The last time when I hit my heaviest weight was after spending a month of winter break in CA. I mean how can you not gain weight when you are surrounded by good food all the time?
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| Fried Frog Legs @ Grand Cafe |
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| Oysters on half shelf @ Grand Cafe |
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| Baked Oysters @ Grand Cafe |
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| Frisee Aux Lardons @ Grand Cafe |
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| Duck Confit and Wild Mushroom Scramble @ Grand Cafe |
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| Lobster Sandwich @ Grand Cafe |
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| Eggs Benedict with Country Ham @ Grand Cafe |
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| Gravlax de Saumon @ Grand Cafe |
Grand Cafe is one restaurant we ate at the most during the entire trip, it is a French brasserie at our hotel. The oysters and frog legs are from their weekend happy hour special. The oysters are fresh, and one of the best I have ever tasted. Their baked oysters are exceptionally good, baked to the perfect level, fresh, creamy and sweet. It was so good that we ordered two rounds, and the server saw how much we liked it, he was nice enough to throw in extras! I would go back for their oysters any day without a doubt. The next day we had our Sunday brunch at Grand Cafe, the Frisee Aux Lardons, duck confit and wild mushroom scramble, and lobster sandwiches are items on their brunch menu. Frisee Aux Lardons is a classic French bistro salad typically served with lettuce, bacon, croutons, and eggs. Lardons mean pork fat in French. Grand Cafe added a nice twist to this classic French bistro dish and used fried pork skin as croutons (for crunch), and shredded pork belly instead of bacon (more elegant), plus the perfect poached eggs. The result was a heavenly salad, it was so tasty! To me, it was the strongest dish out of the whole meal. Unfortunately, the meal went down hill for me when I ordered the duck confit scramble. The seasoning was bland, the duck confit was slightly dry, and the worst part, the scramble eggs were overcooked. They can poach a perfect egg, but cannot scramble, overcooked eggs are nightmares to me. I thought the lobster sandwich was just decent, but my bf liked it a lot, and I am more picky on average, so feel free to disregard my comment. The one thing I didn't like about the lobster sandwich, was the bacon. I thought bacon and lobster is a bad combination, since bacon is salty, strong in taste, and lobsters are sweet, and mild. Too much contrast? Therefore, I thought the bacon was overpowering the lobsters in the dish, while I was really looking to taste more lobsters than bacon. Another meal we had at Grand Cafe was their regular breakfast menu. We had the Egg Benedict and salmon, cream cheese bagel. Both were fantastic. The eggs were perfectly poached as always, and the Hollandaise sauce was good, that's all you need for a good Eggs Benedict. Their cured salmon were fresh and they are very generous with the portion. I had many salmon and cream cheese bagel as lunch and breakfast in Europe, I mean it's basically three of my favorites in one, but the one from Grand Cafe is definitely one of the best I have ever had.
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| The famous Clam Chowder @ Chowders |
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| horrible crab cake @ Chowders |
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| fish and chips @ Chowders |
One of the meal we had near the fisherman wharf was at Chowders located at Pier 39. Their famous dish is their clam chowder in sourdough bread bowl. The chowders come in two types, white and red. We only tried the white one this time, which turned out pretty good. The only thing I didn't like about it was the texture, I thought it slightly snotty for my taste, but it has good flavors and loaded with clams and vegetables. We also ordered the crab cake and fish and chips, both were disappointing, so please don't wast your calories on them. Baltimore Lexington Market still has the best crab cake in my mind.
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| White Clam Chowder @ Fish |
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| Red Clam Chowder @ Fish |
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| Fish Taco @ Fish |
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| Grilled Rainbow Trout @ Fish |
One of the best meal we had on our trip was at Fish in Sausalito. It was recommended by our server from Grand Cafe. Fish is known for their fresh seafood and I can assure you their fish is FRESH! No question asked. We had both white and red chowders, both were excellent. I like Fish's white chowder more than Chowders. It's really hard to pick between the white and red chowders at Fish, I would recommend getting both if possible, but if I can only order one, I might have to go with the red one. It's tomatoes and vegetable based, but have lots of spice and a little kick; it's unique but very good. After all, both chowders have well balanced flavors, perfect texture, and fresh ingredients. For entree, we got the special of the day - grilled Rainbow Trout, which was simply fantastic. The fish was fresh, tender and perfectly grilled, every part of the fish was delicious, and we ate the whole fish to the bone. The fish taco, on the other side, was mediocre at best. Next time, I would get their fish and chips instead, our neighbor ordered it, and it looked really good.
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| Spaghetti and Meatballs @ Emmy's |
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| Cod Stew @ Emmy's |
We are such foodies that we were constantly on yelp digging out those hidden pearls. Emmy's Spaghetti Shack was one of those we found on yelp. Calling it a shack is the perfect description, Emmy's is a small restaurant near downtown San Francisco, you would probably miss it if you weren't specifically looking for it. Their famous dish is spaghetti and meatballs, nice and simple right? Hey...the simplest thing is the hardest to do well. I like Emmy's spaghetti and meatballs, the meatballs are huge and it has the perfect fat content in it, delivers the right tenderness. However, the spaghetti are overcooked, I like my pasta cooked al dente, again simple but you will be surprise how many times I have been served overcooked pasta. The cod stew has really good seasoning to it, but after tasting fresh fish for lunch, it was recognizable that their fish is not as fresh. Almost forgot to mention one thing, they have balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil for bread dipping, first time I have seen it since Italy. On top of the awesome dip, they had the right kind of bread for it too. You should have seen me, I wouldn't stop eating their bread. I can eat that all day long!
Coming Up: Bellagio vs Paris @ Las Vegas
Chowders @ San Fran
Fish @ Sausalito
Emmy's @ San Fran
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