Sweet Breams

I had lunch in San Mateo and took the opportunity to check out Sweet Breams, a 6 month old Japanese dessert shop that received some good coverage in the Merc recently. They sell taiyaki, a mini pastry fish (bream!) that's like a little shot of heaven when you bite into it. It tastes like a mini filled fish-shaped waffle, if you're trying to imagine what it's like. It definitely fits into the trend of cute Japanese stuff - if you like Hello Kitty, this place is for you! The overhead TV was playing Howl's Moving Castle in Japanese while I was there ;)





The classic taiyaki filling is adzuki (red bean), but I've never been a fan. So I ordered a school (a dozen) with 6 nutella, 4 chocolate and 3 vanilla (yes, that's 13 but you get one free per dozen). They are made fresh so I had a short 4 min wait - and was presented with a little box with the different flavors clearly labelled in layers and separate with wax paper. They even threw in a free gingerbread with vanilla filling one for me to try - it was the "catch of the week".




The fish are about 1.5 inches long, so are a perfect mini-snack. I liked the nutella the best. And the gingerbread the second best. I brought home a few and they didn't do that great reheated (but I freely admit that could have been user error). It's a great little morsel and beats out Beard Papa and Eggettes in my opinion.

Weekend in San Francisco

Every year in December, we spend one night in SF, at a hotel near Union Square and have a nice time wandering around looking at holiday windows and doing a little holiday shopping. I try to pick a different hotel every year, just to try them all out. This year, we stayed at the Grand Hyatt on Union Square. Unfortunately, that hotel is really not worthy of the Grand Hyatt moniker - and it's long overdue for a renovation. It was no contest - our favorite hotels remain the St. Regis and the Palace.

We had lunch at the Rotunda at Neiman Marcus - a holiday tradition for us and this year, I actually remembered to make a reservation (2 months out!) so we didn't have to brave the walk-in wait (running at 2 hours when we showed up for our reservation). And you're more likely to get a view table with a reservation. They have improved their french fries, which excited me to no end - thin, crispy and well-salted! And for dessert, I had a buche de noel. Now, I can't figure out if I actually really like this dessert or if it's just a seasonal nostalgia thing. Either way, the Rotunda's version was quite credible.

We wandered around the shopping area in the afternoon, including a stop at the SPCA windows at Macy's. If you haven't seen this in past years, it's truly adorable - with adoptable puppies and kittens frolicking (or more often, sleeping) in the decorated Macy's windows. This was enjoyable until my older daughter started a relentless campaign about acquiring yet another kitten ("it's blue-grey and it's a boy and it's named Tom or Bob, I can't tell which one, pleeze can we take him home, pleeze, pleeEEZZE!") Note we already have a cat whose litter box she only cleans under duress...

It's a true sign of recession when Gump's is discounting their holiday items by 25%!

We had dinner at Fish and Farm that night. The 20 min wait after we showed up on the dot of our reservation time did not auger well for the evening. My sister's quail and risotto appetizer was the standout, my apple cider steamed clams were pretty good as well. The entrees disappointed though - the Black Cod was a little salty and dry, the Lamb Shank was just ok. Neither daughter was particularly enamored of their dishes. None of the dessert appealed so we had the warm chocolate chip cookies - you'd have a hard time screwing that up. And an over long break between the appetizers and entrees. Overall, a disappointment for a $350 meal. We won't be back - there are too many other great restaurants in SF.

My Trip to Nowhere

I took my very first ever mileage run on United yesterday - as I told my kids, it was my trip to nowhere. As I've blogged in the past, I'm a UA 1K Mileage Plus member and for that, they treat me pretty well. It means that I fly 100,000 miles per year (don't worry, there's lots of bonuses - I don't really fly 100k miles!) One of the biggest benefits is the 6 systemwide upgrade coupons I get, plus the other US upgrade tools.

I've taken extra trips to make my status in past years - but usually there's been some business element to them and I've always stayed for a night at my destination. This year, I paid $220 for a day of travel - SFO-ORD-RDU-IAD-SFO. I landed back in SFO about 19 hours after I left. Happily I was upgraded to First Class for all my flights.

I managed to watch two movies (Sisterhood 2, Sex In The City), read lots of magazines, do a crossword puzzle and have Starbucks in 3 different states on the same day. I also managed to confuse many friends as I updated my Facebook status from a different city every few hours!

Now my mileage account has 5,412 more miles in it and I'm 1K through 2009 as well!

Of olive oil, sea salt and vanilla bean ice cream

I needed to be in SF in the afternoon yesterday and so thought I'd take a detour on my way to the city in the morning - the detour was to Berkeley, which as you all will know, really is quite out of the way. I was on a quest for a very specific present (can't say what I was looking for - the recipient reads this blog!), and the biggest selection in the Bay Area (according to the ever-reliable Chowhound) was at the Pasta Shop on 4th St. in Berkeley.

After successfully completing my mission (and doing a bit of other enjoyable shopping), I decided to have ice cream for lunch. Yes, I can do this (especially since I couldn't set a bad example for anyone with me, i.e. my kids!)

So I headed to Sketch, an artisan ice cream spot which makes an unusual selection of flavors and toppings. After deciding that Sesame and Pomegranate were not up my alley, I opted for the vanilla bean with olive oil and sea salt topping.



I had this combination once before at Pizzeria Picco in Larkspur - where they make their vanilla ice cream with Straus Family Creamery milk. The Sketch version was good but nowhere near as good as Picco's. Still, it was lovely treat. When you get to the bottom of the cup, you are left with a melted pool of vanilla ice cream, mixed with the leftover olive oil and a few stray granules of sea salt. Although it was vaguely disgusting (in a good way), I slurped it all up!

Later that afternoon, I met up with a friend at Emporio Rulli on Union Square where I had a lovely hot chocolate and watched all the ice skaters going around in circles.

Thank you, Hertz!

So we arrived at Hertz at Denver airport much later than planned, thanks to United. Happily, my name was still on the Gold board. When I got to my designated space, I noticed that Hertz had upgraded me... to a convertible! With 2 doors, not 4! Note that the temperature is hovering around freezing at 11 pm when we arrive.

I decided that this upgrade was not one that I wanted. So I traipsed into the building to sort it out. The gal at the counter was not particularly friendly but when she was looking for another car for me, I asked if they had any Priuses left. She said yes, and offered it to me at no extra charge. The trip was looking up!

Now I know that Priuses have been around for ages - but even though I know multiple Prius owners, oddly enough, I had never actually been in one. So this may be old hat to all you Prius drivers out there, but I was like a kid in a candy store when I got in the car.

Besides the "Power" button that turned the car on, the coolest thing was the display that showed you your real-time fuel consumption. And the little green cars that you got if you generated more energy. I can now understand why some Prius owners get obsessed with raising their gas mileage - that display alone provides a great incentive!

So for the 4 days in Denver, driving about 170 miles - we put in just under 3.5 gallons of gas. We had a $5 fill-up tab before we returned the car!

My First Thanksgiving Dinner "Out"

We had a large group of people for Thanksgiving dinner and the consensus was to go out this year - this would actually be my very first Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant!

We headed up to Morrison, in Red Rock country (foothills to the west of Denver) to The Fort - a historic restaurant that many Presidents have dined at, including Bill Clinton.






Besides the usual turkey with all the fixings, The Fort's regular menu was available including much buffalo, elk and quail. Since they claim to sell more buffalo steaks than any other place in the country, I ordered the buffalo fillet with cheesy mashed potatoes and green beans. Buffalo is leaner than beef and has lower cholesterol and higher iron - and it was good, although I probably should have ordered it a little more rare than I did. We did a taste test with the beef fillet and the buffalo, while tasting more gamey, still fared very well.


I wouldn't say the food was terribly gourmet but the ambiance more than made up for it. I loved the open courtyard with the fire pit and a little Tesoro Trading Post where had I wished, I could have purchased various pelts, including a pretty skunk (presumably it no longer smelled). My favorite feature were the lit luminaries along the flat roof of the buildings - it reminded me of one of the reasons I've loved spending the past few Christmases in Santa Fe.

Thanksgiving in Denver

We're heading to Denver for Thanksgiving, to visit the in-laws. I usually try to avoid traveling for Thanksgiving - I like my kitchen, I like cooking my odd version of the Thanksgiving meal (which means trying out new sides every year, since I'm not wedded to any old traditions - after all, my first Thanksgiving experience came when I was 17.) And I hate flying on "the busiest travel day of the year" - with all the annoyances that it entails.

Our outbound flight was eventually delayed 2 hours and 30 mins - although in 15-20 min increments of announced delays. We spent a pleasant few hours at SFO - in Books Inc and having soup at SF Soup Company (our most favorite food stop at SFO). It was actually relaxing since we had no plans in Denver that night and no one was waiting for us. I just felt bad for all the other people who missed their onward connections.

We landed at 10:45 pm, made a fast food stop (at Sonic Burger, which I know has many fans - frankly, I didn't get what was special about it) and finally checked into our hotel at midnight. Ate french fries at 12:15 am - this was not a particularly healthy start to the weekend!