On Tuesday first thing, we moved rooms, a nicer room for the vacation portion of our stay. Although the shower leaks like a sieve.
We took the cable car towards North Beach, so that we could get focaccia for breakfast, and visit City Lights books, and generally be tourists. The focaccia was from this hole in the wall bakery that Jenny recommended, that she said was “scarey good”. Completely accurate. Perfect eaten on a park bench with a bottle of water & iced coffee.
We walked along the Embarcadero, stopped in at the Ferry Building again, but didn’t buy anything. More stuff was open than when we’d been there Monday night, but the farmers market was packing up – it was 2:00.
We went back to the room, rinsed off in the leaky shower, and dressed a little better (purple linen Flax dress seemed appropriate hippie-chic for me) for our early dinner at Chez Panisse Cafe in Berkeley. Mark’s fitbit said we went 10 miles.
Chez Panisse has a no cell phone use at the table policy, so I didn’t take any pictures of the food – although the lady sitting next to us, who was dining alone, was pretty much on her phone the entire time.
We both started with the Chez Panisse salad, the one with the baked goat cheese, then I had the beef and Mark had the chicken. Both entrees came with lots of vegetables – mine had battered and fried spring onions, delicious, but hard to cut, spinach, sugarsnaps, shelly peas – the chicken had beans and kale and okra. We split a peach melba for dessert. Everything was perfect except the hard to cut onions, and the water that we were served was tepid – served in lovely etched glasses, from a pretty bottle, but tepid. Bothered Mark more than me.
We went to see Me and Earl and the Dying Girl at a nice old theater, the California. It was nice to settle in after a big dinner, knowing my $4 BART ticket back was safe in my pocket to get me home.
On Wednesday, we had a breakfast meeting with another librarian, the woman who is taking on chairing the LITA Program Planning Committee after I cycle off. Her hotel is close to ours, and there’re a bunch of diners around here, so we got breakfast at one of them. Good, but nothing really special.
Then we figured the buses and light rail and took a bus to Golden Gate Park to see the JMW Turner show at the De Young Museum.
After Turner, we stood in front of the David Hockney Yorkshire countryside video piece through its whole 12 minute cycle. Then we ate pastries in the museum cafe, and walked around in Golden Gate Park, and saw birds and turtles and plants. We took the light rail back – it smelled better than the bus.
We had Henry’s Hunan, the one on Sansome, for dinner – onion cake, dumplings, dry-cooked green beans, and Hunan shrimp. Then we walked home through China town.
I think Thursday – our big road adventure – and Friday – are going to have to get their own posts.
