…if you guessed San Francisco/Sonoma County , you were right! Ingrid had a conference in San Francisco last Tuesday through Thursday and then we headed up to her friend’s house in Sebastopol for Friday and Saturday nights…I was able to explore the city when Ingrid was at the conference, and we both had some dining adventures when she was able…so here’s a rundown of Day 1:
We landed in San Francisco to a downpour around 11:30 in the morning…Ingrid knew she had to be at the conference at around 4, and we had an important stop to make, so we asked the taxi driver to stop at Dynamo Doughnuts on our way to the hotel…the mission was to try one of their bacon maple doughnuts (and some others, of course!) He obliged, and waited while I jumped out and got us some doughnuts…armed with the goods, he took us to the hotel and we sampled the treats…not as good as the Doughnut Plant in NY, but they were pretty tasty and the maple bacon was definitely the best of the bunch. They mix up the flavors on a daily basis, so maybe we just hit them on an off day. With little time to spare, we headed down (up? over?) California Street to the Ferry Building where the Farmer’s Market was being held. The market ended at two, so we had to hurry and we got a quick introduction to how hilly San Francisco really is. We made it to the market a half hour before closing and we were impressed with the ‘winter’ selections- especially the citrus. We picked up a couple of oranges for the hotel room and then headed inside for lunch at Boccalone. These guys specialize in cured meats and sausages- you can get sandwiches, simple platters or “cones” of their house made meats. I chose to get a three meat platter and Ingrid ordered their sausage sandwich. We ate at the little bar- everything was fantastic and well done. Post lunch, we wandered around the Ferry Building checking out the food stores and restaurants before heading back to the hotel. Ingrid took off for the conference and I headed over to Haight-Ashbury to check out the Magnolia Brewery. The walk was a little further than I thought, but well worth the trouble because I was rewarded with some excellent beers. Magnolia specializes in house-made European styles of beer and sustainably raised food offerings. The atmosphere was rather loose but service was attentive. I sampled their IPA, Saison and Schwarzbier-all were good, but I think I liked the Saison the best. I checked out the area aftwerwards and walked back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Ingrid, myself and her students headed back to the Ferry Building for dinner at the Slanted Door…we had a little bit of a wait, but that allowed us to try some appetizers- one of them being an open-faced dumpling that was quite unusual in that the the dough was on the bottom with the ingredients spread on top…the dough was a little chewy…some us liked it and some didn’t. We were seated for dinner a little before our inital wait time was up – the menu was had a definitive Vietnamese influence- I settled on the flatiron steak with all of us sampling something different. Everyone enjoyed their meals and it was a great way to cap off our first day in San Francisco!
-Josh
Doughnuts on the counter at Dynamo:
Maple Bacon Goodness:
The next four shots are from the Market:
Hand-powered meat slicer at Boccalone:
The three meat platter:
Ingrid’s sandwich:
Magnolia Brewery:
The beer line-up:
