January 21st: Chinatown

After being completely miserable all day because of the downpour we were walking through all day, I was glad to be finishing it with Chinese food. After a few minutes of walking around in the rain, I quickly didn’t care which Chinese restaurant we ended up deciding on. My main goal was just to get out of the rain. When we finally decided on a restaurant I was very glad. I love going to the tiny Chinese restaurants in Indiana, so I was excited to try one in Chinatown itself. When it came to ordering, Jessica and I decided on getting two different things and splitting them. We decided to get chicken fried rice and Mongolian beef, two of our favorite Chinese foods. After only having to wait ten minutes of so, the food came to our table, and at first glance it looked delicious. At first taste it was pretty good, but then the beef began to taste like it had a little bit of a coating over it. I don’t know how to describe it, but I just didn’t like this Mongolian beef that much. I finished it all, and it wasn’t completely awful, but I don’t think I would order it again. As for the chicken fried rice, this isn’t something you can go wrong with. I ate a lot of the chicken fried rice and the steam rice, and I ended up leaving the restaurant full and happy.

January 21st: Chez Panisse

I can definitely see why the cozy Chez Panisse was rated one of the best restaurants in the country. First off, all of the people were so kind to us. When we first got there, the general manager spoke with us individually about what Chez Panisse is all about, and the other organizations Alice Waters began because of her love for food and her community. This was really fascinating because you don’t hear many stories about a restaurant doing anything more than cooking and serving food, but Alice Waters began many different organizations since opening her doors. Also, an observation I had the second I walked through the doors, into the comfy dining room, was that the kitchen was open. That means people could watch their food being made as they are waiting for it. This cuts down the chance of any funny business behind the kitchen doors, and you are able to see every step the chefs are making. There are no secrets in this kitchen, and that is something I really liked. While the friendly people and open atmosphere were a large part of why this was such a great restaurant, the main reason is because of the food. If you are looking for your usual chicken fingers and hot dogs, this is not the place for you. The menu had so many unique items on it I was a little surprised. I ended up deciding on the Bob’s castel franco salad with marinated beets and green goddess dressing, grilled Soul Food Farm chicken breast with curly endive salad, roasted parsnips and sage, and the pink lady apple and wild flower honey tart for dessert. There were only two things on that list that I had ever had before, chicken breast and the tart, so I was excited to see what everything else tasted like. The salad came first, and this was anything but ordinary. Again, this dressing was very refreshing, and the lettuce, while it didn’t look like any lettuce I had ever seen before, was surprisingly good. Next came a side pizza that I didn’t know was part of the meal, but I was glad that it was sent out. They gave a regular pizza a little pizzazz by adding spicy sausage, onion, and some herbs. I was glad I was able to eat two pieces of this pizza pie, which I don’t think I have ever said before. When the main meal came, I was a little bit surprised. First off, I was surprised by the amount of food. The huge plate was filled was with food. Second, there were a few things that weren’t listed on the menu that were thrown into the meal that I didn’t expect to see. One of those items was a piece of bread covered in a chicken liver paste. I didn’t think I was going to like this, but, wanting to try everything they gave me, I took a bite and really enjoyed it. I ended up eating that whole piece of toast. Also, on top of the endive salad were some squash and parsnips, and a lot of them. I cautiously tried the first one of each, but after that, I found my self eating them like they were something I had had a million times. My favorite part of this main meal, however, was the chicken. This could have been the best chicken I have ever had in my life. It was full of juice and flavor, and was the perfect tenderness. Also, the thin layer of skin on the top part of the chicken was cooked perfectly. I ate every last piece of chicken on my plate, and it was so good, I didn’t even realize how much of it I ate until it was all gone. A few seconds after I basically licked my plate clean, and it was taken away, I felt my mouth start salivating about the apple tart I saw being made downstairs. Before it was placed in the oven it looked wonderful, so I could only imagine how good it was going to look when it was placed in front of me. It looked better than I could have imagined. The flakey crust had risen to a perfect height, and the sweet apples were sitting flawlessly in a row. As an extra treat, there was a scoop of a tangerine ice cream. I don’t think I stopped to take a breath once I started eating that dessert. There is no word that could do that dessert justice but if I had to choose one it would be perfection. If you couldn’t tell by what I wrote above, I absolutely loved everything about this restaurant. What was also really nice was that all of the ingredients were fresh. This makes me feel a lot less guilty about how much food I consumed in that one sitting.

January 20th: Burger Meister

Today was the day that we were going to be able to eat one of my all time favorite foods, cheeseburgers. While I had a cheeseburger earlier this trip, and it was very good, it was very fancy. At Burger Meister, a place in San Francisco that is famous for their cheeseburgers, I was pretty much guaranteed a juicy cheeseburger that was plain and simple, just how I like it. Not only was I guaranteed this, but also the meat I was going to eat was organic. This isn’t something you see at a “fast food” restaurant of sorts very often. Here, while there were lots of choices to put on my cheeseburger like onions, bacon, or pineapple, I decided on a plain cheeseburger with plain fries. Some might say that is boring, but to me it was perfection. I ate every single thing that was on my plate, and could have probably ate a whole other burger, and not feel that guilty about it because I knew I was placing somewhat healthy food in my body. I was glad the teachers caved in and decided to let us go to Burger Meister, because my taste buds were pleased.

January 20th: Gelato

This morning, I completely indulged in a full breakfast. I made two breakfast sandwiches, cereal, and a cinnamon roll, and by the time we got to lunch, I was still completely stuffed. We went to a food court in a really nice mall in Union square. This was the nicest food court I had ever been too. There were restaurants with food from all over the world, from Thailand to Italy to Mexico. There were gourmet restaurants to little burger places and everything in between. The people I ate lunch with went to the Mexican restaurant and got burritos, or the French restaurant to get a panini, and they all thoroughly enjoyed the food they got. The people who went to the Mexican restaurant got a salad and a huge pile of chips along with their giant burrito, and it all looked delicious. I decided to just get a bowl of gelato, because I wasn’t hungry then but I knew I had to eat at least something. This gelato stand was huge, with more than 30 choices to choose from. There were fruity choices to chocolaty choice and everything in between. I finally decided on the raspberry gelato, a personal favorite of mine, and it was very good. I scrapped every last drop of the gelato out of the bottom of the bowl, and found myself wanting more.

January 19th: Duartes

Down a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere was a restaurant called Duartes. This restaurant made all of their meals from fresh food. Most of the food came to the restaurant earlier that day. Here, we were given a few choices for an appetizer and a few choices for dinner. I chose the cream of asparagus soup and the pork tenderloin. Personally, I am a big fan of cream based soups, and cream of asparagus is one of my all time favorites. When my soup came, I was excited to take a piece of their delicious, warm bread and butter and dip it into my hot soup. I did just that, and it tasted so excellent. After adding a tiny bit of salt, there is nothing better than a bowl of nice creamy asparagus soup. When dinner came, I looked at the plate and noticed how much food was on the plate. There were about six slices of the pork, with gravy drizzled on top, and a huge quantity of chard. I had never had chard before, so I didn’t know what it was going to taste like. It didn’t look very good, but it surprisingly wasn’t bad at all. That was my favorite part of my main entrée. The pork was good also, and I could taste a difference in the quality of the meat, but my favorite part was still the chard. For dessert, we all tried a little of the olallieberry pie. Before seeing this item on the menu, I had never heard of this type of berry, but I was excited to try it. My first bite I didn’t like that much. The pie was extremely tart, and my slice was so hot it was hard to eat. Everyone else was saying that his or her pie was really good, so I was interested in seeing what theirs tasted like. I tried a bite of the pie across the table from me, and I knew what they were saying know when they said it was good. Theirs had the perfect amount of sweetness and tartness, and it wasn’t excruciatingly hot. Overall, I really enjoyed this meal.

January 19th: Cannery Row

When we left the aquarium, we were given about 45 minutes to eat lunch. The group I went to lunch with didn’t know where to go, or how long the restaurants were going to take, so after 15 minutes of searching, we just decided to go to the first restaurant we saw. That happened to be a pizza parlor. A little worried about the time situation, we made sure to ask the woman if it would be quick. She informed us it would only take a few minutes and they had a deal, a huge slice of pizza and a soda for only $5.99. This was a deal breaker. The woman was correct; the slices of pizza were huge. It was almost twice the size of any piece I have ever had before. The pizza wasn’t bad either. Everyone chowed down on the pizza, and even though I was so large, everyone still had a little room for dessert. Luckily, there was a soft serve ice cream store called Myo right next to the pizza place. Something that was even better than the location was the fact that the ice cream was 45 cents an ounce. We all did serious damage in the ice cream store, mixing multiple types of ice cream with toppings from strawberries to cheesecake to Oreos. This ice cream was delicious, and hit the spot perfectly. Unfortunately, my eyes were much bigger than my stomach, and I only ate half of the giant bowl of ice cream that I made. Again, this wasn’t a very healthy meal, but it sure was tasty.

January 18th: La Cumbre

For dinner, our groups all went our separate ways, and my group ended up in the Mission at a restaurant called La Cumbre. I had never had a burrito before, but I knew this was the direction I wanted to go for dinner. Because of my lack of burrito knowledge, I was starring at the red and white menu that was against the wall trying to figure out if I wanted the regular burrito, the deluxe burrito, or if wanted to go all out and get the super burrito. After a while of blankly starring at the menu, completely overwhelmed, I decided on the super burrito. This consisted of beans, salsa, rice, meat, and sour cream. Ah, there goes one decision, the next I had to make was what meat I wanted. I ended up choosing steak. At this point, I thought I was done making choices, but man was I wrong. Next the woman behind the counter asked what kind of beans I wanted. As I said before, this was my first burrito, so I had no idea what made the best burrito. After a few seconds of me stammering around trying to look at the pots of beans and decided what I thought would taste the best, the women got frustrated and chose for me. I still don’t know what she picked, or what the difference in taste is between all the choices. The choices had to be done right? Wrong. She then asked what kind of salsa I wanted. Now, this was an easy choice, because I knew I didn’t want anything spicy. Finally, the decision process was completed. After looking back on it, I know this wasn’t that hard of a decision process, but for some reason I just didn’t know what to get on my burrito. I made my way to the dinner table, after I paid my bill, and was ready to take that first bite into creation. Completely tearing up the aluminum foil, I took the bite, and I was impressed. I liked what I was eating, and was glad that I made the choices I made. The burrito was so big I couldn’t eat it all, but everything I did eat I enjoyed. Also, the burrito came with a side of tortilla chips. I only ate a few of these, but they were very good as well.