San Francisco: Day 2 Sightseeing & Good Eats!

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Day one, in the city which captures my heart, opened up with what some might call ‘gloom’, but I do not. The ‘overcast’ is an ocean fog that rolls over the hills, falling in to the city at the end of the day, and lingers many nights, burning off late morning. To me, it is vastly different from the mid-western, overcast, big sky gloom that is oppressive at best, depressing at worst. 

We headed out into the cool, damp mist, walked to a little diner around the corner, grabbed a hearty breakfast and then we were off and walking. The girls wanted to check out Sak’s 5th Ave, which we did. I feel blessed to have two girls who learned excellent frugality and money management skills from their father. They were totally turned off by the $1,000 t-shirts and price tags. Phew! Since I hate clothes shopping (shocking, I know), I gazed out the window at Union Square. 

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Next stop: Chinatown.

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By this time, the marine layer had burned off and my children were appreciative for my ‘advice’ (read: nag) to dress in layers. When traveling to San Francisco, pack layers. The weather changes quickly, and it is not uncommon to be chilly in the foggy morning, sweating by 1-2pm when the sun breaks through, then chilled again near dusk as that fog rolls in again. My motherly advice is this: layers… and good sturdy, comfortable walking shoes. A mistake tourists make when visiting SFO is they dress fashionable. Feel free to bring a pair of cute fashion shoes to wear out to dinner, but pack comfortable walking shoes for sight seeing. I wear a FitBit to monitor my activity and we were averaging 6-8 miles per day. This is hill walking, not flat. Trust me, travel is no fun if you get blisters the first day. 

Back to Chinatown. 

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It’s awesome and it’s a must see! Yes, it’s crowded. Yes, it’s a magnet for the beggars and the bums. Yes, some of the bums are out of their mind crazy. But the experience is worth it and the food amazing! Here are the highlights of Chinatown for us:

Shopping: This is window shopping heaven. Don’t stick to the main drag, check the little shops out on the side streets. I walked by a meat shop that had peking ducks hanging in the window. I would have taken a picture, (and I wanted to) but there was a very crazy, kind of aggressive, homeless beggar standing right in front and it just wasn’t worth the hassle. But, they WERE beautifully delicious looking, and it’s not something I’d see here on the streets of Minneapolis/St Paul. We wandered in to one of the shops and found beautiful silk robes for the girls. Another store had beautiful faux jewelry for a fraction of the cost in a Department Store. Yet another was the Ten Ren Tea store where we found a ‘tummy tea’ for my daughter who still suffers from an unsettled stomach once in awhile.

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The petite woman behind the counter, with broken english, was extremely helpful and we found a leaf that is well known among the chinese to help with digestion and ease any discomfort. I remember a bigger Ten Ren store, but I couldn’t recall exactly where it was. This was a smaller satellite location, but I highly recommend a stop in. 

We found a cute little christian store that had wonderful little treasures, I grabbed a picture of a couple that caught my eye!

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Food: When trying to decide where to grab a bite to eat, hubby recalled a previous visit in to Chinatown where he enjoyed delicious Dim Sum. We thought, what the heck, we can at least ask if they can accommodate gluten free, and they did. I highly recommend The Oriental Pearl. 

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They have a dim sum menu that my oldest and I shared.

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The waiter was extremely helpful in selecting a chicken dish in a ‘white sauce’ for my daughter, which she shared with my husband, along with an order of the shrimp dumplings (Har Gaw) which was gluten free. 
The food was simply amazing. My family tolerates my camera at the table only so much, so I was able to snap only a couple of pictures, one of the glutinous rice wrapped in rice leaves and one of the dessert of the day – sweet sesame sticky rice balls that were filled with leeche puree. Oh man, so good I’d eat there every day if I could! My next trip to SFO will include a trip to this small hole in the wall. 

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Next up: A walk through parts of North Beach. It was very quiet there. The most remarkable thing we stumbled upon was this teeny tiny, itty bitty music store that was absolutely PACKED TO THE RAFTERS with ‘stuff’. We carefully navigated our way to the basement and was overwhelmed by a sea of crates, filled with vinyl records. While it was cool, it was unnerving all the same. There was barely space for a child to navigate the so called ‘aisles’, and on one side the crates were stacked to the ceiling.

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The first thought I had was “how in the WORLD does anyone find anything in here?”, my immediate second was “if there was a fire, how the heck do I get OUT of here?”. It will come as no surprise that we didn’t stay long down there.

There was more walking and sightseeing, but I’ll save the lengthy details and skip to the incredibly delicious dinner we had down at the Embarcadero Center at Sens.

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(check out the cool menu, with a leather cover)

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They were also very helpful in selecting gluten free options for my daughter, and all the food was stunningly good. Most of the menu was able to be modified, but these two were gluten free right off the menu:

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Once again, I apologize for the lack of great photos, my daughters are asked not to have phones at the table and get annoyed with mine always being present to take pictures! We had a sampling of amazingly creative appetizers that were all gluten free, unique and perfectly portioned for 4 to share, but not get too full for a meal. While we waited for each course, I got to gaze out the window at yet another beautiful view.

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A tummy full of yummy food and lots of walking to make enjoying it guilt free. That wraps up day 2 of SFO.

San Francisco, A Weekend Get-A-Way

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With the graduation of my youngest from High School, Hubby suggested we take advantage of the opportunity of having both daughters around and available one last time, by taking a long weekend vacation trip together as a family. Deciding on a destination was easy. When he suggested San Francisco it was met with approval by all, so SFO it was.

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This was a great ’empty nester’ practice test run for me, traveling light; ie: carry-on. I set forth to acclimate myself to the mindset for the freedoms of being an empty nester. Since my husband travels quite a lot for work, I need to be able to pick up and go if I want to join him, and I do! We decided in advance we’d be doing lots of walking, maybe some shopping, eating only amazing food, nothing of which required any fancy dress .
With those parameters in mind, the girls and I headed to the airport with our carry-on bags, our TSA mandated ziploc quart bags, and an abundance of excitement. (Hubby was flying in to meet us from his business trip)

We were on time at the gate, patiently waiting our turn to board, when I hear my name on the P.A. system. I don’t know about you, but when I hear my name over a public address system, my first thoughts leap to trouble. A little concerned, I walked up to the gate agent to find out why I was paged. Low and behold I was thrilled to be asked if I would like to fly 1st class with my daughters!

WHA?

ME?

Well, HECK YEAH! And sell me a lottery ticket while you’re at it, because I never win ANYTHING!
Tell you what, first class for a 4 hour flight is just the perfect way to start a mini-vacation. Oh yes, yes it was.

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We arrived in SanFran just around dinnertime. We met Hubby at the hotel (Westin St. Francis) which was beautiful and a perfect central location, right on Union Square. We dropped the bags off in our room, freshened up from the flight, then headed down to the concierge to ask about places to grab a bite to eat. As I said, we were looking for good food, not fancy food. A hole in the wall would do nicely, and a hole in the wall she recommended. A short walk and we were at The Old Siam Thai Restaurant.

Now, as most here are familiar with, my youngest is gluten intolerant, not celiac. That gives us a little more freedom in our food choices and places we choose to eat, but asian is always challenging with it’s soy, buckwheat, oyster sauce and flour based noodles. Thai, however, is a lot of rice, rice noodles and fish sauce based dishes, not soy. That gives us a little more room to play with. The waitress there was extremely helpful and despite the language barrier (their english was not the most proficient), she dutifully checked for wheat and soy in all our dishes. She explained how best to order and helped us select a tasty meal that was by far the most reasonably priced of the whole trip. If you like Thai, which we do, this is a great find. I can’t say if a celiac can eat there or not, but if you intolerant, my daughter did just fine here.

After dinner we did a little walking around and I found myself breathing deep breaths, just inhaling that wonderful coastal air. After so many years landlocked, it’s hard to describe the soul satisfying comfort of that clean, slightly salty smell that comes off the ocean.

Have you ever had that moment when you realize that there was something missing, something in the deepest recesses of your soul you craved, but wasn’t aware of that emptiness until it hit you in the face? I grew up on the sands of Oregon’s beaches. Cool, crisp, sweet and salty air is as much of my childhood associations as mountains are. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it, until there it was, saturating my sinuses. I’m sure many a tourist travels to SF and they have never even made that association. I’m sure they are overwhelmed or mesmerized by the lights and bustle of the streets. I, however, was too preoccupied with the sea air, taking deep draughts of that soul satisfying breeze.
As we wrapped up the evening back in the room, I opened the window and let that wonderfully damp, brisk, bay breeze lull me off to sleep, dreaming of bare toes dug into the sand, accompanied by the roar of the ocean in the background. Don’t misunderstand, I know I was in the city, with big city obligatory rumble and roar of the city sounds. But this is different than any other big city to me, this is home…west coast home.

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A Birthday Celebration

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My daughter turned the big 2-0 this year and wished to have a party for her closest friends. Who am I to say no? How long will my ‘baby girl’ be asking me for a party?

Her thought was to have an all day fun-fest poolside, starting at 10am going through the evening. So, for brunch, we started off with festive mango beverages, fruit salad and homemade GF scones. 

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As you can see, the chairs emptied quickly when I brought out warm chocolate/cherry scones!

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Once they ate, I started on fixing hearty snacks. The temperatures were in the upper 90’s, so any desire for ‘food’ was minimal. Instead, with the help of my dear friend Dalia, we fixed up some hearty snacks that all go well with the heat. Such as Tuscan White Bean Dip with fresh cucumber ‘chips’:

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Homemade and hearty Guacamole, with hearty tortilla chips. (Thank you Miss Dalia for all your help churning out food!):

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Of course, a veggie platter is a must!

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Here is the table spread of goodies that were gobbled up. That salsa in the yellow bowl was AMAZING. Homemade, hearty and smokey with fresh grilled corn and black beans, topped with cotija cheese. 

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Again, clean up of lunch and then we began dinner preparation. Chicken Cesear Salad with grilled french bread. It is perfect for a gaggle of girls all hungry but watching their figures. (Some boys stopped by, so I threw out some grilled dogs for ‘filler’. Good thing, they were gone in a heartbeat!)

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I feel like a mouthwash commercial: rinse, repeat. Next up, a birthday dessert fit for a birthday celebration, but one that will go down well in the heat. Voila! GF strawberry shortcakes! 

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Happy Birthday was sung by all and based on the smiles and laughing, it was a successful party. Yes, it was a lot of work for me, especially following a graduation party. But really, how many opportunities will I have left to shower my love and attention on them this way? Yes, it was a whole day spent cooking and cleaning up, but it was completely worth every ounce of effort. The cost of food, beverages and my time for these things are not always easy on the budget, but watching my daughter and her friends enjoy themselves to the fullest – is priceless.