Musings of a Food and Travel Addict
Hey y’all! I’m having pho for a late lunch.
Here’s the pho:
It wasn’t too bad. The broth was a bit more “beefy” than what I’m used to. Not as “zingy”. The noodles were the flat vermicelli type. The beef was well done compared to the self cooking rare beef strips that come with the steaming hot broth. Not bad for a first meal.
I’ve got four frens that all turned 40 within the month of March. Typically, for most people, that’s a cause for self-reflection and the beginning of the mid-life crisis (for any wisecrackers out there, there’s no Porsche in my future). Here in the reality-distortion field that is San Francisco, it’s just another special occasion, to rally the troops and to eat and drink well!
The pre-party began on Friday night where six of us assembled at the party venue for wine and steak. Bone in Rib-Eye! And some very fine reds. And last minute party-planning.
Hellboy cuts return! MMMMMMMEAT
After a salt and pepper rub and a thin coat of olive oil, off it goes into the All-Clad!
This is where wine, mushrooms and jus go. Reduction!
Dinner!
The next night’s highlights (besides the attendees) included a BV Tapestry Flight. Bottles from 1996-2003 were to be opened and tasted. We opened. And tasted.
Part of Saturday’s flight
The wine flowed…
…and was drank
Good wine and happy people
Just so you don’t get the wrong idea about these parties, they ARE family friendly. For the first two hours.
Jeon and Son, Solicitors
Christine and a new fren (so shy lah)
This is more par for the course!
Kawaii ne? She wants to learn how to ride a motorcycle. Good for her!
From the left, David, Garren, Wal, Mark. March brats.
Typically, you knew the evening was winding down when karaoke began.
I’m singing i’m singing
Actually, our parties end like this, in a mugging!
When the evening started, this was empty
Unlike the previous parties, this was quite tame. Only about 2/3 of the usual suspects showed up, there was actually more wine at the end of the party than at the beginning and no one wound up barfing in front of the house. Also, there was no X-rated kissing and cleanup was almost Japanese in efficiency. Hopefully, since cleanup was easy this time, there’ll be another party here soon!
Definitely! This was the meal this evening at the California Culinary Academy. They have a restaurant where you can dine while the chefs in training “practice” on you. When I say “practice”, I mean cook for you. Look out! Food ahead!
This was so good, I forgot to take a pic of it before I started eating!
It was a medium/medium rare NY steak and lobster tail with a hunka smashed potatoes in the middle. Looks pretty too.
Dessert was a combo plate. Looks good and devoured quickly.
Oh yeah, there was rabbit food at the beginning, but since I wanted to rave about how good the meal was, I left this first part for last.
Rabbit food, how exciting…I mean HOW EXCITING!!
California Culinary Academy
625 Polk Street
San Francisco CA 94102
She’s heading home to Tokyo, lucky gal!
At last there’s another option for getting into Tokyo cheaply without a JR Pass!
Before, the two cheapest options for getting into Tokyo was taking the Keisei Skyliner (Y1920, 62 min) or the Keisei Tokkyu, (Y1000, 74 min). Both trains drop you off at either Keisei Ueno or Nippori Station on the Yamanote Line.
Now as of 28 March, JR East is introducing a combo Suica bundle for Y3500 that has a one way journey on the N’Ex (Narita Express) for Y1500 and also has a Y1500 Suica credit that can be used on all the other trains and buses in the Tokyo area. Y500 is the card deposit. The Suica card can be used in stores and some fast food places and can be recharged and reused like an ordinary Suica. It’s a good deal since you’ll be spending money in Tokyo ANYWAY on things like snacks and transport. With this deal, taking the N’Ex into Tokyo, Shinjuku or even Yokohama is Y1500! Now that’s a good deal, and good deals in Tokyo are hard to come by. So now there’s one less excuse not to go for Hanami!
Think of this as being JR East’s answer to the Hong Kong MTR Tourist Octopus.
(hat tip: Mari’s Diary)
So after my Friday night plans fell through (grrrr), I decided to do the San Francisco thing and geek out on the computer.
Walking Ixus has had the same look for three years; I figured it was time to freshen it up. Still working out some of the kinks, but the new sitemap goes something like this:
Archives and Categories are on the left.
Fun Stuff is on the right.
Kinda matches up with your left/right side of the brain thing, huh? Here’s something else for your left/right side of the brain thing…
We’ve been having some really odd weather here.
First it’s been really cold and it rained today. It also hailed while I was riding my motorcycle back to the house. What did I learn? I can ride in the rain (must buy a rainsuit) but I kanna ride in hail. At all. I nearly ate it three times in four blocks…
In event planning, the devil’s in the details. Such as it was with my friend’s 40th Birthday Party. Mark’s not one to do things on a small scale. And his party (planned by his wife, Angie) was planned very well. How?
First, there was a pre-party.
About 20 of use met at his house and proceeded to down 9 bottles of wine in three hours along with hoity-toity snacks to go with the wine including:
Totino’s Pizza Rolls
Jalapeno Cheese Poppers
Meatballs
Blondies (the evil version of brownies)
Spicy sausage wrapped in bacon
Mashed potatoes (?)
Perfect snacks to complement a 2001 Whitehall Lane…
Next, we all carpooled (except for the birthday couple and 10 select guests) to dinner in Palo Alto where we proceeded to be loud, silly and downing 11 more bottles of wine which was brought from the house.
As the evening went on, the crowd got sillier.
Even the birthday “cake” wasn’t free of silliness!
After dinner, we continued our festivities at Blue Chalk and then ended with a nightcap back at the house. That was fine, until the karaoke was fired up. I endured k-tv until 0330 when I declared it was time to leave. And that’s why I got home at 0430 this AM!
As I noted in an earlier entry, the UK Government has, with very short notice, doubled the Air Passenger Duty (APD) also known as a “tax” for passengers who fly to or from the UK. Story here and here.
Although this won’t be a big deal for corporate types who fly there on business or rich folk or gov’t types, here is how it breaks down for the rest of us…
* Economy class flights in Europe, internal UK flights – £10
* Business and first class flights in Europe – £20
* Economy class long-haul flights – £40
* Business and first class long-haul flights – £80
Of particular interest to the back/flash packer crowd are the amounts for economy class tickets. Since back/flash packers normally fly the cheapest fare they can find, these taxes hit them at a greater percentage than it would for a rich corporate government bigshot.
Economy long haul flights to and from the UK will be taxed at £40 (US$78) each way. That means that out of any ticket you buy that ends up in the UK, US$156 of that will be tax. That makes the US$299 r/t deal to London sound a lot less palatable, dun it?
Now, US$156 can buy you a nifty ticket on Ryanair or Easyjet to other parts of Europe. Neat. But wait, you’ll have to pay £20 round trip for that trip. Or US$78 plus the price of your ticket. Dun sound like a bargain anymore does it?
The worst part of this tax is that it’s supposed to go “to the environment”. Nothing more. No further details. Sounds like a slush fund for Labour and a virtual mugging of travelers to me!
But here’s a bright spot. This is greater incentive to visit the City of Light instead. Despite the language barrier, the food’s better and the cigars are cheaper. And for US$129.50 (less than the tax) you can take Eurostar into London if you must go.
On Mason near Bay Street, at the Powell-Mason cable car turntable, I give you the most caffeinated trash can ever seen, ANYWHERE!
Across the way is a Starbucks. They sell a lot of coffee to tourists waiting for the cable car to take them back to Union Square. Where there’s even more Starbucks for them to get their caffeine fix…
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