Christmas in the City

So the week prior to Christmas, Big Bad came down to my new office location to tell me exactly how much I suck as an attorney during my annual evaluation. He even wrote an oh-so-lovely page expressing his true feelings about me. Despite his scathing comments, I still received my final raise and final step approval. All things considered it was a little Christmas miracle. But miracles aside, I was so.very.happy to have a week off for our holiday trip to San Francisco.

Driving conditions were good and we had a beautiful drive through the Grapevine. As you can tell in my previous post, we made a short stop to play in the snow.

Our first destination was actually Napa in order to visit Eddie's sister and her husband. J&W recently got a puppy, Riley, and were also dogsitting another dog, Yorkie. With each other to play with, Jack and Riley were in heaven. Yorkie decided the youngsters were too wild and crazy and hid out under the table.

Sunday night we had dinner at Elements. There is a wall of wine in the restaurant, held in place by a series of open racks. Why am I mentioning this? Because I unknowingly brushed against a bottle and knocked it clear off the wall. It was just mere luck that I didn't cause a chain reaction and take out the entire bottom row of wine. So embarrassing. I didn't take pictures of our food, but if you ever check it out you must try the tuna carpaccio with nicoise garnishes, either the black cod or the salmon and the semolina cake with meyer lemon mascarpone. And is you are a Pinkberry fan you will love the apple tart with greek yogurt sorbet.

The next day W suggested that we take a tour of the Castello di Amarosa winery. It was a great tour for both wine drinkers (such as me and W) and non-wine drinkers (Eddie). Built by Dario Sattui of V. Sattui fame, the winery is modeled after an old European castle. Many of the materials were imported from Italy and Austria, with some of the bricks having been used in other castles. There was even a replica of a dungeon with all sorts of cool torture implements. Here is the dining hall.

Much of the castle is used for wine storage and aging. Overall, I preferred the Castello wines over the V. Sattui wines. There were a few misses, such as the merlot, but I walked out with three bottles (dry gewurtztraminer, chardonnay and the blended red "Il Brigante"). Even though there are over 100 rooms and several events are hosted throughout the year, the winery has no plans for on-site lodging.

My battery started dying on the tour and during the tasting, so I made sure to save my last shot for the exterior of the winery.

Monday afternoon we drove to my family's home in San Francisco and spent some quality time with my folks. The next afternoon I met up with some of my old PCX friends for lunch. I should have been at home resting since I had (and still have) the most miserable cold ever, but it had been way too long since I had seen my friends. We went to a casual sandwich and salad shop in the FiDi.

The food was quite good. But I completely forgot to take pictures since the three of us started gabbing right away and never stopped until we parted ways. I miss these flower named girls.

After lunch I set out for an annual holiday tradition. Along the way I caught glimpses of some SF landmarks. This is what I used to see every morning walking out of the BART station.

I took this picture to prove a point for tourists. You do not need to stand in the middle of the intersection in order to take a picture of the Chinatown gate. Repeat: do not stand in the middle of a busy downtown intersection for pictures.

Finally I reached my destination. For every year as long as I can remember, I have gone to Union Square to see the Christmas tree, the windows at Macy's and the ginormous tree at Neiman-Marcus.

When I was a kid, the windows at Macy's had the most elaborate displays. In recent years they have downscaled the decor for a very good cause. Partnering with the SF SPCA, the store now features adoptable shelter animals in its windows. There is always SPCA staff on hand inside to take care of all the animals' needs, as well as staff outside to collect donations for the no-kill organization. The doggie and kitty condos are all well decorated and stocked with toys and other comforts.

You can see Neiman's tree through the windows. The base is on the first floor and the tree goes up all the way to the glass topped Rotunda.

As much fun as I had on Tuesday, I paid the price for it that night. My cold got a lot worse. Blech. But I just reminded myself that being sick on vacation was still TONS better than being at work.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were fairly low key. Most of the time was spent with family, old family friends or curled up on the sofa. I needed to conserve my limited energy for Friday. In what has become a holiday tradition for me and Claire, we went to the Embarcadero Center for a little ice skating.

The rink is set up from November through January. I love skating outdoors.

The rink was crowded, the ice was bad and it was too early for the Bay Bridge and Embarcadero Tower lights to come on, but can one really complain about this? Winter in California rocks.

After skating we walked across to the Ferry Building & Marketplace. We picked up a gingerbread cupcake to share from Miette and stopped by Peet's for a cup of coffee. As we enjoyed our goodies at one of the communal tables in the building, we were highly entertained by the 50-ish woman at our table who was trying to pick up on a 60-ish married man. Her M.O. was to offer him her cookies. I kid you not.

By the time we finished our coffee it was time to meet FogCityDweller for our annual BFF holiday dinner. A few years ago we decided that spending time with each other over a good meal would be better than gift we could exchange with each other. This year we went to Beretta, a new restaurant that has taken over the location of one of our old favorites. RIP Last Supper Club. :-(

The restaurant was actually bustling, but we were the first party of the evening to be seated in the downstairs dining room.

Beretta has a creative cocktail list. On the left is FogCityDweller's Spiced Sazerac with spice infused apple brandy, sugar and orange bitters. On the right is my Acadian with rye, sloe gin, lemon, honey, absinthe and rosemary.

The antipasti dishes are definitely meant to be shared by no more than two people. Tiny but tasty. It's a good thing the three of us share so well. We started off with the meatballs in spicy tomato sauce. We also had zucchini parmigiana but I spaced out on taking a photo of it.

We shared the saffron risotto with osso buco. Delish. This was my favorite dish of the evening.

We ordered the spicy italian sausage pizza. The sausage was definitely spicy and the pizza tasted good, but Mozza's definitely has the edge.

We also ordered the mushroom and fontina pizza. This was a bland, boring disappointment.

Even more disappointing was the dessert menu. There wasn't a single thing that sounded appealing to any of us. And we love our sweets! Most of the offerings featured gelato or sorbetti which seemed so out of place for the season. Did not compute.

The remainder of the weekend flew by, filled with visits to more family friends. Eddie received a rapid introduction into the world of Indian hospitality. We had to have chai and snacks at every house we went to. Saying "no thank you" is simply not allowed. I was a bad wife and forgot to (a) forewarn him and (b) explain how to pace oneself for chai madness.

I could have easily spent another week in SF. There never seems to be enough time to see all the people I would like to see or to do some the activities I can only do in the City.

A final bit of SF randomness on our way out of town. Get it? :-)

Mo' eating, Mo' shopping

The past weekend was definitely not health & fitness oriented. After our lunch feast at Pizzeria Mozza, Valerie and I had lunch the following day at Maggiano's. We shared a 1/2 order of the chopped salad followed by a 1/2 order of the baked ziti with sausage.

What's the best way to work off a meal? Walking around South Coast Plaza. After the work-related events of the past month, I was ready for some retail therapy. The first thing that called to me was this Marc Jacobs tote:
Another Marc Jacobs bag called out to me as well:
Ultimately, however, it is this Botkier hobo that still occupies my thoughts three days later. It's a bag that never would have caught my eye online or probably even in print. But when I placed over my shoulder at Saks, it felt like it belonged to me. As much as I love handbags I rarely ever buy one on first sight; I need to mull it over a little bit. I think I'll be ordering this one by week's end.

After we had shopped and browsed to our heart's content, I suggested a visit to Sprinkles. I am truly jealous of people that live within a short driving distance of a Sprinkles location. My flavor selections are limited to the weekend varieties, yet there are several other flavors I want to try. I may have to strategically play hooky sometime in the future. On this visit I picked up carrot cake, chocolate marshmallow and key lime cupcakes:

Jack got cupcakes too!
After a cup of coffee and watching some interesting OC stereotypes at the Corona del Mar Plaza, it was time to drop Valerie off at the hotel where her conference was being held. It was a fun weekend, but far too short.

More Mozza Please

One of my dearest friends from the bay area flew down for a visit this past weekend. Since it was her first time visiting me since I moved, we had been planning our activities for a while. Well, we planned one activity around which the rest of the trip was planned: lunch at Pizzeria Mozza. Valerie and I are both Top Chef fanatics and a few seasons ago cheftestant Tiffani Faison created a divine-sounding salted butterscotch pudding for a challenge. Shortly after the episode aired I read that her dessert was inspired by the butterscotch budino at Pizzeria Mozza. The budino has been an obsession ever since.

There was ample 2-hour street parking just around the corner from the restaurant. We parked under an interesting tree that neither one of us could identify. Fruit? Flower? Any gardeners out there who can solve this mystery?

The graffiti on this dumpster seemed to raise a Law & Disorder appropriate question: What the hell happened here?! Did we stumble upon a popular baby dumping part of the city? :-/

From the corner of Highland & Melrose we could see the iconic Hollywood sign, albeit it through a thick layer of nasty haze.
Finally, we were inside the pizzeria. We had arrived a bit early for our 1:15 reservation and the restaurant was indeed full until our table was ready. We had waited outside because the restaurant was very full and standing space was limited. It's a tiny place. When I called at 10am exactly one month prior to make the reservation, I was number 4 on the waiting list of calls to be answered. Despite that, 1:15 was still the earliest lunch reservation I could get. They weren't kidding around. The place was packed with a mix of families, young & old couples and large groups of friends.

We started off with crisp breadsticks.

The wine list is extensive, reasonably priced and features Italian wines. You can either purchase a bottle or a quartino. I asked our waitress to recommend an easy-drinking white and ended up with a '04 Verdicchio di Castelli di Jesi.
Valerie had a '05 Montepulciano Quattro Mani.

We shared an appetizer of fried squash blossoms stuffed with ricotta. I've been obsessed with trying fried squash blossoms since I read A Thousand Days in Tuscany. I wasn't disappointed. The batter was light and crispy. And the contrast between the crisp exterior and the warm. melty cheese inside was wonderful. While we ate our appetizer, we noticed that the table next to us had ordered an incredible looking caprese salad with burrata and roasted tomatoes. I had a moment of appetizer envy, but since squash blossoms are a seasonal item (and yummy!) I didn't have any regrets.

Valerie ordered a pizza topped with prosciutto di parma, rucola, tomato & mozzarella.

I ordered the fennel sausage, panna, red onion & scallion pizza.
Both pizzas were great and on par with pizzas I have eaten in Italy. They definitely lived up to the hype that this place receives. In particular, the house-made fennel sausage was outstanding. If they sold that stuff I'd be buying it by the pounds.

Although we knew we'd be ordering the butterscotch budino for dessert, we didn't see any harm in ordering another dessert to share as well. We started Round 3 of our meal with a coconut sorbetto pie. Served in a chocolate crust and with salted almonds on the side, it tasted like an upscale, reinvented Almond Joy. Sometimes I feel like a nut, so I enjoyed this dessert.

The best was saved for last. I'm normally not a huge fan of butterscotch; it's not the first thing I think of when I think of dessert. But the budino was one of the most perfect desserts I have had in recent memory. The budino was thick and creamy without being heavy. The sweetness of the budino and layer of cramel is perfectly balanced by the flecks of sea salt. It's accompanied by shortbread cookies topped with pinenuts and rosemary, which are fantastic in their own right. The only remotely bad thing I can say about this dessert is that the whipped cream isn't necessary. It doesn't really add anything other than a nice aesthetic. We spooned off the cream so that we could fully enjoy the flavors of the budino.
In short, I can't wait to head back to Pizzeria Mozza. Deciding what to order was somewhat of a challenge because there were so many items on the menu I wanted to try. Not to mention that I could definitely have more budino in my life. Getting a reservations seems to require a bit of planning, but it seemed that walk-ins didn't have too long of a wait getting seats at one of the bar counters, especially towards the tail end of lunch (approx. 2pm).

After lunch we headed over to Amoeba Records. Valerie had certain CDs in mind that she was on the hunt for. I didn't have anything in mind at all yet I walked out with all of the following:

Clockwise from left: Death Cab for Cutie, Bollywood Dreams, Karsh Kale, Midival Punditz & Nirvana.

Shopping was followed up by watching the movie The Women. Certain aspects of the story riled up my inner feminist. But overall it was an entertaining movie and I lusted after many of the handbags, shoes and dresses worn by the characters. It was a good movie to watch with a great girlfriend.

Nopa? No Problem.

Friday the 4th of July was a long and painful day. Since I am not DIY-inclined whatsoever, pretty much everyone knew that Eddie would be doing the bulk of the work on the deck, but I still tried to help him out. But after helping to sand nearly half the deck and helping out with some of the painting, I was done. Kaput. Finished. My arm couldn't take it anymore. While Eddie continued on his quest for painting perfection I tried to not scream from the pain that radiated from my shoulder to my fingertips. No matter what I did or how I positioned myself it would not stop hurting. I even resorted to using Tiger Balm, which prompted Eddie to ask before we went to bed, "What is that smell?" Sexy, huh?

Much to my relief, I was a bit better by Saturday. I was still popping Tylenol every four hours on the dot, but I was feeling okay enough to head out for something I had been looking forward to for weeks: dinner with my closest friends FogCityDweller and Claire at:

www.nopasf.com

"NoPA" is local shorthand for the area of the city that lies north of the panhandle of Golden Gate Park. The restaurant Nopa is located at the intersection Divisadero and Hayes Streets. When my parents and brother first moved to the U.S., they lived in an apartment building just a few blocks away from this location. Back in those days, the neighborhood was cheap, somewhat dangerous and pretty undesirable. Now, however, the area has transformed itself into an up-and-coming hip little neighborhood.

Nopa has an extensive cocktail and wine list, but green drinks were all the rage on Saturday night. The colors are a bit muted in this picture, but my Old Cuban (rum, mint, sugar, lime juice and cava) on the left was nearly flourescent green, while FogCity Dweller's Elderflower Gimlet (vodka, lime juice and elderflower syrup) was a very pale green. There were many other green drinks on neighboring tables. A quick perusal of the spirits menu revealed that other cocktails featured green tinged liquers such as absinthe and chartreuse. So much green ..... and it was nowhere near St. Patrick's Day.

Since I'm still getting used to blogging, much less blogging about food, I wasn't entirely comfortable with taking pictures of all of our dishes. I'm sure I'll get over that eventually. :-) I can tell you though that all three of us thoroughly enjoyed our dishes which included goat cheese crostini, flatbread topped with fennel sausage and beet greens, cauliflower soup, a grass-fed hamburger with pickled onions, braised duck legs and a brown butter-chevre cake for dessert. Here is a pic of the "friendship fries" that came with my hamburger. After I placed my order, the waiter commented that having the fries available for sharing would make sure that my dining partners would be always my friends. I like to think that the many years of friendship the three of us have shared is based on more than sharing fries, but these really were damn good fries. We later learned that they were fried in rice oil which created a perfectly light and crisp french fry that stayed light and crispy. No greasy fingers!

After dinner we hung out at Claire's place for a bit. By the time I got home Eddie was fast asleep. I found out from my dad (who was waiting up for me) that Eddie had been painting until past 9pm! The man really was on a quest for perfection. Much of his best work ended up being on the underside of the deck, which I didn't get a picture of, but as you can tell by this 'after' pic, he accomplished his goal of a beautiful, protected deck.