Apr 16th, 2007
The Northern California Post — Part 2
Last time I covered only the first day of our trip, so I’ll try to cover a bit more ground with this post.
Sunday we spent in the city with our friend B. We started off with walking to Golden Gate Park to check out the new de Young museum which has a pretty spiffy new building with a free observation tower and nifty sculpture garden. We didn’t actually go into the gallery portion of the museum but did wander around the building and grounds. The building itself is this funky ultra modern design and very cool.
Afterwards, we headed to the Haight area to have lunch at a taqureia and so I could stop in at both Kid Robot and Giant Robot (not related, well, related in merchandise, but not business-wise). I picked up a few vinyl toys at Kid Robot, but they were all out of the Aztec Dunny’s which was a bit sad.
After lunch we went over to Japan Town so that I could pop into the Kinokuniya (disappointing), and to have desert at this crazy japanese crepe place where they’ve essentially taken a crepe and turned it into a waffle cone. Very tasty.
That night we went out to diner with B and his partner E to a place called Foreign Cinema which was a disappointment on many levels. First, their whole schtick is that they show foreign films on an outdoor screen, but when we were there, they were showing Bullitt which is not a foreign film, it was shot in San Francisco, for christ’s sake.. That should have been a sign if they couldn’t even get that right. Second, the place is expensive, overpriced is probably a better word. And worst of all, the food was so-so. I would have expected more for the money.
We spent the first half of Monday in the city as well, again with B. We went the San Francisco Center (I think it was called) so I could go to Maido, which while related to Kinokuniya, has a much better selection of pens. I bought two, a Sailor Ace ($16) and a Platinum Preppy ($4), both of which I will be reviewing over on my other site.
We then headed over to Valencia to check out the Pirate Supply Store, but they were closed all week. I guess we’ll just have to try them next year.
We headed back to Menlo Park in the early afternoon to avoid traffic as it was the first night of Passover and the seder started at 6. They seem to be getting shorter each year (the seders) but that only gets us to the amazing food that much faster. S is an amazing cook.
Tuesday we mainly hung around the house helping set up for the second seder. We also went out to lunch in Palo Alto with A. We ate at Francis Ford Coppola’s restaurant Cafe Rosso and Bianco, though we didn’t know it was his restaurant when we went in. The food was pretty tasty and they had these cool wine machines where you could purchase tastes or glasses of a variety of wines using a special card. We didn’t try it but it sure looked cool.
That’s about it for now. Next time I’ll cover our time in Wine Country, and probably the coast.
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