(think Tony Bennett) I brought my stomach to San Francisco

 Oh, patient reader,

Sunday. Travel day. Sigh.  Tough when you get up at 4:45.

 

Which might explain the start of the day. 

We were down at the front desk, expecting a taxi, with no one at the counter, and I see the man I think is the doorman (he’s been opening the door for two days, but masked…) wave from the door and point up the street, like the taxi is here.  Karen goes out to it.  I end up leaving Amanda (there was a later text message apologizing) a note saying we were checking out, I go out and the trunk of the taxi is open and the guy is there, ready to help me put my suitcase in the trunk.  He does and I dig out a couple bucks to tip him.  “No, no…” he says, and RR, from the car says “no…he’s the driver.”  Embarrassed emoji. [this is a variation, John, on the Castle Course starter in St. Andrews 😂 ]

Then we got to the airport and it turns out the driver hasn’t loaded the software for payment.  Then he tries to swipe my card on a device attached to his phone, and it doesn’t work.  Then he wants another card to try.  And it doesn’t work.  Finally, he calls the office.  The woman (I’d say “young” but maybe she just sounded young) on the other end doesn’t understand him well enough to recognize he’s a driver for several exchanges (by now I have the taxi # and his ID memorized) and finally she understands he needs her to take my card.  Okay, this won’t surprise you: she didn’t get the 16 digit number right the first time! ):  Meanwhile, RR is standing on the sidewalk giving me the X signal and I’m doing Y.  “It was 49 degrees and raining”…I was told.  From arrrival to payment took 17 minutes.  There were time stamps. 

But all went well otherwise — we were early enough to get Starbucks, get through security, eat our Top Doughnuts and get on the plane easily.  

So.  San Fran. 

You know you’re in San Francisco when…the BART driver seems to be stoned.  I mean, c’mon, man!  He announces the masking policy, reminds us, with some tone, why, then says “next stop is Daly City.”  Except most of the time (we came 13 stops, so we had time to document this) it was “The next station is…[long pause]…Daly City.”  And then “this is a…[long pause] a train to Richmond.”  Once and awhile he got it right right away, but mostly it was like “dude, I’m not feeling it today and it’s like I’ve never seen this route before” 😂 😂 😂 He also completely broke down on his last reading of the masking policy: “oh…you know why…” 😂 

We got to the hotel, checked in, the uber’d over to Mama’s.  The Uber driver had a Tesla.  San Fran, man.

Mama’s lived up to both its rep and its previous performances.  This was our 4th time there.  Things have changed — there were outdoor seats — but it was still the same food.  And the line to get “in.”   It took us 45 minutes to get to the ordering window. Le. There were 4 young guys behind us who were talking about clever lines and blogs (no kidding) but I never heard a single thing worth repeating.  All hat, no cattle. 

Here are your first food porn photos of this issue:

OJ and a mimosa to start.

The French toast sampler (cranberry orange toast, banana bread toast, and cinnamon toast).

California omelette (OC) with hollandaise sauce. 👍

Then we jumped on a bus down to the tourist district around Fisherman’s wharf. 

Here’s a shot from near the sea lions at Pier 39 of Golden Gate Bridge.

It was a very clear day.  See, no clouds!

After fighting the crowds (there’s a pandemic going on?), we grabbed one of their trolley trains back to the hotel.  And about the crowds: a lot of them weren’t speaking English.  We must be open for tourism again. 

And back to food porn.

The funniest thing about tonight’s restaurant was that we immediately recognized that we had eaten there before. :). As it was a Peruvian place (there has to be a joke there, though isn’t Jose Andres Peruvian and he deserves a Nobel Prize?) on the Embarcadero, you’d think you would remember.  Olds.

That was probably the funniest part of the evening.  Here’s food porn 1:

Their empanada sampler (from left, mushroom, chicken, beef, and corn).

The couple next to us (not quite as close as the wine snob on Friday) were intriguing: as RR said “it was like a first date.  She paid.”  The dynamic was curious.  They discussed “going for a drink” as they finished. 

I had the fish of the day, halibut (yes, there’s a joke in there), with collard greens (I need the 🤢 emoji) and black rice with a sauce that was to die for.  The waiter explained that it was a certain kind of yellow pepper (you can see the color) and two spices he wasn’t allowed to know (LoL).  

RR had the quinoa salad with barrata on top.  She likened the dressing to a sweeter balsamic. 

The first couple was replaced by another next to us.  I would have said she was Peruvian, and since she spent a lot of time explaining the menu to him, as did our waiter, he wasn’t.  :). We don’t know what they ordered — maybe the tasting menu? — but when we left, they’d already gotten two kinds of ceviche and the empanada sampler and it looked like more was coming as soon as there was room on the two-person table.  There aren’t enough tums…

We overheard the dessert pitch, so we looked at that menu and had to get this.  Organic Peruvian chocolate (is there inorganic Peruvian chocolate?) with tres leches layers with some vanilla ice cream on the side.  It WAS as good as it looks. 

Okay, we now have to lay down and sleep off our food coma.  We’ll be back tomorrow, which is ballpark #29.  Rah…but my life coach, who lived in Oakland, apologized up front for the stadium.  As have other people.  It is NOT supposed to be a ballpark highlight.  (They are in the midst of negotiations for building a new one — one for baseball [the Coliseum was, as the name suggests, built as a multi-purpose facility back when Caesar was around])

Manana

Okay