A Fortunate Pilgrimage - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 2 Part I

Continued from...
I Am The King Of Thai - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 1

(San Francisco Market Street)

My full day in San Francisco consisted mostly of exploring the various neighborhoods by foot in San Francisco and eating. I was prepared for an entire day of walking from weekly hikes I recently had been taking up to Echo Mountain. Having lived in Los Angeles for most of my life, it's sometimes easy to forget how much a feel of a city I could get from walking instead of driving. Compared to a passive ride on the passenger seat in my friend's car the night before, I was able to let the lay of the land be better be ingrained into my brain.

The Adante served a free continental breakfast along with the hotel stay. Generally I have very low expectations when it came to free hotel breakfast, but I decided to at least check it out before writing it off. The continental breakfast turned out to be just as I expected, but with even less choices. It was simply an offering of a couple types of muffins, toasts and bananas accompanied by hot chocolate, coffee and an assortment of teas. I understood keeping cost low, but to only have one type of fruit was a bit perplexing. It wouldn't had strained their budget if they got a few less bananas and replaced them with apples. I decided to completely opt out of the hotel breakfast. It was pointless to travel all the way to San Francisco just to have muffins and bananas.

(Sears Fine Food Zagat Rated)

(Sears Fine Food - Swedish Pancakes)

The Adante was only three blocks west of Union Square in San Francisco. Sears Fine Food was one block north of Union Square so it was perfect for us to grab breakfast there. My friend Kenneth back in Los Angeles suggested that we check this out because of the high number of reviews and ratings on yelp. When we reached Sears Fine Food, there was a line already formed outside the door. I'm not a big fan of lines so we decided to buy the food to go and eat it at Union Square instead. I normally don't eat breakfast so it wouldn't had been a heavy meal. I only wanted to try out their Swedish pancakes. My travel buddy ordered an oatmeal because she did eat the free breakfast at the hotel.

It took approximately twenty minutes for our order to be completed. We took our food down to Union Square and found a table to eat. The Square was relatively empty since it was only ten in the morning. The ice skating ring in the center only opened a few minutes prior. The Swedish pancakes were smaller than I expected. There were around fifteen little discs inside the box accompanied with slightly warm and melted butter and syrup. It turned out to be very convenient to eat at the square as finger food as well as to share. I picked up each small disc, dipped it into the butter and then into the syrup. Since I was outside on a cold morning, the temperature of the food dropped rather quickly so there really wasn't a chance to savor the food as I would inside the restaurant. But sitting outside had its perks. It was open and bright. The air was still fresh from having just been through a storm; the rain did wash out a good amount of the pollution in the air. It was a very relaxing way to start a long day of exploring San Francisco.

(Organic Donuts)

(San Francisco Ferry Building Marketplace)

After breakfast, we walked down market street to the ferry building. I visited the ferry building during my last visit to San Francisco and had lunch there with a friend. It hasn't changed much. The market there were filled with healthy choices and unique food items such as head cheese and organic donuts. I was very tempted to get some food, but I knew I had to pace myself or I would end up over eating. I only ended up having a little bit of samples of the almond brittle from G. L. Alfieri. The brittle were not overly sweet which I liked. I always feel a little bad trying out samples without buying. I knew it's a marketing ploy to get you to feel exactly that, but I simply couldn't help but to feel the urge of making a purchase if it is actually a descent product. Fortunately I am disciplined enough to not allow myself to give into my urge to do so; well at least my wallet behaved.

(San Francisco Chinatown)

(San Francisco Chinatown Alleyway - Ross St.)

(San Francisco Chinatown Fire Escape)

After leaving the Ferry Building, we began our pilgrimage to San Francisco Chinatown's Golden Gate Fortune Cookies. Alright, it wasn't really a pilgrimage, but it almost felt that way going up the hills of Chinatown and then to a hard to find back alley. San Francisco's Chinatown was one of my favorite Chinatowns that I have ever visited. It's bustling and the hills made it more interesting to explore. The store was located at Ross Alley wide enough to fit one car through at a time. The store front was very easy to miss and in fact, we passed by it initially and ended up at the other side of the alley without being able to locate the store. For a brief moment I thought I was lost. Nevertheless we turned around and finally located the small door to the small fortune cookie factory.

(Golden Gate Fortune Cookies Worker)

As soon as we stepped foot into the store, we could smell the aroma of the fortune cookies, and it smelled wonderful. Within a few steps upon entering the store, you could see three Chinese women sitting at work stations making fortune cookies. There was a charge of fifty cents to take a photo of the workers making the fortune cookies. It was similar to what I had seen on the Travel Channel before. This company had been in San Francisco since 1962. An older man greeted all the visitors, promoting the store to us in English and Chinese. He continuously boasted about how people from all around the country and the world would come to his store to buy fortune cookies. Then he handed my friend and I a golden coin fresh out of the assembly line to try. A golden coin is simply a fortune cookie without having been bent into the shape of a fortune cookie and stuffed with a fortune inside. It was still warm from the assembly line and it was definitely tasty.

(Golden Gate Fortune Cookies - Golden Coin)

The circular discs were crunchy and warm and had a slight tangy aftertaste that I had never experienced eating a fortune cookie. In fact that slight aftertaste was extremely hard to detect when I ate the same cookies a day later. The freshness and the warmth amplified the aroma of the cookie. I ended up buying two bags of mixed flavor fortune cookies; regular and chocolate, along with a bag of cow's ears which are salty flavor cookies. The fortune cookies were all very delicious and the cow's ears were wonderfully made. The crunchiness lasted as long as the cookies were contained in sealed bags. As a bonus, the man who packed our purchases threw in a stash of free golden coins into our bags for us to snack on throughout the day. The only drawback to the cookies were the limited variety of rather generic fortunes inside them. But I did get a kick out of knowing that a new relationship would soon blossom in my life, which did actually come true. But another fortune said an investment in something with four wheels would soon be fun to make did not realize. Which one would I have rather come true; only time could tell.

(Hills of San Francisco)

While exiting the fortune cookie store, there were loads of tourists who just arrived into the store. It was definitely a well known secret. For all intensive purpose it had the making of a pilgrimage. There was a journey up a hill and into a small narrow passageway. It was tiring and easy to get lost. There was an old, though I'm not certain whether he was wise, man. There were fortunes told by the female oracles making the cookies. There were foods to be shared and bread, well cookies, to be broken. Finally we left the journey with things to bring back to where we came from to share the wealth. It was certainly a fun journey for the morning of my full day in San Francisco.
Now it was time to take a hike over the remaining hills to Swan Oyster Depot on the other side.

Continue reading at...

It's a Small Small World - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 2 Part II
Burger To Die For - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 3 - The Food
Riesling, riesling, where for art thou my riesling? - 2010 San Francisco & Napa Trip Day 3 - The Wine

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The Textures of Dim Sum

Can you hear the sleigh bells ring? All I can hear are the dishes clanging at Dim Sum.

It's December and the holiday spirit fills the air. Here at Dim Sum on a Wednesday afternoon, a huge crowd swarms the place making us forget that we are still in a recession. With a crowd this excited, you would almost think they are giving the food away. At $2.09 a plate, it may as well be.

(Steamed Pork Ribs in Black Bean Sauce)

Top Island Seafood Restaurant serves most of the traditionally popular Dim Sum items. Truth be told, this is not my favorite Dim Sum restaurant. A lot of it really has to do with one dish, the vermicelli shrimp wraps. Vermicelli wraps are very difficult to get right. Ideally the texture should be smooth and silky. It should go down nice and smooth almost like vodka. But I can see how some people, as a friend I have once brought to Dim Sum, would think this texture disgusting. In some ways it may even feel like eating a slurp of slimy gunk. This reminds me of the episode of Futurama when Fry couldn't stop drinking Slurm, even though he found out it came out of the back end of a giant queen slug. Alright, I'm not doing my vermicelli wraps justice, but I do love this dish; just not at Top Island. New Capital Seafood Restaurant does it much better a few blocks away.

(Vermicelli Shrimp Wraps)

Dim Sum is full of textures, and another one that a lot of even my Chinese friends can't handle is the infamous Phoenix Claws, which is just a fancy name for chicken feet. It's all in the branding right? Give it a nice name and you may actually give it a try. Top Island serves Phoenix Claws three different ways. There's the steamed version that's marinated in a black bean sauce. This is the softest version of Phoenix Claws where the skin and cartilage comes right off the bones. Then there's the White Cloud version dipped in a vinegar sauce. This is the chewiest version and there's no way around not feeling like you are chewing on claws. If you've ever chewed on your own fingers out of nervousness, it taste even more rubbery than that. Then there's a version where it's served in a soup. It's in-between the two in terms of chewiness. The soup has a lot of condiments flavoring it. The chicken feet themselves really doesn't have a whole lot of flavor. It's just skin, cartilage and bones. So in the end, it's a matter of texture as you are just chewing on bones. It's definitely an acquired taste; well fine, an acquired texture. Scared? Chew at your own peril.

(Steamed Phoenix Claws)

Before I completely scare you off from Dim Sum, most of the items that are pushed around by middle aged female servers in metal carts are pretty normal stuff. I'm not being sexist or being ageist here. I have never seen a young female cart pusher nor have I seen any male cart pusher at any Dim Sum restaurants I've ever been to around the world. Occasionally I see men walking around the room with dishes of food on a serving platter, just never behind a cart. I have no idea why this is so, but it just is and no one has ever complained: I'm not complaining.

Today we also had Lor Mai Gai - Lotus leaf wrapped sweet rice and chicken. The Chinese name has the word chicken in it, but it doesn't actually always have chicken inside. I suppose we are used to buying things that doesn't really have anything to do with its name. Blackberry doesn't actually have black berries inside: Apple computer has nothing to do with apples. Even an iPhone is hardly a phone, and I can't live without mine. Top Island's version doesn't have chicken, instead it has minced pork, mushroom and salted egg yolk inside. I prefer them without chicken anyways, they tend to be too dry. I think Top Island does a good job with this and I wouldn't mind having one occasionally. Just don't eat them everyday, they are extremely fattening and pretty bad for diabetics. I don't let my mother have any of the sweet rice.

(Lotus Leaf Wrapped Sweet Rice and Chicken)

Another favorite of mine at Dim Sum are the stuffed tofus. But as with all things Dim Sum, every restaurant does it differently. Top Island stuffs, well more like tops, their tofu with a giant fish ball. I almost rather eat just the tofu as the fish balls were just too big. Bigger may look better. It looks like we are getting a better deal cause we are getting more, but it's no longer stuffed tofu. I basically have to eat the tofu and the fish ball separately. So no, bigger isn't always better.

(Steamed Stuffed Tofu)

I don't eat a lot of fried foods, and I generally avoid donuts. I don't even remember the last time I actually went to a donut shop to buy a donut, though I had one a couple days ago because my parents visited a friend who worked at a donut shop. The irony is that my family co-owns a donut shop in Thailand. But I do like the Chinese salted donut, which are basically deep fried dough stuffed with pork. It's really hard to go wrong with this dish. You just can't go wrong with deep fried anything. The only real thing one can do wrong with this dish is either over stuff or under stuff them. Top Island is pretty consistent with a fair amount of tasty stuffing. The dough is also a very good consistency; a little crunchy on the outside and a little mushy on the inside.

(Salted Water Corner - a.k.a. Chinese Deep Fried Salty Donuts)

Generally speaking, I don't order anything off the menu at Dim Sum. But I went with my family today, and my mother couldn't pass up on their deal on squabs. The king squabs were $3.99 each and the smaller squabs were $6.99 each. If you go to the supermarket to buy the small squabs raw, they would cost $10 each. We have absolutely no idea how they can serve them at such a low price. It's so cheap it's almost scary. I mean are these squabs legit? Did they go out to some town square and took down a ton of pigeons and passed it off as squabs. Alright I'm letting my imagination run wild, but I do wonder.

Cheap as it may be, the quality of the squabs were actually good. the problem though was the marinate. It needed to be marinated longer. The flavor just never penetrated enough through the skin and into the meat, so the meat was a bit bland, though it was tender. I understand the fact that every other table in the restaurant is ordering squabs, so they simply don't have the luxury to marinate them for a prolonged period of time. It's the classic increase in demand yielding a decrease in quality. Well it does give my mother her squab fix, but as for me I much prefer my Dad's recipe. If only raw squabs cost less.

(Deep Fried Squabs)

Dim Sum is loud. The food is loud and the atmosphere is even louder. The best and most popular Dim Sum places is like a symphony of sounds and tastes with people crossing non-stop in front of your eyes. The dishes banging together as waiters clean the tables: the people talking over the noise in the room: the sound being trapped in a non-dampened room; the waiters and waitresses zig-zagging across the room unendingly to keep up with the demands of the customers. All these adds together to bring the whole place to life, which really is a great way to feel alive in a time when the rest of the world can seem like all gloom and doom.

So this holiday season instead of hearing sleigh bells, maybe it's time to hear some dishes clang.

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