Doña Tomás, Oakland

I'm trying a new format. I realized that if I try and write about these meals, I will never wind up posting anything. So, for now, let's just go with photos.

This was a brunch from a few weeks ago at  Doña Tomás in Oakland.

San Francisco Food Crawl Part 1: Ferry Building

Last year, a co-worker told me she had gone on a food crawl with some friends. This was the first time I had heard of a food crawl, which is basically like a pub crawl but with food - so obviously way better. I had been wanting to do my own version ever since I heard about it, and so after about a hundred emails trying to figure out what date works best for 4 people, we decided on this past Sunday.  We picked a bunch of places (mostly based off the 7x7 100 Things To Eat List) where we could go as a group of 4 and order one item and share it between us, which would allow us to try lots of different things before we got full. 

We started out at the Ferry Building, at Mijita. They are on the list for their Albondigas soup, which I learned when I ordered it is actually meatball soup. This was a slight problem because two of our four are vegetarian. They ordered something else, and Brittany and I shared the soup.

It turns out that Mexican meatball soup tastes a lot like tortilla soup - the flavors to me were really similar, plus meatballs. It was good - but I don't know that it would be on my top 100 things to eat list. The two of us made a small dent in the giant bowl before we called it quits and got ready to move on to the next stop, Miette.

Remember when I said I'm a font snob?  Miette's branding has the opposite effect on me that Philz Coffee does. Everything about this place - the logo, the packaging, the displays - makes me want to buy something. How could it not be good when it looks like this?

We managed to only buy the one thing on the list: gingerbread snaps.  They had a good crunch to them, but again, I'm not sure that of all the amazing things at Miette that this one would be at the top of my list.

Our last stop at the Ferry Building was supposed to be Out The Door (for their spring rolls). We showed up and found this sign: 

And.... that was it for the food crawl. We hadn't accounted for the fact that it would be pouring on Sunday, the kind of rain that would not be fun to roam around the city in, looking for food. Instead, we headed to my apartment, ordered pizza and watched the Devil Wears Prada.   It worked out though, because pizza + movie + your girl friends is high on my list of 100 things to do (many, many times) before you die.

Guaymas Restaurant, Tiburon

Yesterday we made like tourists and took the ferry over to Tiburon for lunch.  It's nice to have visitors in town so you can do things in your city you wouldn't ordinarily do - like going to Fisherman's Wharf, for example.  The ferry to Tiburon drops you off right in front of Guaymas - very handy if you are bad at directions.

My experience with restaurants directly on the water - especially in touristy areas - is that the food is generally bad. I was really pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food here - especially the guacamole, which was really flavorful. I prefer guac to be a little more chunky, not so smooth, but the flavor made up for the texture.

There were 8 of us, so we ordered the appetizer platter which included these tamales wrapped like little presents.  There were also flautas, empanadas and chalupas.

By the time the entrees arrived, I was already pretty full.  I'm not sure why I even bother to order at Mexican restaurants, because this happens nearly every time I go to one - I eat WAY too many chips and then don't want the rest of my food. I ordered shrimp fajitas, which I didn't love. They weren't bad,  but they seemed to lack some flavor.  To be fair,  I will say that everyone else that ordered fajitas seemed to like them more than I liked mine. The best dish at our table was the Camarones Rellenos - giant grilled shrimp with cheese and jalapenos, and wrapped with bacon. 

While this certainly wasn't the best meal I had this weekend (see here and here) it was a really good time and great for such a large group. Go here for that - the food is really secondary.

Trip to LA: Senor G's and Juice, Playa Del Rey

This weekend we went down to Los Angeles and had a couple of breakfasts out in Playa Del Rey. I'm not really sure how I lived in LA for two years and never once went over to Playa. Now whenever we go to LA, this is where we stay because that's where our friends are.

On Saturday morning, we walked down to Senor G's. It's a juice bar/Mexican restaurant and has that beach-y vibe going on that seems to be going on anywhere you go in Playa. I liked the wall color and drink selection. 

We got some smoothies and a shot of wheat grass. Well I didn't have the shot of wheat grass, but I thought it looked kinda cool. I had the Strava - strawberry, banana, guava juice with fat free vanilla yogurt and ice. It was gooooood.                              

I like that they serve you chips and salsa, even though it is 10 AM. I bet if you had a hangover you'd really like that they serve you chips and salsa before 10 AM. The salsa is that really chunky kind, that isn't spicy but just really tomato-y. I like that in a salsa.

I forgot the name of this dish. It came with tortillas though.

I didn't take enough pictures of the food because we all wanted to get eating.