36 Hours in San Francisco

I went to the Bay Area for Memorial Day weekend -- T was having a baby shower in Napa and I got to visit with my cousins. All worth flying cross-country for, in my opinion. Flying out, one of my co-workers CH was on the same flight as me. It was one of those small world moments.

Anyway, if there was a theme to this trip, it was revisiting old haunts.

I took BART to the Mission. I hadn't been to the neighborhood since I lived in San Francisco in 2001. I grabbed lunch at a small, inexpensive, and yummy taco place.

But mainly I walked around to see how the neighborhood had changed, and how it hadn't.  It was amazing how different it was -- the stores, restaurants -- but the sense of the neighborhood still remained. I stopped by bi-rite creamery and got a scoop of brown sugar ice cream with caramel ginger swirl that was amazing. I don't know if this was around in 2001, but if I had known about it, I would have been there every day!

Then I walked to Hayes Valley. Again, a neighborhood that had changed a lot since I was last there -- a lot of nice cute shops and places to eat. I stopped by Smitten ice cream and picked up a scoop of chocolate. 

This place is well known because it uses liquid nitrogen to freeze the ice cream -- it makes it a lot smoother. It's also fun to watch the "smoke" come out of the container. I went back and tried their strawberry with pink peppercorn. All in all I loved the flavor profiles at Bi-Rite, but I liked the texture of Smitten.

From there I walked to Alamo Square and saw the "painted ladies." The houses looked like I remembered, but I had totally forgotten how hilly the park actually is and all the trees -- the big, redwood type trees in the park. I was also close to my old neighborhood, so I walked to the Upper panhandle and saw the old place on Fulton St.

When I lived there, they had just begun to break ground on a shopping complex next door. I remember the construction would wake me up at 7:30am. It was good to see the finished complex.

I met up with my cousins and went to dinner to this cute little restaurant called Chez Maman.  It was this small place that seated like 14 people -- only 2 tables, the rest was counter space. We had spaces right in front of the stove, so it was like dinner theatre -- watching the cook prepare the different dishes.

I cannot say enough about how good my meal was. I want to go back and try about 5 other things on the menu -- in one sitting!

I got a french cider, mussels (les mouels poulette: shallots, bacon, white wine, cream & parsley), and frites. YUM!

The next day I was off to Napa -- the baby shower was at a spa there. It was great. I hadn't been to the Napa area in awhile. It was nice to drive past all the vineyards. I got back and then headed back to NYC. On the plus side, I got upgraded to business class on the flight, but I fell asleep before take off, so I really didn't get to enjoy any of the "perks" of business class.