The Lure of Muir (Woods, that is)

Another wonderfully sunny Saturday and I know exactly what I want to do. I'm going to Muir woods to look for a banana slug! Another excuse to cross that famous International Orange painted bridge. Listen up stupid Republicans, don't let me hear you say immigrants are useless and lazy. The Golden Gate bridge was mainly created by Chinese immigrants and BTW, Shishi Nee. So there. She's beautiful, right? I call her Ginger. Mane-ly (pun intended) because of her reddish, golden, tones and also, as a tribute to the asians who died while making her. They use ginger to liven up their cuisine. Ginger, you spark a light in me and liven up my life, you simply take my breath away.

Of course, a stop at Vista Point is a must for more photo ops. Check out the graffitied sign in the foreground of the San Francisco skyline (picture below, right). Nice. Thanks, taggers. Your art form is staggering. BTW,If you're reading this with a sarcastic tone, you're spot on.

It's only about thirty minutes more from the bridge to Muir woods. Make sure you come early as there's limited parking. Pay your $5.00 entrance fee and enjoy the phenomenal flora. I think the air just got a lot cleaner and fresher. There's nothing like the smell of thousand year old trees.


Make sure to make a stop at their cottage-like cafeteria for a cuppa joe and sightings of chipmunks. Don't feed the animal, please! That urge is a disease called chipmunkiosis and there is no cure for that. Feeding them is like giving them fish, instead of teaching them how to fish. Right, Gandhi? I'm calling the one pictured below Farrah. Farrah Cite.

You'll also see sculptures of John Muir (my idol) and a bear growling. Simply adorable, the bear's cute, too.

Still traipsing around the ancients and no banana slug. Well, at least I have a pic of the honorable Mr. Wood's wooden replica. Oh, where are you my lovely slug?

Just when I was about to give up...Voila. You know what? It looks like a piece of pickled, unripened mango. Burong manga. You know what I'm talking about, you Filipinos.

Laterz!

From cityviews to Cityview

What to do? What to do? Another weekend and I'm feeling ambitious. Why not climb the the Filbert steps, check out Coit tower and its lovely murals, then eat some delicious dimsum? Too much? Naah, I can pack it all in in one morning. You'll see.

First, we climb those darned steps. I must, I must, I must uplift my buns! Yes, dears, climbing stairs is a good derrier booster. J Lo and Kim K taught me that.



Once we've reached higher altitudes (pant...pant...), the views were amazing, but the murals by Diego Rivera were even more fabulous. Did you know he used to have sex with Frida Kahlo? I can't do such a thing, not because Frida's not awesome, it's just that I'd be too distracted by the brows, and the moustache and the headress... Sorry, Frida. I'll have to decline.
Below, you'll see photos of the delicious views and some details of the Diego Rivera murals I just mentioned. One detail shows a robbery in action, I guess that was painted in the Tenderloin area, the other is a blonde woman cradling cala lillies, one of my favorite flowers.




After getting my fill of visual feasts, what better way to end a pretty walk through this amazing city than to satisfy that craving in your tummy for cute, bite-sized asian delicacies? Cityview restaurant offers fresh and yummy dimsum that is evidenced by the long line outside its doors. You can see by the pictures that they do a good job with presentation (thanks to my photographer, Boobsie). They not only look good, they taste good, too. Yes, a bit pricier than other dimsum places in Chinatown, but you get your money's worth.


Above, you see tofu and eggplant (a tad oily for my taste) and the classic pork shumai to its right. Below is a sea anemone-looking creation and to it's right, fried eggroll stuffed with shrimp meat, fried crab claws, chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, and crabmeat on top of green bell peppers. Jealous? I love San Francisco!

Clog - Unclog

San Francisco is a walking town, despite its steep hills and varying micro-climates. I personally enjoy meandering around the different neighborhoods and seeing the different sights, smelling the different smells, and licking the different lickable items. We truly live in an amalgamation of different lifestyles and cultures and all of this is easily accessible to bipeds, so when I heard about the San Francisco Sunday Streets happening at the Embarcadero, I had just had to go.

I had a plan. First, eat heart-stopping, cholesterol laden food at Red's Java. It's supposedly an SF tradition. If Bourdain loved it, I should, too. Then un-clog the damage done to my arteries by power strolling through the closed street until I get to Pier 39 for more sinful delights, for there in that tourist trap is a destination onto itself: my favorite doughnut place, Trish's Doughnuts.

Well, the food at Red's Java was typical diner fare. Nothing too special, but the ambience was just pure, authentic, by the bay SF. Eating my huevos rancheros (see pic above) al fresco while fending off birds' advances to my food was simply too precious and charming. (Okay, the birds were slightly annoying and the sun's morning rays were getting into my eyes was just irritating and temporarily blinding, but what do you think you'll get from a blog about loving SF?) I'm coming back to try their Fish and Chips, though. I love fish and chips, and that's an order you just can't mess up.

On our brisk walk to Pier 39, working up a sweat to undo the heart clogging we just did, we witnessed a queue forming outside this concrete building. We stumbled in the TCHO plant where they were offering free chocolate samples. What?! Free and Chocolate? My fave combo, more than combo # 3 (apply to any restaurants that list their combo plates, you'll see that the third option is always best). The samples range from fruity, to nutty. I especially loved the fruity, because I am fruity, too. Although if you follow that logic, then I must equally love nutty. I'm confused...I wonder if they'll come up with a flavor that's as complex as I am. They'll call it The Complicated and Complex Conundrum that is Jonsey Balonsey. I'll have to ask for a cut on all the sales they make. No, I'm not a money grubbing whore, but we live in a capitalist society. I might as well get a piece of the pie. Hmmm, pie. I guess they can also sell banana-chocolate cream pie and for the chocolate part, they can use The Complicated and Complex Conundrum that is Jonsey Balonsey flavor. I'll ask for a percentage of the profits from that, too. Then I'll be rich and famous and more people will read my blog, but because I'm rich and famous, I won't have time to write this blog anymore, since I'll be too busy trying to come up with a new chocolate flavor that will top the sales of The Complicated and Complex Conundrum. Anywho, I digress. Below, you'll see the chart/paper plate they came up with to offer their measly samples.

We were moving on and powerstrolling when we finally made it to Pier 39 I was sooooo excited to finally have some Trish's doughnuts after months of abstinence that I almost peed my pants. It's time to re-clog the superior vena cava! I ordered my usual six-piece bag, it looked scrumptious, then took a bite...Um, what happened? This isn't how it usually tastes. It's usually soft, fresh, and billow in the inside. Today it's dry and overcooked. Boooooooo! Where's the consistency? I hate unrealized expectations. Trish, you better get your act together, or else... I still finished the bag, though.

The Wonderful World of Wondercon

Is it any wonder why Wondercon has achieved a Must-Attend status? For the past few years we’ve religiously attended this annual Spring soiree designed and designated to the beleaguered and bespectacled, and to this day the wonders never cease to amaze.

Mostly we come to see the Hollywood elite fly north to peddle their latest wares. In previous years, we witnessed Brandon Routh promote the return of Superman (snore, he should’ve stayed wherever he was, although, I must say, Brandon's quite a chesty specimen, where is he?), we saw Chris Pine announce the come-back of Captain Kirk (Thank you, JJ Abrams, you have good taste in leading men..casting couch much?), and Christian Slater sell his moody, gravelly-voiced, depressed take on Batman (darkness fits him like dark eye shadow fits Kristen Stewart). This year was Jake Gyllenhall's turn to sell his biceps to the bespectacled masses, read: nerd herd, and we bought it (I don't know how to quit you, Jake!). I enjoyed the exclusive trailer they showed of "Prince of Persia", but I would've preferred to see the scenes from "Brokeback Mountain" that didn't make it to the movie screens. American's are just so prude. It took a Chinese director to showcase homo love, proving that alternative lives are Oscar worthy. Why aren't we more artsy? Arg!

Other reasons to come to Wondercon are the fun merchandise, from the unrepentively kawaii to the weirdly bizarre toys (see right picture above). Also, just people watching. I saw Deanna Troy, Lindsey Wagner, Erin Gray, female icons of mine from decades past, and lay people who enjoy dressing up as their favorite super hero, or Star Wars characters (see left picture above). So much fun. It's a time when freakazoids can let their freak flags flutter wildly in the blowing wind...and how they blow. The winds of change are a-blowin', my dear nerds. Soon the world will be ours and Victory, The Force, My Precious, Unobtainium, Kryptonite, and the matching Wonder Twins Rings will be ours. The whole, wide world will be bowing to our every whim! Bwahahahaha! Wait, hold on, is there food stuck on my braces? No? Ok,good. Bwahahahahahaha!

I'm so eggscited

I've always loved eating eggs. Scrambled, sunnyside up, hard-boiled, egg-drop soup, egg foo yong, omelettes, eggs benedict, and even deviled. Love em all. So, it follows that adding a fried egg on top of one of my favorite dishes would just take me beyond nirvana. That's exactly what happens when I order my fave roast duck fried rice at King of Thai Noodle in downtown (they have another one at Clement, equally good). I love it when restaurants cooperate to make me happy. Adding an egg on top is not un-reasonable, right? They fry it Filipino-style, too - crispy edges and runny center. YUM! Check out how yummilicious that looks. It's enough to make you wanna kiss it's parents...Yeah, I said it. I'm so grateful that I'll kiss its mom, a hen, and its dad, a cock.

I recommend to start your meal with an appetizer and their best offering is their seafood salad. It's citrusy, not too heavy and a medley of textures and flavors that will make you come back for more. The most interesting element is the white mushroom which looks like a spongey sea creature. I guess that's why they thought it would work in a seafood salad. Check out Boobsie attempting a bite below.

Their noodles are awesome, too. However, the last time we ate there we had to wait fooooreeeveeer to get our rad na. Honestly, I was done eating my duck fried rice when the noodles came. Obviously, they forgot that order. Major points off for the bad service. You'd think they would've offered to comp our drinks at the very least, right? I guess being a popular restaurant can work against you. If you know you're the bomb, who cares if you tick off some customers? There's always a long line of hungry tourists and locals waiting to take over our seats.

Growle'!

I've sworn off attending the annual Chinese New Year parade because the last time I attended it, which was a few years back, we had the misfortune of being pelted with unforgiving rain. Nothing ruins a parade like Mother Nature's michievous sense of humor. There we were, huddled with the hoi poloi, freezing like popsicles and watching plastic-draped dragons flailing and failing to excite the crowd. Big surprise - we're watching plastic-draped dragons while fending off hypothermia. Glum was our collective adjective.

This year was a different story. The weather cooperated fully and allowed for a fun time to be had by all. It's the year of the Tiger and we're all enjoined to growl! GROOWRRL! BTW, one of my favorite onomatopoetic outbursts.

Of course, something had to dampen my spirits despite the perfect weather. One of the mascots (thematically dressed as a tiger) was high fivin' through the crowd and when I raised my hand, he totally ignored me! He totally left me hanging. See the rude tiger's pic below.

Anywho, I'm trying not to be offended by non-high-fivin' Tiger. And my sour grapes reasoning is: High fives, who needs them? They're quite passe'. It's all about terrorist bumps nowadays. They're all the rage in Iraq, you know.

Also, it won't be an outing with Jonsey Balonsey without a healthy dose of embarrassment. We saw the KTVU Channel 2 float and Boobsie said, "Oh, we know him, he's Suzuki the newscaster!" I took his word for it so I shrieked at the guy on the float, "Suzuki! Suzuki!"

He gave me a semi-blank smile which was cryptic to me. Later on, I found out that his name wasn't Suzuki, but Sasaki. Embarrassing!

Attack of the Killer Orchids!

As I walked around the San Francisco Orchid Society's 2010 Pacific Orchid Expo entitled Carnaval! (Yes, with a startling exclamation mark, please), I realized that I knew very little about these exotic fleurs. I had the notion that orchids were merely ornamental and pretty, but my original idea was very quickly obliterated as I saw the outstanding variety and diversity the expo had to offer.
As you can see in these pictures, orchids come in a different sizes, colors and shapes. Boobsie even bought one called "Pagan Love Song"...hmmm very exotic.

There were even really scary ones that were aptly named Draculas! No pictures of draculas made it to this post, though. I did not want to give you nightmares. However, please enjoy these pictures I took of the orchids I thought stood out the most and if you're so inclined, you should mark your calendars for next years show. I know I will, for scary as some of them may appear, most of them were just extraordinarily beautiful. I'll need my orchid fix next year, for sure.

Unphotogenic Delights at Tartine

"What? You've never had weekend breakfast at Tartine? Oh, gosh you should go and have their breadpudding or their morningbuns. To die for!".

I've been hearing this forever and God knows, I've thought about it and planned it, but somehow it never panned out. Something about waking up early on weekends just totally messes up my inner wirings. Last weekend I finally bit the bullet and made a commitment to initiate myself to this San Francisco tradition on Saturday. Of course, it had to be the morning when it's raining and the whole city just felt like it was drenched and gloomy. I picked up my friend, Boobsie, and together we ventured off. On the drive to Dolores Park, with the sound of the windshield wipers as a background to Boobsies raves about the delicious Tartine offerings, my mouth was salivating.
Boobsie: "Oh, yes! The bread pudding is soooo goood, but they're over-rated."
Leave it to him to always come up with contradictory statements. I wanted to point out this contradiction, but I digressed. I haven't had my coffee and I didn't want our conversation to turn into a full blown argument. So, I bit my forked tongue.

We finally arrived, and of course Tartine is not only famous for their pastries, but also infamous for their long lines. As luck would have it, the queue was quite long and included an additional negative. Behind us was a very loud, obnoxious cel phone user who deemed it appropriate to shout all of his phone blabbing into our sensitive, un-caffeneited ears. Rude. I think I would have felt differently about this guy if I understood the language he spoke which was italian. It's one thing to shout on your cel phone in public, it's another to deprive your unwitting audience of the ability to determine the reason behind all the screaming. We need to understand at least your end of the conversation to know this. (Although, in your case it seemed pretty unilateral, since you never stopped your yapping)

This was not an auspicious start, the rain, the mixed review, the loud un-eavesdroppable talker...We eventually got our food: prosciutto, cheese and arugula pressed sandwiches (reminds me of Roma), bread pudding and banana cream tarte. All were ultra-yummy and delicious and satisfying and worthy of all the respect and kudos it's been given by SF local foodies.

We ate on a nearby bench and while we were eating and reveling in our delights, I suddenly remembered to take pictures. (Sorry, they didn't turn out well, as you can see. Believe me, the food tasted better than it looks in the photos). As I was taking my last bites of the bread pudding I looked up and I realized that the sun was shining brightly, and that it's been that way for awhile. The city was warm, dry and families were walking pass us with wide smiles on their faces. What brought on this fantastic change? Did Tartine's pressed sandwich and the bread pudding bring with it not only gastronomic satisfaction, but also a magic that can turn gloom into unicorns, puppies and rainbows?

No. Sorry to burst your bubble. I've always believed that climatic changes occur when people bite their tongues and keep their negativity inside. It makes for a better day. However, some studies say that suppressed emotions can cause inordinate weight gain. Oh, well.

Hmmm, how your powers have grown.

Well, well, well. If it isn't my old nemesis KitKat. You who had forced me to eat you despite my guttural pleas of resistance, knowing fully well that a moment of you through my lips means a lifetime in my hips! Arg, if only my hips could lie, but much like Shakira's, they can't. The story they tell is one where you have conquered me with your full might and crushed my self control resulting to one undeniable confession: I'm chubby.

I have told my self time and time again, "No sweets, no sweets". A mantra that failed whenever I heard that infectious jingle of yours. It haunts me even today.
...Gimme a break, gimme a break, break me off a piece of that Kitkat bar...
Like a siren's song that entices lost seamen, you beckoned and I yielded. But that was years ago and a lot has changed since then. Today I am stronger and fitter. I've resisted sweets and diligently clocked perspire-y hours at the gym that I can now proudly claim: I'm slightly less chubby.

But I see you've returned and more formidable than ever. Your accomplice, Raunchy Richelle, smuggled you in from Japan where you completely redesigned your fighting style. You have modified your offensive technique from Chocolate chop attacks to Green Tea Grabs and Ginger Ale Jump-kicks. I must say, I'm impressed, but you're still no match to my signature moves: the Jonsey Balonsey Jabs. Yes, those are interesting new flavours, but I'm not the old, weak-willed Jonsey Bal...Oh, what's that you say? You managed to maintain your crispy, delicious goodness at your core? The green tea and ginger ale flavors are so spot-on I'd think that my taste buddies were pulling a prank on me? Oh, well, maybe ...well, a tiny bite won't hur...just a bite...Crunch...Oh, curses, you flavorful fiend. You win again!

From Tofu Soup to Photoshoot

Grumble, grumble, grumble. My tummy's hungry and I need some deliciousness inside me and I don't want to go the same ole, same ole route. I feel the need for a new discovery, a place I've never been to. Luckily, Raunchy Richelle knew exactly where to go. Doobu restaurant at Japantown Adjacent is great! I must say that they rival the tofu soup at My Tofu House - wait a minute, I don't know any other place that serves Korean tofu soup...oh well. To date, I'm not sure which is better, though. My tastebuds haven't made a decision. Both restaurants have the same selection of banchan, the usual suspects of kimchi, bean sprouts, etc. with a small fried fish for each diner, which was awesome. I ordered the beef and assorted seafood tofu soup and it was great. The seafood was fresh, especially the oysters, but peeling the shrimp was laborious. Sticky Fingers Ann ordered the seafood soup and Rauchy Richelle had the assorted mushrooms. We were all happy campers, except they only had one server during their very hectic lunch hour. Not sure if it was poor staffing or if someone called in sick, but that crowd needed more than one server, for sure.

As usual, pictures were taken of the food for blogging purposes and it invariably spiraled into an impromptu photoshoot. What is it about new cameras and friends and good food that puts people into a posing mood? Is this how Kate Moss started? Doubt it, it would mean that she actually eats...maybe she just takes a sniff here and a sniff there and then she's ready for her close up!

PS - Note how Sticky Fingers didn't seem to bother to take a picture of me and Raunchy Richelle....Hmmm, someone's a camera hog.