the biggest Giants fan I know was online and Kevin was nice enough to provide me with an answer or two... My name got drawn in the raffle and off I was!

I stopped home and got my Lincecum (coincidentally, he was pitching too!) t-shirt and off I was to the game! I stopped by to meet a couple of coworkers and Zeke's tavern before. Technically, this was also a first, but if you've been to Zeke's, you'll understand why I don't need to grace it with it's own post. It's not the worst bar in the world but it's nothing special either and I wasn't there very logn either way.

Next thing I know, the first inning was starting so I jogged over to the stadium. From the get go, the stadium was packed. I don't think I'd even seen so many seats filled in AT&T Park before. Just the atmosphere in the stadium was electric... Giants fans are always very excited and energetic but this was definitely different... everyone was just paying more attention to the game.

The game itself was just awesome. I love watching Timmy pitch and having him stay in for the whole game with 14strikeouts - was just incredible. Even though the Giants only scored one run, it was an amazing game to watch.

Go Giants!

Week of September 27th 2010: (Part II) Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

San Francisco is known for festivals. Ok, maybe not known for them, but if you live here you know that in the summer and fall there are festivals and concerts almost every weekend. It's really fun to check some of them out and I admit, I've been horrible about going to them. The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is probably one of the ones I've been the worst about.. it is a 3 day festival in Golden Gate Park, it's completely free and I'd only heard good things about it.

The Festival is mostly bluegrass but as the title suggests, it's not strictly limited to it. In fact, MC Hammer is known to make an appearance some years...  The fair if Friday-Sunday one weekend a year and I decided that I would go for a couple of hours on both Saturday and Sunday. Arriving at the festival, I was immediately surprised at how big of a production it was. The event was also very popular. It almost felt like a time warp... I could see exactly was San Francisco must have looked like in the sixties.

I'm not very familiar with bluegrass festival but I found a couple of more mainstream acts to go see. On Saturday, I wanted to see Fountains of Wayne so once we got there we wandered around looking for their stage (which happened to be just about on the opposite side of the park). The band was fun to watch and they did a couple of covers, a little bit of Bluegrass and of course, "Stacey's Mom." We also were standing next to a guy that had the fluffiest dog I'd ever seen in my life. I have no idea why I didn't get a picture of it but the thing looked like a bear and was super sweet.

After Fountains of Wayne, we decided to wander a bit. Shannon wanted to get some kettle corn and I was little hungry as well so we hunted around for some food. As much as Shannon like kettle corn (a whole lot), I love seafood so when I saw a crab and shrimped stuffed artichoke stand, I knew I was in heaven. The stand carved out the center of the artichoke and stuffed it and then covered the whole thing in a crab louie sauce. Every part of it was amazing and again I am wondering why I didn't get a picture of something...

On Sunday, I was excited to see Elvis Costello. The festival was much more crowded on this day and especially near Elvis's stage. Try and I eventually managed to get near the stage and find a place to sit down. It was a fun set to watch and by the time he was done, the Giants had qualified for the playoffs! There is nothing like listening to good music and then having your baseball team win an important game!

Try and I had fun watching the band but when they were done we decided to just head home since we didn't want to fight through the crowds.

The concert was very fun and it was nice wandering around and listening to music that is outside my typical interest. The food stands were good and not too pricey (relative to some events). I wish it had been just a little less crowded though!

Week of September 27th 2010: (Part I) Rosanero NY Pizza

One of the easiest ways for me to rock this challenge is in the food world. I need to eat, I love to eat, and often enough I find myself deciding to eat out. I love to cook, but I don't always have the time to make myself dinner and prepare a lunch for the next day. So.. although I have a lot of lunch places that I love to frequent, I know I need to start branching out and trying new places.

So - when I found myself needing to go out and buy a lunch one day, I decided to wander and window shop for my lunch instead of going to the same places. I ended up walking down to the end of Sacramento St. at Embarcadero Center 4. There is a little alley filled with tiny little lunch spots. I had been to a few of them already and I wanted something quick so when I saw Rosanero NY Pizza, I decided it fit the bill.

I got a slice of cheese and then a slice of Greek style Feta and spinach pizza. I'm not a vegetarian by any means but I find that I prefer vegetarian pizzas. The Greek pizza was pretty good but had huge chunks of Feta cheese which ended up being overwhelming. It it had smaller pieces or less of it, it would have been a much better slice. The cheese was relatively much better. Although cheese pizza is the plain vanilla of the pizza world, finding a good balance of cheese and sauce is actually a delicate one which Rosanero was able to find.

Week of September 20th 2010: 343 Sansome Roof Garden

I work full time, 8-5 and sometimes longer. I love what I do, but sometimes I miss being outside. Unfortunately, there isn't much flexibility in what hours I work, so I make a point to try to get outside every day for lunch. Even if I bring something, I'll heat it up in the office and then go to my favorite sunny spot around the office. It gives me time to enjoy the sun, and sometimes get a little reading done.

So.. when I heard about the 343 Sansome roof garden, I was very excited to find a new place to get away too. Variety is the spice of life and all...

The roof garden itself is very easy to get to. You go into the 343 Sansome office building and head up to the 15th floor. There are two entrances, the second being on Sacramento St. which puts you closer to the elevators. There is minimal security and the building is open to everyone. Sometimes the guard will question new faces but you can just tell her that you're going to the roof garden.

The space itself is very nice. There is a smoking section and non-smoking as well. Typically, it isn't too crowded and you can just sit where you would like to. However, last week (I've been back a few times since the first time I went) it was very sunny and crowded and a lady with a cigarette sat down right next to me. That was the same time I decided lunch was over.

In general though, it's a very nice space. One side has little tables and chairs in the sun (non-smoking) and the other end has benches that wrap around planters (smoking). The smoking side is also where you can get a nice view of the Transamerica building. There is also a random Obelisk.

I've really liked having my lunch here a couple days a week. I also like to hit up the EC's and Justin Herman Plaza. Does anyone know of any other good outdoor spaces in the SF Financial District? Likewise - I'm still trying to figure out what I can do when it's rainy.

Also, I'm not sure what activity to do this week. I really only have Wednesday night free so it needs to be something I can do at night. Suggestions?

Week of September 13th 2010 (Part II): Mayes Oyster House

This post should really be about my first trip to Reno... However, some things don't work out.

So, as many of you know, I am a huge Cal fan. If I'm not at the game, I am definitely watching it on TV. Usually, one of my friends will host a viewing party but as this game was on a Friday, we decided it would be easiest to just swing by a bar with a happy hour special. Shannon found out that Mayes had a great happy hour deal for anyone watching their favorite sports team.

Tryphena (who I will from here forward refer to as Try) and I headed out there to meet up with Shannon. We decided to go a little early since we weren't sure what kind of crowds there would be. We were able to fight through the masses and secure ourselves a table. Just kidding... there was really no one there.

The two of us were hungry so we made got a couple of the food happy hour specials which were very reasonably priced. Try got french fries and I got some garlic bread. Both were cheap and yummy. We also got a bucket of Coors Light for $12 which was definitely affordable.

Shannon showed up with her friend Casey just in time to partake in the bucket and some $1 oysters. The four of us enjoyed the cheap prices until half time but then we decided to switch sports bars.

Summary: although Mayes was good for the prices, we were the only ones there watching the Cal game so it wasn't a great atmosphere for that. I think it would be fun to return for dinner. I actually have been back since and at night they turn it into a really fun dance club. Just don't come here for a game.