San Francisco Part I

Last Friday my sous chef and I sent our doggie off to stay with family and headed up the state to San Francisco to celebrate our four year anniversary. We had an amazing time and I managed to eat well, and gluten free, the whole trip.

next to an onion truck on the road

The long drive was fueled by snacks like sunflower seeds, fruit roll ups, pop-chips and some yummy buckwheat cinnamon and sugar cookies my friend Deb made for me. Road trips must include junk food. So it is written, so it shall be. Amen.

tomato truck

We stopped on the way at Harris Ranch and I had one of the best steaks I have EVER had. It was a smoked ribeye that had been dry rubbed with salt and sugar and was served with a whiskey/chili butter. Oh. My. Lordy. I love Harris Ranch, the rustic and kind of hokey decor might lead you to expect processed, mass produced food but every time I eat there I am pleasantly surprised by the freshness and quality of my meal. It makes sense since they grow the produce right on the property. My steak came with an ungodly amount of sides: onion rolls (skipped em, obvy, but they smelled amazing), an iceberg wedge salad with heirloom tomatoes, sliced red onion and blue cheese (this was so icy cold and delicious, I inhaled it. Even the raw red onions were as sweet as candy), sauteed green beans with baby cherry tomatoes (these were perfectly cooked: barely blanched then tossed in a skillet with heaps of fresh shallots), and a twice baked potato which was also tasty but I was too stuffed to eat much of it.

We arrived and checked in to our hotel in the Financial District. We had a nice view of the Bay and the Bay Bridge.

After unpacking we headed out to dinner at Burma Superstar. Almost everyone who gave us recommendations about San Fran mentioned Burma Superstar and now we know why. I had never tried Burmese food and didn’t really know what to expect but I was blown away. I ordered the Tea Leaf Salad and the Nan Gyi Dok; Burmese rice noodles with a mild chicken coconut curry sauce, eggs, split yellow pea, and fried onion. I told them I had a gluten intolerance and they were immediately helpful, telling me what I could and could not eat. That salad is what dreams are made of. I honestly would have gone back there and eaten it for every meal if my sous chef would have let me. It’s hard to describe the flavor and I wish I had taken pictures but alas, I did not. The salad has about 50 things in it and they bring out the plate with everything separated and a waiter juices a lemon onto the plate then mixes all the ingredients together. It is crunchy, chewy, sour, bitter, nutty and addictive as can be. Go there. Get it. The curry was also divine, the chicken was so flavorful and tender, I wish I knew what they did to it to make it so good!

After dinner we headed out to the Tonga Room, a hidden gem of a tiki bar in the basement of the Fairmont Hotel. Going to this bar is pretty trippy. You walk through the lobby of the dazzlingly plush and stuffy Fairmont Hotel and take an elevator into the basement. You walk down an innocuous hotel hallway and suddenly you are at the entrance of a giant tiki bar that smells faintly of the Pirates of The Caribbean Ride.

photo credit: SF Weekly

Every hour lightening flashes, thunder booms and a downpour bursts from the ceiling. There is a dance floor where septuagenarians boogie to the stylings of “Island Groove”, the band playing easy listening hits perched on a boat floating in the giant pool that is the centerpiece of the bar. Rum based drinks are served in authentic tiki glasses and hollowed-out fresh pineapples. We enjoyed a couple of libations then headed home to collapse.

Penry Piggins in bed

Tune in tomorrow to hear what we did on the action packed FIRST and LAST full day in cloudy, gloomy San Francisco! Also, there is still time to enter the giveaway! Tell your mom! Tell your friends! Tell your cousin! The prize is a $40 gift card to CSNstores.com and a winner will be chosen at random on Aug 21!