Rest for the weary...

August 16, 2008

This morning I had my last run in my neighbourhood, which I was happy about because it is so beautiful but a bit sad because it's a lovely area and I'll miss it.

But the good news is that Dave has arrived and we went to explore the area yesterday, walking through Delores Park filled with eclectic people lazing about and mingling (we even saw one man with his large weaving machine weaving there and no one seemed to think that this was out of the ordinary), lots of happy dogs running around in the park, and then the vibrant Castro Street.

We stopped at Tartine Bakery around the corner on 18th and Guerra for some baked goods. The place is owned by a husband and wife team who are pastry chef and bread maker, with trainings in France and people rave about the place with line-ups always out the door and people and other chefs like Alice Waters calling it one of the best places in the city.

Then we headed to Elixir Saloon for some drinks, which I've been curious about as they say it's one of the most green and sustainable bars in the city, creating drinks with local concoctions, having operations that are green, and trying to bring together business people interested in sustainability as much as possible. There are actually a lot of old fashioned bars and saloons in the area that remain very old looking or have been renovated, perhaps from the Klondike gold digging days.

Afterwards we headed for some food at a local Mexican place run by a family that is always packed and I've wanted to try. We had a margarita with a premium tequila, which makes for a much better and smoother drink I must say, and some home style Mexican food like enchiladas, burritos and delicious sauces to go along with them. One of those places where you get lots of food and it's quite good and satisfying, but you eat too much.

We headed to Napa to have lunch at Bouchon, a Thomas Keller restaurant. If you don't know about Thomas Keller you should as most chefs dream about eating at one of his restaurants or working with him. He's the owner of the French Laundry Cafe, also in Napa, which is a multi star restaurant and is supposed to be one of the best restaurants in the country in terms of food and service. Apparently it is almost impossible to get into French Laundry Cafe as they take reservations far in advance and they are extremely popular, however I've heard about people squeaking in for lunch if there's been a cancellation and they like you. We were going to try it but it's always hard to bring ourselves to pay the price even for a especially created tasting menu that is vegetarian or vegan. The thing is that the tasting menu is about $250 US each, whether vegan, vegetarian or not, and it's made up of exquisite plates of food that are especially prepared and the experience can last hours. And that is just the per person price without drinks or taxes or tip. Now, I love great food and am willing to pay good money for it, but the cost has just been a little too shocking and steep for us at this point. And though I love eating French style food, I often end up feeling not great later with all the butter, cream and the richness that my system is not used to and rebels against. Thus, this is one of the reasons that I'm interested in cooking gourmet food that is healthful and doesn't make you feel sick afterwards, and delicious vegan food that avoids all that butter, cream but has the richness and full flavour still. Sure you can always add butter and cream to make something taste better, and that's why restaurants often dip their vegetables in butter before serving them, as they always taste so much better, but what about trying to cook without the butter and cream first??

So, I thought Bouchon is very close to French Laundry and is much cheaper, though not cheap, and much more casual than French Laundry, and I would be surprised if they didn't have the same suppliers and supplies for both restaurants and have chefs going between the two. Also, I made my reservation over a month in advance and easily got in. There's a Bouchon bakery next door and you can always buy baked goods from them and just eat in the outdoor cafe beside it, and there may be room. But since this was our chance to try Thomas Keller food, we made a reservation at Bouchon and we were looking forward to it, which looks like an upscale beautiful French bistro to a tee without the snobby attitude. Beautiful setting, excellent service and a good reasonable food menu that has everything from sandwiches to more complicated fare, and very good fries with ketchup, which I had. The food was good, in particular the cold soup, the salad fine, and the main courses were ok. We both found the presentation great - how could you go wrong with that beautiful white shiny chinaware with "Bouchon" written on it - the food flavourful and good, but some of it was not spectacular as we thought it would be. And although are waiter was very nice, there are a few things that irked me about the place. The menu items are in French and when I ordered the "moules" dish in French he didn't know what I was talking about and I had to say it in English. If they are going to use French words for the menu than servers should be able to pronounce them and understand them, d'accord?! At one point the waiter called me "lady" which is one of the pet peeves I have as I don't like the term and to me it sounds disrespectful. And what is it with the waiters wearing large long aprons that are like tablecloths with big knots tied at the back? That might be very French but I still think it looks ridiculous vs. a normal white long apron. The pet peeves were minor but with a restaurant that prides itself on stellar service, and you're still paying a good price for a meal, then you expect a bit better.

Then we headed to another place that chefs and foodies dream about and love... the Greystone Culinary Institute of America or "CIA". An absolutely beautiful old building that started as a winery about by the Christian Brothers, incredibly beautiful and modern at the same time (demo kitchens, classroom kitchens, etc), and our favourite, a great campus store for chef supplies and guests. I loved being there and highly recommend a visit. Also, we would have stopped for a bite to eat there but we had just finished lunch. By the way, they offer regular cooking demonstrations in their demo kitchen classroom for a small fee, which would be lovely to do next time around.

We really wanted to get to our final destination farther north to Harbin Hot Springs, where we would relax our bodies and minds for the week and have to with just beautiful weather, a variety of natural hot springs you can dabble in from hot to cold, treatments from deep massage to their famous watsu massage in water, which Dave and I both are in love with, mostly vegetarian food in their restaurant and cafe or you can cook vegetarian in their quite large communal kitchen (no fish or meat allowed in the kitchen), lots of opportunity to see wildlife around, and just a general relaxed, natural and granola type atmosphere, with simple accommodations, that we like to soak in and soak up.

So, in the afternoon we arrived at Harbin Hot Springs and this is where my blog will stop and my body will rest for awhile as I focus on nothingness and just being. We will hit the road in a week to Mendocino County to take my course at Fort Bragg and for us to try many wines and wineries on the way as the area is rich with some fairly new and great wineries. See ya!