After Italian Language Lessons The Next Step Is...

....planning a return trip to Italy of course!

Shortly after signing up for Italian lessons the conversation with mom, my trusty travel companion, turned to the obvious..."when are we going back to Italy"?

I didn't need much nudging to start checking out airfares for the spring of 2012.  I started checking airfares for the end of May, trying to incorporate the Memorial Day holiday into the mix.  Not much luck, prices were around $1800...Yikes!  Then I started to work back through April, being mindful that I really didn't want to travel during the Easter holiday. When I got to the last week of March I hit it big...round trip, including taxes was just under $850!  I thought I was dreaming, but I made my fingers fly across the keyboard to hit the purchase button.  Base fare on the tickets were around $725, I haven't seen prices like that in ages. 

Now I can happily say mom and I are returning to Rome for a week at the end of March 2012!  I can't wait to use some of my newly acquired Italian speaking skills! 

Stay tuned for the hunt to find Roman accommodations...apartment or hotel?  That is the question now!

Watch Out Italy....I'm taking Italian Language Lessons!

Shocker!  Who would have thought Italian classes would be offered right here in the LowCountry?  But it's true and I could not be more thrilled!

I'm into the fourth week of classes and loving it.  The class meets on a weekly basis for 2 hours, so it's not a huge amount of time, but in the four weeks of class, I realize I have a small knowledge of the language, enough to be able to have myself understood in shops and restaurants!

The professor, is a native Italian speaker, from Milano.  The first class we jumped right in, feet first with conjugating verbs, a little daunting, but when I was actually understanding the lecture in Italian I felt proud of myself.  Did I understand, every single word?  No, but I was able to catch most of it and I was happy with that! 

With 9 lessons left I can learn more.  Do I expect to be able to have a fluent conversation in Italian with an Italian any time soon?  Not likely.  Do I expect to be able to greet people, purchase merchandise, and order food & drink?  Absolutely!

A presto mi amici!

Sipping Our Way Through Seattle: A Trip Report

What would a long holiday weekend be for me and mom without a travel adventure planned? Well, it certainly wouldn’t be a normal holiday weekend for us at all. Consequently, when a 3 day weekend is approaching we maximize our vacation time and extend that weekend by a couple days and Labor Day weekend 2011 was no exception.

It began several months ago with both of us saying we’d like to return for a visit to Seattle, not in January. Our last two expeditions to the Emerald City were in January and we really wanted to experience this terrific place when the sun rose before 8am and set after 4pm. We accomplished that and then some with an early September visit.

When I was able to score roundtrip tickets from Savannah, Georgia to Seattle, Washington on Delta Airlines for just over $300 each (including taxes), I knew where we would be heading for our September sojourn!

Several weeks preceding the trip we had been watching our local newspaper weather listings and seeing temperatures in Seattle to be in the mid-60’s, hey, that was ok with us, we were scorching in the SC low country, with the whole month of July seeing temperatures well above 100 degrees every day. We were ready for a little “chill time”. BUT, as the trip drew closer an amazing thing happened, summer came to Seattle! During the four days we were there, the mid-day temperatures were in the mid-80’s and sun was splitting the sideway everyday. We were two very happy ladies, and it wasn’t only because of the wonderful wine we were drinking!

Prior to this trip I jumped on both the Groupon and Living Social websites and signed up to get emails for deals in the Seattle area. Boy did that add a bunch of emails to my inbox, but it was worth it. I was able to take advantage of a Groupon deal with Immersus tours. http://immersustours.com/seattle.php  For half the regular tour price we got a terrific tour of areas outside the regular tourist track. We loved seeing some Seattle neighborhoods we probably wouldn’t have normally ventured into, but more about that later.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

I am sure some of the reason I got a good deal on our plane tickets was, in part, because we had a 7:30am departure, which means the alarm clock was chiming in my ear at 4:30am, hey; at least it was better than the 6:30am departure for our San Francisco trip back in July!

By 5:30am we were in the car and heading to Savannah, by 6:30am we were through security and waiting at the gate to board our flight. Lucky for us, a few days prior to this trip I got the “heavenly” email from Delta telling us we had been upgraded for both segments of this outbound trip, which meant we would not be participating in the food for sale option in the economy section, YAY!

An interesting observation I noted while connecting to the Seattle flight in Atlanta, the airport seemed less crowded to me than on previous trips this year, not sure if it was because of the time of year, the economy or just because it was the “crack of dawn” on a Saturday, but the crowds were minimal, which made moving between terminals a breeze.

We had 2 hours between flights, which left plenty of time to find the gate for the Seattle flight and get our caffeine fix! Of course we had ample time to observe our fellow travelers, which is always interesting. One gentleman did not stop talking to the woman next to him from the moment he sat down, and they were not traveling together. I often wonder what my fellow travelers might be thinking about me, as I sit and survey the goings-on around me.

We boarded the flight without any delay and got settled into our business class seats. Mom and I were not seated together, but that wasn’t a big deal for us and instead of inconveniencing the passengers around us, we didn’t ask anyone to change seats, heck, we were just happy to get the upgrade! However, this was not the case with another upgraded passenger.

As the flight attendants were serving drinks, a honeymoon couple boarded the flight, how do I know they were on their honeymoon? You may be asking. Well, the bride got upgraded but the groom did not. The bride is now asking the passenger who was her seatmate to give up his business class seat! I was more than a little surprised. It did become clear the seatmate who was asked to give up his seat was also an upgrade and his wife happened to be back in economy because she wasn’t upgraded, so he agreed to make the change (nice, guy, I’m not so sure I would have given up business class!), but not before the bride stood in the aisle whining and offering the man $100 to make the change. Maybe it’s me, but gee whiz, show a little class lady, don’t go announcing to the whole cabin your dilemma, it was worked out in the end, but boy did she make a scene!

The rest of the flight was uneventful and the pilot was kind enough to point out when we were flying over Yellowstone Park, it was a beautiful clear day and the view from my window seat was spectacular!

In the last 2 trips to Seattle, I’ve always liked flying into SeaTac airport, there is great scenery and this time we approached over the city’s suburbs and got a fabulous view of Mt. Ranier.

The flight arrived about 20 minutes early and we found our way to the Link Light Rail station, bought our two tickets. At $2.75 each we could ride from the airport to the very last stop, Westlake, right in downtown Seattle, which was just three blocks from the hotel we stayed in. That price is one of the best deals I’ve ever encountered for public transport to and from an airport. The ride took about 30 minutes and we were exiting into downtown Seattle at 2:30pm.

We stayed at The Paramount Hotel on Pine Street between 7th and 8th Streets. http://www.paramounthotelseattle.com/  When I started to look into where to stay I was coming up with rates for downtown hotels in the $200-$250 range, we were looking to spend a little less than that and even hotel connections from my previous life in the hotel business where coming up with zilch. We would have paid that rate but then I turned to Twitter.

In July I started aggressively looking for accommodations, figuring since it was a holiday weekend hotels would start booking up and then I found out that it was the weekend of the Bumbershoot Festival and I really wanted to nail something down. I tweeted I was looking for a hotel in Seattle and The Paramount Hotel replied, they had rooms available and I could get their social media rate of $159…bingo! I booked and I’m glad we did. We really liked this hotel. We liked the location because we didn’t have to climb any “major” hills, well, mom appreciated that more than I did and it was an easy walk to all the things we wanted to do in downtown and an easy walk to several of the bus stops we would need to take while exploring the city. The Paramount Hotel staff was courteous, and helpful. The room was comfortable and clean and there was free wi-fi. I thought it was a good price for the accommodations we got.

It was close to 3:30pm and we had freshened up and were ready for some retail therapy. We stopped at Pacific Place to check out a wine shop/wine bar I had heard about, thinking it might be a good spot for happy hour. We passed on that, but did manage to buy shoes…ahhhh yes, there isn’t a shoe store I will pass without browsing in! In my quest to always find some type of footwear for my travels I managed to lay my eyes on a cute pair of Clarks waterproof faux fur trimmed ankle boots. I know what you must be thinking, what on earth would a gal from coastal SC need winter boots for? Well, that’s easy, I’ll be in Strasbourg and Paris, France the first two of December, surely I would need them for that trip…can you hear the swipe of the credit card reader? Yes, the boots were purchased.

In my pre-trip research I came across the name of a place called RN-74, it’s a restaurant and wine bar at 4th Avenue & Pike, so we walked over to check it out and we liked what we saw. Here is their website: http://michaelmina.net/restaurants/locations/rnwa.php

With a train board in one corner of the restaurant we had the feeling of being in a train station, even the wine bar area evoked the feel of long ago train station waiting rooms. As we walked in I knew we would like this place.

At 5pm on a Saturday it was not terribly crowded and we had our pick of high top tables in the wine bar to choose from. The big draw here are the wines from France, the wine menu is extensive. Our server gave us the rundown of the happy hour specials and we couldn’t resist the $5 per glass house French chardonnay, I’m not a huge chardonnay lover and this wine was excellent, not one bit oaky. From the appetizer menu the maitake mushroom tempura was on the happy hour special too, just $5 instead of the regular $10, so we had that too. We were not disappointed the mushrooms were perfectly fried, not greasy, but light and crispy. I would happily go back here again and would love to try dinner here, the menu looked great. Good service, good food, good wine, we started with a winner!

Just before 7pm we left RN-74 and walked to the Steelhead Diner at Pine & 2nd. Here is their website: http://www.steelheaddiner.com/ . We had a 7pm reservation and I’m glad we did, the place was hoping. We were seated immediately at a nice table in the corner and we could watch the sunset over Pike Place Market. This was a second visit for us, we liked it so much last January we wanted to give it another try and we were just as happy this second time around.

Our server was Megan and she was terrific. She recommended a local Whidbey Island Winery wine that went perfectly with our fish dishes and for $27 a bottle we liked it even more! We started with the crispy chicken spring roll which was just as good as we had remembered.

Mom and I both choose the entrée specials of the night. Mom had the salmon grilled to perfection with fingerling potatoes, summer squash, corn and grilled radicchio, she gave it two thumbs up. I had the lemon crusted Alaskan halibut on a bed of summer squash with an olive tapenade, it was deliciously savory. The halibut was cut so think it was like a piece of steak.

When I spied a plum and blueberry crisp with lemon ice cream on the dessert menu and Megan gave her full endorsement of it, we ordered one to share. It was all good, but the lemon ice cream was the show stopper, it was creamy, and lemony and not too sweet. With two espresso to top things off we could not have enjoyed our first night in Seattle any more.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

It was a beautiful, sunny Seattle day and we were up and out of the hotel by 9am. Our first target was Caffe Ladro directly across the street from the hotel. Once we fueled up on coffee and a little nosh we were set to start walking.

We arrived at the meeting point for the Immersus walking tour, which was the Hard Rock Café in downtown Seattle and at 10:20am our guide, Antonio, was right on time. I liked him from the start, friendly and informative. There were 7 on our tour plus Antonio and it made for a perfect sized group. Mom and I were the only non-locals on this tour. The others in the group had all moved to Seattle within the last several years and thought this tour would be a good way to see different parts of the city and they were right!

At 10:30am on the dot we left the sidewalk outside the Hard Rock Café and walked a few blocks to catch a bus heading towards Green Lake. The ride took about 20 minutes and it gave me time to ask Antonio how the Seattle bus system works…valuable advice for a newbie bus rider like me!

When we got off the bus the first place we walked to was Green Lake, Wow! What a pretty area, and the park was full of people walking with strollers and dogs, or jogging or doing yoga and lots of people kayaking on the lake. It was a very active place.

After walking a short distance around the lake we headed uphill towards the Tangletown area and our first “official” stop at Mighty-O donuts, a vegan donut shop. The samples were great and I was amazed to find out this shop turns out 7,000 donuts a day from one machine!

We explored more on foot and went through the neighborhood of Wallingford and checked out the interesting buildings and shops there and in several other neighborhoods. We stopped at Gasworks Park and climbed up the hill in the park to get breath-taking views of Seattle and Lake Union. We then wandered to the Fremont neighborhood and stopped at the local Freemont Brewery for a few samples of fresh beer (see we do drink more than just wine!). We paid a visit to the Freemont Troll located under the bridge and the Lenin statue. One of our final stops was Theo chocolate to have a few sweet samples, yum. Since it was Sunday, the Fremont market was in full swing and we sauntered through looking at the booths set up. Everything from food to jewelry and artwork could be purchased.

Antonio escorted us back to the downtown area on the bus and we said our goodbyes. We really enjoyed this tour and seeing areas of Seattle we had not explored before. Mom was a real trooper and on this 4.5 mile walking/public bus tour kept up with the hills (both up and down) and the one instance of a pretty long staircase. She certainly worked for the wine we would have later on!
By 3:30pm we were back at the hotel and took a much needed rest…the both of us!

In recent months I had been hearing a lot about the Capitol Hill area of Seattle. OK, to be honest, it was an episode of House Hunters where I heard about Capitol Hill, but then I started finding lots of references to restaurants in the area and I really wanted to check out this neighborhood.

With our new found knowledge of the Seattle bus system we walked to Pike & 6th and boarded the #10 bus which took us to Pine & Broadway in the Capitol Hill neighborhood and then walked a few blocks to a wine bar called The Local Vine. Here’s their website: http://thelocalvine.com/ On a Sunday evening at about 5:30pm the place was not very crowded and so we sat at the bar and ordered two glasses of an Albarino white wine from Spain. We both really liked this wine and later that evening via a Tweet from a friend I found out this wine is made from the same grapes as Portuguese vino verdhi, well, no wonder we liked it, we love vino verdhi! In addition to our wine and since we hadn’t really eaten all day, we ordered the lamb sliders, which were terrific.

At about 6:30pm we left The Local Vine and walked 3 blocks to Via Tribunali for our 7pm dinner reservation, yes, we were early, but that wasn’t a problem, we were seated immediately. Here is their website: http://www.viatribunali.net/index.php?page=capitol-hill This restaurant is what I would call a neighborhood pizza place with a little pizzazz. Our table was right across from the pizza oven and it was great to see the pizza makers “doing their thing”.

We started with a liter of the house white wine, at $22, why shouldn’t we get a liter? The wine was slightly sweet, but we could live with that, especially when we paired it with the veal meatball starter. Boy were those meatballs good, huge, round meaty orbs perfectly cooked and slathered in a rich tomato sauce, Italian heaven on a plate!

I know what you’re thinking, we had lamb sliders at The Local Vine, now we were having veal meatballs, and how could we possibly eat more than one pizza? Well, we gave it our best try because the pizzas here were out of this world fantastic. Plus we had a whole liter of wine to drink!

The first pizza we ordered was with smoked mozzarella, ricotta, black olives, arugula and prosciutto di Parma. I have to say right here and now, this pizza was the clear winner of the night. The arugula was piled high on top and the pizza was incredibly fresh tasting, the crust was not too thin or too thick. We’ve had a lot of pizza in our time, both here in the U.S. and in Italy and this is most definitely in the top 5.
The second pizza we ordered was with prosciutto, smoked provola, mushrooms and red tomato sauce. It was an excellent contrast to the first pizza, each different from the other. We ended the meal with 2 espresso. Before tax & tip the bill was $67.70. Just before leaving we asked the staff manning the pizza oven how many pizzas do they make on a busy night, they said it could be around 300 pizzas…WOW, now that’s a lot of pizza!

We left Via Tribunali at about 8:30pm, and walked to Pine and Broadway and as we got to the bus stop the #49 bus was approaching. We hopped on and within 5 minutes we were at Pine & 9th, we got off and our hotel was one block away, how’s that for excellent bus route planning?
It was another excellent ending to a fun-filled day.

Monday, September 5, 2011


Today we had no firm morning plans so we had a leisurely coffee/breakfast at, where else, a local Starbucks. We then walked a few blocks to Nordstrom Rack, otherwise known in my world as “shoe nirvana”. I always seem to have very good luck with finding “just the perfect pair” at Nordstrom Rack and today was no exception. Having just purchased shoes on our arrival day, I was conscientious and whittled the potential purchases in my buggy to one pair, heck; I only had so much room in my suitcase after all!

We didn’t want to have a big lunch since we’d be doing a Savor Seattle Gourmet Walking tour later in the afternoon, but we really wanted to have some of the terrific chowder from Pike Place chowder. At about noon we stopped in the Pike Place Chowder outpost in the Pacific Place shopping center and we each had a cup of chowder. Mom stuck with the tried and true New England Clam Chowder and I ventured out and tried the seared scallop chowder. Both were excellent and not to filling that we wouldn’t enjoy the samples on the afternoon walking tour.

A quick stop back at the hotel to drop off our purchases and then we walked the few blocks to the Mayflower Park Hotel, which was the meeting point for the Savor Seattle tour. Here is the Savor Seattle website: http://www.savorseattletours.com/

We decided to do the Gourmet walking tour since on our first visit to Seattle a couple years ago we did the Pike Place Market Tour and really enjoyed it. Our guide for this Gourmet walking tour was Mark, who was funny, personable and a fountain of food related information. He greeted us (there were 11 on this tour) with glasses of bubbling cava. Typically, that is not how this tour starts, but because our first stop had to change the item we would be tasting, Mark thought he’d start us off on the right foot with a little bubbly.

The first stop was just down the stairs at the Mayflower Park Hotel at the restaurant Andaluca. Usually the sample tasted here is the famous duck cake, but because it was a holiday the restaurant was closed, and there were no chefs to cook the duck cake. Instead we were served the cucumber gazpacho and a glass of the house made sangria. WOW! On both counts. The gazpacho was like a garden exploded in my mouth, and with the lump crab meat tenderly swimming on top it was delicious, cool, creamy, and packed a lot of flavor. The sangria did not have the typical sweetness I’ve tasted in other sangrias, this house made version uses apples, pears, and a variety of spices, it was perfect with the cold soup. The server from Andaluca who spoke about the restaurant and the dishes was quite funny and this was the perfect way to start a food tour. As for some background information on this restaurant, the chef, Wayne Johnson, appeared on the finale of this season’s Iron Chef and prepared the famous duck cake. Although he did not win, according to Mark, our guide, he did Seattle proud. This restaurant has a great menu representing Spanish tapas. Mom and I enjoyed it so much on our last night we canceled the dinner reservations we already had and booked into Andaluca, but more about that later.

The second stop on this gastronomic adventure was at Serious Pie, Tom Douglas’s ode to pizza. Mom and I had been here on both our previous trips and really like the pizza here and we got to sample two of our favorites, the chanterelle & truffle oil pizza and the potato pizza.

Already heavily fortified, the “samples” were extremely generous; we walked down the hill to Pike Place Market and stopped at La Buona Tavola for a balsamic and olive oil tasting. This was pleasant, but I have to say not our favorite stop. It’s hard for us to get “into” the balsamic and oils here when last year we explored the Emilia Romagna area of Italy and did taste 125 year old balsamic. However, everyone else on the tour thought it was terrific.

The next stop was at Il Bistro in Pike Place Market, this little Italian place is tucked into the lower level of the market and if I wasn’t on this tour, I could have easily just walked right past it. The chef here was very friendly and spoke about the preparation of the risotto we would be tasting, we even had a glass of red wine to wash it down. The risotto was excellent, and I wouldn’t hesitate to return to this restaurant for dinner another time.

The next stop, and my least favorite, was the Pike Place Brewery. It was loud and I’m not a huge beer fan, but I will say the cheese and rosemary roll that accompanied the 2 different beer tastings were terrific.

We were nearing the end of the tour and the next stop was at Thou’s, which is a Vietnamese place with a fantastic view. The noodle dish we sampled here was, again, a very generous portion, and delicious. The final stop would satisfy any chocolate lover. We popped into Fran’s Chocolates for a sampling of 3 of their fabulous chocolates.

This tour did not disappoint and with 11 participants it was the perfect size. Just before 5pm we said our goodbyes and headed back to the hotel to rest our feet.

Because I knew we’d have a good amount of food on the tour I booked our dinner reservation for 8pm, but we still like to have a glass of wine at a different place just to see new wine bars. Just next door to the Paramount Hotel is The Hyatt at Olive 8 and the bar/restaurant looked like a nice place to have a glass or two of wine. This place was also convenient because it was directly between our hotel and Blueacre, where we had our dinner reservation.

At about 6:30pm we ventured over to the Hyatt at Olive 8 and had a really nice rose wine from the Willamette Valley, it was dry and crisp. We liked it so much we each had a second glass. Just before 8pm we settled our bill and walked the 10 steps across the street to Blueacre. Here is their website: http://blueacreseafood.com/

Initially when I made the reservation and looked at the menu, what drew me in was the fact there were sandwich and salad options. I figured if we were still full from the gourmet walking tour, we could have something on the lighter side here.

The dining room at Blueacre is gorgeous, wooden floors, soaring ceiling and windows, huge bar with raw bar area. Being a Monday night during a holiday weekend it wasn’t very crowded, our server, Tara was excellent.

We weren’t starving so we decided not to have a starter, but we did order a bottle of wine. After describing to Tara what our wine preferences were she recommended the Chateau St. Michelle sauvignon blanc, one of our favorites and for $24 a bottle a good bargain, so we went with the recommendation. It was just what mom and I like, dry, crisp and perfect with our seafood dishes.

After asking Tara, our server, for recommendations, mom decided to have the olive encrusted halibut on a bed of ratatouille. The ratatouille was wonderful and the halibut was delicious. I had the Dungeness lump crab cakes and I have never had such tasty crab cakes. These crab cakes were all crab, no filler and the flavor was fantastic. We ended the meal with two espresso and the grand finale of two incredibly smooth limoncello.

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Today was our last full day in Seattle and we had no pre-scheduled plans. I purposely left this as a free day so we could do whatever we wanted and what we wanted most to do was check out Salumi for lunch. In our last two trips to Seattle we missed having lunch here because we always seemed to have time to go there on a day it was closed! Here is the Salumi website: http://www.salumicuredmeats.com/ We’d heard a lot of good things about Salumi, most of all that it is the cured meat store/restaurant of Chef Mario Batali’s father.
We hopped on a bus and went to the edge of the free ride zone. The bus stop was just across the street from Salumi and as we exited the bus I looked across the street and saw the line. Yes, the line. The shop opens at 11:00am, we arrived just before the opening time and we got on the line that stretched to the corner. Once the door was unlocked the line started moving and we got to the entrance at about 11:30am.

We were really looking forward to this lunch. We ordered one porchetta sandwich and one meatball sandwich. Both were served on crusty French bread. With two bottles of water the bill was $23. Lucky for us there were two free seats at the communal table so we sat down. I think our expectations were too high, we felt a bit let down with these sandwiches. They were ok, but not as good as we had hoped. We’ve had porchetta sandwiches at the Roli Roti truck in San Francisco and for what it’s worth we tend to measure all porchetta against the Roli Roti version. Maybe we ordered the wrong items; maybe we should have stuck with one of the cured meat sandwiches. It didn’t take us long to finish lunch and just after noon we were out the door.

Fortunately for us the Smith Tower was just a block or so away from Salumi. We had heard about the Smith Tower from Antonio, our Immersus tour guide. He recommended checking it out if we had already been to the Space Needle and I’m glad we took his advice. The Smith Tower was Seattle’s first skyscraper, of course now it’s dwarfed by many of the buildings surrounding it. But the view from the top floor is nice, the ground floor interior and elevator is like steeping back in time, and for $7.50 entry fee ($6 for seniors) it’s much less expensive than the Space Needle. After taking in the view from the top of the Smith Tower we spent time doing a little more retail therapy.

We had a dinner reservation for La Tavolata but honestly, with having to get an early start the next morning we decided to cancel that reservation, it was a bit too far to walk from our hotel and we didn’t want to maneuver the bus system on this last night. We chose to make a reservation at Andaluca, where we had been on the Savor Seattle tour. But, as usual, we wanted to enjoy a happy hour stop somewhere other than where we would have dinner.

During dinner last night we thought the bar at Blueacre looked pretty darn nice. I got on line and checked out their happy hour menu and bingo! There was a terrific happy hour going on. There were $5 glasses of chardonnay and $3 classes of sparkling wine, how could we resist that bargain! The Dungeness crab poppers were pretty good too and the bartenders were a friendly bunch. We enjoyed a few drinks at this terrific bar and talked about what a great weekend it had been.

Just before 7pm we walked a few blocks down to Andaluca at the Mayflower Park Hotel. Here is there website: http://www.andaluca.com/ we really liked the dining room at Andaluca, all warm dark wood and an inviting atmosphere. This restaurant offers Spanish tapas or small plates. The menu is not overwhelmingly large, but has several well thought out offerings that are delicious.

We chose to have the $38 tasting menu. We picked one item from the soup/salad menu section, three items from the three small plate categories (vegetable, fish, or meat/poultry) and one item from the dessert section. Essentially 5 selections from the all small plate menu.

Mom started with the cucumber gazpacho with crab. I had the pear and blue cheese salad. Both were full of flavor. What we really liked about the next course of the 3 small plates we picked was that they were all plated on one plate and served as an entrée, so there weren’t several small plates littering the table. Mom’s main course selections were the duck cake, the paella, and asparagus. I had the mushroom & chevre risotto, grilled quail and halibut. All were absolutely excellent. For dessert we both had the Cabrales Cheesecake with figs. Wow! What a dessert, decadent, yes, but it went perfectly with our espresso.

Since we had a few glasses of wine at happy hour, we decided to have just one glass of wine each with dinner. We enjoyed another Albarino white wine from Spain, very similar to what we had at The Local Vine on Sunday night. With our Savor Seattle discount card the bill was $88.

We had a quick walk back to the hotel and with a 3:30am wake up call for the next morning we had an early night.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

The wake-up call at 3:30am came all too soon but we were up and our taxi arrived at 5am to take us to the airport. At that time of the morning the ride to the airport was quick and we were going through security by 5:45am.

We had plenty of time to get our coffee and hope for an upgrade. The coffee was good and the upgrade didn’t happen, no worries, we had exit row seats in economy, so we had a little extra room to stretch our legs!

All our flights were on time and when we de-planed in Savannah our luggage arrived with us!

It was a terrific, sunny, wine and food-filled weekend.

Would I go back to Seattle again? You bet, in a heart beat!

What to do in Seattle?

Until about 2 weeks ago, I had nothing planned for my upcoming trip to Seattle.  Yes, I had purchased plane tickets and yes, I had a hotel booked (via Twitter, gotta love social media!).  I even made a couple dinner reservations, but as far as activities to do while there for 4 days, I had...zip...nada...nothing.

Enter...groupon and Twitter (again).  One day I came across a tweet from @SeattleMaven, the "Twitter-mistress" of the Seattle Convention & Visitor's Bureau.  The tweet mentioned a gourmet walking tour at Savor Seattle Tours.  Mom and I had taken the Pike Place Market Tour with Savor Seattle a couple years ago and really enjoyed it, so I checked out their website to see what this Gourmet Tour was all about and, you guessed it, I liked what I saw.  The Savor Seattle website calls this tour a progressive dinner at Seattle’s best restaurants and hot spots! From appetizer to dessert, we will eat your way through Belltown, downtown Seattle, and Pike Place Market.  It didnt' take long for my fingers to fly across my computer keyboard to book this tour.

A day or so after booking the Savor Seattle Gourmet Tour I received a Groupon email about a "green" walking tour in Seattle.  The Groupon deal was pay $15 for a $30 tour with Immersus.  Before buying the Groupon I checked out the Immersus Tour company website and, like with Savor Seattle, I really liked what I saw.  A four hour walking tour using public transportation and traversing more off the beaten "tourist path" neighborhoods of Seattle sounding just like our kind of adventure.  While reading the tour company website I noticed this tour covers four miles.  Keeping mom in mind, I emailed the tour company asking more specifics about the "hilly-ness" of the area covered during the tour.  I was impressed that I received a reply back within hours and it was a thumbs-up for us.  I moved on the Groupon deal, and booked this four hour walking tour for one of the mornings during our trip.  Not only am I excited about exploring a new corner of Seattle, I'm excited to use their bus system!

So, with 2 tours booked, a couple dinner reservations made and plans for "retail therapy" at Pike Place Market, and Nordstroms Rack downtown, the Seattle trip has fallen into place!  Looking forward to seeing the "Emerald City" again!

Fantastic Food Weekend in San Francisco!

To beat the heat and humidity in the South Carolina Low Country a quick 5 day holiday weekend trip to San Francisco was in the cards and that's where mom and I spent the July 4th weekend. 

We scored a good airfare on Delta.  At $300 round trip per ticket from Savannah to SFO, we were happy with the price and we'd accrue about 5,000 sky miles!  When I started looking for hotels, room rates were above the $200 mark.  I turned to Hotwire.com and snatched up a hotel for $120 per night.  The hotel was Le Meridien on Battery Street in the Financial District, and a short 10 minute walk to the Ferry Building and Market Street.  For us, it was a great location and we really liked this hotel.  The staff was accommodating, the room was impeccably clean and since we were given a handi-capped room, it was spacious with a peek-a-boo view of the Bay Bridge.

Thursday, June 30th

The alarm clock goes off at 3:30am, yes, I booked another 6:30am flight.  On the bright side, we got upgraded on the flight from Savannah to Atlanta, the connection in Atlanta was smooth and we landed in San Francisco 20 minutes early.

I have to mention the fact that I haven't traveled by air much during the summer months, usually I'm trotting the globe in spring, fall or winter, so I had a few instances of eyes-popping out of my head when seeing some of the fashion choices of my fellow travelers made. I know it can be hot in the south during June, July and August, but really people, do we need to see THAT much skin?  Leave something to the imagination!

Since we were in economy class for the flight to San Francisco we stopped and bought 2 Wolfgang Puck pre-made sandwiches in the airport to have for our lunch during the flight. In spite of the whopping calorie count (which I don't even want to think about!) and the price ($9.00 each) they were really good and I'd buy them again.  In honesty we held off bringing our own lunch in hopes we'd get upgraded on the San Francisco flight and when we realized that wouldn't happen mom dashed over to the sandwich stand so we'd have something other than the Delta lunch offerings.

One last thing to mention about the flight to San Francisco, the pilot and crew were terrific!  The pilot kept us, the passengers, informed about flight duration, weather, and turbulence throughout the whole flight and I don't know if it was just a better PA system, or better pilot enunciation but I could actually understand every word he said...usually I can only catch every other word and it sounds like the teacher on the old Peanuts cartoons...waah-waah-waah.

We arrive in San Francisco just before 12noon and since we didn't check our bags, once off the plane we headed directly for the Airtrain which would connect us with BART.  We bought the BART tickets at the ticket machine right before getting on the train.  It was $8.10 for a one way ticket from SFO to the Embarcadero station in San Francisco.  By 1pm we were walking off BART and to the MUNI ticket desk located in this particular station. 

Before walking to the hotel we stopped at the MUNI ticket desk to purchase our 3 day Muni tickets for $20 this allowed us unlimited transport on MUNI operated buses, streetcars, and cable cars, it does not include BART.  I've used these 3 day tickets before and found them to be well worth the money, especially for us since we had plans to have dinner at a restaurant in Noe Valley and the Mission district, so instead of taking taxis I managed to map out the bus or streetcar routes we could take by using the MUNI website trip planner.

From the Embarcadero BART station it was about a 10 minute easy/flat walk to Le Meridien hotel at 333 Battery Street.  Since it was still before their posted check-in time I wasn't sure if a room would be ready, but we got lucky and they had a room available.  We had our choice, we could have a standard room on the 5th floor or a handi-capped room on the 15th floor.  We took the 15th floor option and glad we did.  As mentioned above it was spacious and had a nice view.

After a short rest and freshening up we walked to the Ferry Building, a place we just love and browsed around a bit and  then headed to Hog Island Oysters for their Happy Hour specials.  They run these specials on Mondays and Thursdays between 5pm & 7pm.  We were seated at about 4:45pm but had to wait until 5pm to start ordering the Happy Hour menu.  The special is a selected oyster, the ones this day happened to be from Washington State, for $1.35 each, the selected wines were $6 a glass and there were a few other specially priced items including a bowl of olives for $3 which were pretty darn good.

This was the first time mom and I ever had raw oysters and boy were they good, so fresh and briny tasting.  We started by ordering just eight since we weren't sure if we'd like them or not, but once we finished those first eight we ordered eight more.  We were lucky to arrive at Hog Island when we did, because there was already a line forming, but we were able to get a table right away, when we left about an hour later, the line to get in snaked through the shop adjacent to the restaurant...it pays to arrive early for Happy Hour and wait.  We got there about 30 minutes before the 5pm start time.

Just before 6pm we left Hog Island and walked to Rouge et Blanc Wine Bar near Union Square.  I found this place during my trip planning when I was looking for a wine bar near to the restaurant where we had dinner reservations.  The place was pretty crowded when we walked it, and it seemed to attract a young crowd.  There was nothing really remarkable about the place, the service was fine and we had 2 glasses of wine here to kill time before our 7pm dinner reservation.

Dinner this first night in San Francisco was at E&O Trading Company located at 314 Sutter Street.  When I started planning this trip I mentioned to a friend who lives in the Bay Area I'd be in San Francisco in late June/early July and she forwarded me a link to a Travel Zoo local deal for this restaurant. 

For $60 we'd get $126 worth of food and drinks.  I thought it was a good deal and bought it and made a dinner reservation.  We had mixed feelings about this place.  Some of our choices were definitely hit and miss.  The menu is Pan-Asian and we started with the corn fritters, which are a house speciality.  These were unlike any fritter I had ever had.  They were not the batter-type fritter I've become accustomed to, but simply kernels of corn and peas and I'm not sure how these massive misshaped fritters where bound together, but they did have an interesting taste and texture and my advice to you if you ever have these, is to definitely douse them in the accompanying sauce, the sauce really raised the flavor level!

For appetizers we had the shitaki mushroom dumplings with foie miso....ding-ding-ding...this was definitely a winning dish!  I could have easily eaten twice as many as were served, these were very tasty.  We also ordered the dungeness crab dip which was also excellent, however, the server forgot about this dish and when we asked it was brought to the table with our main courses.

For our main dishes we both had the shaking beef, which our server told us was the specialty of the house.  I thought it was passable, mom didn't like it at all.  The beef was served in very big chunks, that weren't very tender and they were placed on a plate heaping with cilantro, sauteed tomatoes and onion.  Although we like cilantro, even for us, this seemed a little excessive.

The meal included two drinks, which would generally be an Asian twist on a margarita, but we were told we could replace it with any wine on the list under $10 a glass, so we each had a glass of Honig sauvignon blanc.  Dessert was also included and we, or I should rightly say me because mom is not into desserts, picked the chocolate silk road cake, which was good, but nothing out of the ordinary.  Mom had a coffee, which was $5 extra, but they served it in a french press and it was Illy coffee and mom said it was one of the best parts of the meal.  We also had an order of jasmine rice which wasn't included in the "deal".  The total bill for the meal (not counting the $60 paid for the Travel Zoo deal) was $15 and then we tipped on what would have been the total amount of the check with out the deal.

We left the restaurant just after 8pm and walked back to the hotel.  It was a beautiful evening, still light outside and a cool breeze and barely any humidity!   A great way to end a long travel day.

Friday, July 1st

We woke up to a beautiful day, sunny and cool.  We had a leisurely morning and walked to the Ferry Building just before 10am to have coffee at Blue Bottle Coffee.  Do you ever have a great food experience somewhere and when you go back, it's just not the same as you remember?  Well, that's sort of what happened here. 

Back in 2009 when we were in San Francisco we stayed around the corner from the Blue Bottle Cafe on Mint Street and on several mornings had fantastic coffee there. Since we were staying closer to the Ferry Building this time, we decided to go there for our Blue Bottle Coffee fix.  We ordered our coffees and then I spied the fresh made waffles that were on sale.  We got our coffees and they were OK, but just didn't taste as smooth as we remembered.  BUT, those waffles...WOW!  Now, mom is not much of a breakfast person, especially waffles or pancakes for breakfast, but when we both took our first bites of this waffles we thought there were angels singing.  The waffles came in their own little paper wrapper and they were hot, hot, hot, not too doughy, not too sweet, with the perfect amount of cinnamon.  The waffle blew away the coffee today!

With the waffles fortifying us we decided to check out more of the shops in the Ferry Building.  It was a Friday morning and the crowds were slim, it would be a much different scene on Saturday.  After browsing about we still had time to kill before our 2:30pm Gourmet Walks tour of Hayes Valley.  We hadn't been to Fisherman's Wharf since our first trip to San Francisco in the mid 1990's, so we decided to venture over there and scope out the meeting point for the tour we would be doing on Saturday.

We hop on the F line street car, with a zillion other visitors and made our way to Fisherman's Wharf.  The moment we stepped of the streetcar I knew why we hadn't ventured there on our more recent trips to San Francisco, it was jam-packed with people and all kinds of trinket and tee shirt shops.  We walked by the Boudin Bakery and stopped at the big glass window to watch the bakers "do their thing".  One young girl was very talented, and her lobster bread sculpture looked very realistic, well, as realistic as bread shaped as a lobster can be!

We found the location where we would be meeting for the Mr. Toad's Tour on Saturday and after about an hour of meandering about made our way back to the hotel for a quick pit stop before heading to the Hayes Valley neighborhood for our Gourmet Walks.

While planning this trip, I randomly Googled "gourmet walking tours in San Francisco", you can imagine how many websites came up...lots!  As I read through several one piqued my interest and it was Gourmet Walks, fun, foodie tours.  I really liked the Gourmet on Hayes tour they offered and decided this would be a new neighborhood for us to explore.  It was a 3 hour tour, with about 12 people.  The guide was very knowledgeable and the stops of the tour were a good mix of sweet and savory.

The tour started at Patricia's Green a small little park on Octavia Street in the heart of Hayes Valley.  The first stop on the tour was at Smitten Ice Cream...wow, was this stuff good.  We tried the salted caramel ice cream and this is not your ordinary ice cream, it's made with a machine using liquid nitrogen...pretty cool.  To check out more on Smitten Ice Cream here is the website, http://smittenicecream.com/home/Home.html

The second stop on this gourmet tour was a big favorite and if you like tasty pork this place is awesome.  The Fatted Calf Charcuterie at 320 Fell Street is like walking into an Italian deli on steroids, it was as if I had arrived in heaven!  The owners made up a terrific tasting plate for our group and they did not skimp.  We had several different types of salami, prosciutto, and mortadella.  This shop also sets up a stall at the Saturday Farmer's Market at the Ferry Building if you can't get to the shop, just know the selection at the Ferry Building is much more limited than what is available at the shop.  And if you happen to be in the Hayes Valley neighborhood on a Wednesday night, they do a Pork Happy Hour from 5:30pm until 7pm.

The tour continued with a bit of a detour out of Hayes Valley and into Zen Valley to the Samovar Tea Lounge.  I am not a huge fan of teas, but I've got to say the 2 we tasted were pretty darn good, I don't remember the names of them, but the young lady at the counter speaking to us about the shop was very passionate and knowledgeable about teas.  If you are interested in checking out their website, here it is  http://samovarlife.com/

Once we were full of tea it was time to walk back down the hill returning to Hayes Valley and stopping at Fritz, a Belgian fries shop.  The whole shop is dedicated to crispy french fries with a ton of different dipping sauces to choose from.  We tasted probably 10 different dipping sauces, and as I sit here and type this I can't remember any that really stand out in my mind.  To be honest, this was our least favorite stop of the tour.

On the other hand, the next stop was another favorite after The Fatted Calf, and it was Arlequin, a little cafe where we had a great cheese plate.  The creamy goat cheese was perfectly sweet and the blue cheese was some of the best I've ever had.  With a glass of chardonnay this place ranked high for us.  I wouldn't hesitate to go back here on a return to this neighborhood.

The last 2 stops on the tour were sweet stops.  We popped into the Christopher Elbow Chocolate shop, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought this corner shop was a jewelry store.  The chocolates were lined up in perfect rows in sleek white display cases, they looked to pretty to eat!  The final stop was at Miette, a candy/bakery shop. The big claim to fame here was the macaroons.  The 2 samples we were given, pistachio and strawberry, were OK, but for us, macaroons are a tough sell.  We love the Lauduree macaroons in Paris and having that as the "bar" on our macaroon meter, any others are really tough to follow!

The tour ended at about 5:30pm in the same location where we began.  We said our thank-you's and good-byes to our guide and high-tailed it around the corner to an optical shop.  You may be thinking, weird...an optical shop?  Well, a couple things drew us to this place.  The first was the name, we loved it.  It was named "Through the Hayes" optical shop, we really liked the play on words as it related to the neighborhood.  The second thing that drew us in was an eyeglass loop displayed in the window.  I had been looking for something just like it for ages, and never finding what I really wanted until this shop.  We popped in the shop and they were so nice and friendly. 

I purchased my La Loop and while paying I asked the sales girl, if there were any good wine bars in the area.  She recommended Arlequin, where we had been on the tour.  Then I said, "Well, what wine bar would you go to?"  I love using that question, because alot of times when locals are asked for a recommendations they may say a place they think a tourist would like to go.  If I ask were they go, that can sometimes be a completely different answer and that's what happened this time.

The salesgirl recommended a place called Hotel Biron, it was about a 10 minute walk from the shop, and fortunately for us, in the direction we needed to head anyway.  Some people may have been put off when she told us it was in an alley (just behind Cafe Zuni), but once mom and I heard that, we knew it would be just the place we would like, and our gut feeling was correct.  The interior felt rustic with a bit of a hodge podge of wooden tables, iron chairs, low couches and exposed brick walls. Here is their website http://www.hotelbiron.com/

We had a couple glasses of wine at Hotel Biron, and as far as we could tell, it looked like we were the only non-locals in the place.  Although we didn't have anything to eat, the meat and cheese plate the table next to us had looked pretty good.

At about 7pm it was time to catch the Muni J line to Incanto for our dinner reservation.  This is a Chris Constantino restaurant and I was eagerly anticipating our meal here.  Here is the restaurant's website http://incanto.biz/

We walked through the front door of Incanto at 7:45pm on the dot for our reservation and we were seated right away.  The first thing that struck me about the place was it's size.  From the pictures on the restaurant website I thought it would be bigger.  The second thing that struck me was that although many tables were occupied the restaurant was not "busting at the seems" for a Friday night, maybe it was because of the holiday weekend.  The flow of the night seemed to be by 8:30pm things were slowing down and then by 9pm the tables were full again.

Our server, Heather, was just terrific.  We started with duck liver on walnut bread to share.  Oh My God...all of it was absolutely delicious, I would have been happy if that was all we had and left, but hey, who am I kidding, we continued the food frenzy!  We ordered a bottle of Orvieto recommended by Heather.  The bottle was $38, which we appreciated Heather not trying to "hard sell" a more expensive wine, we told her what type of wine we liked and she came back with a great recommendation for us...love that in a server!  Oh, and the bread and olive tapenaude amuse bouche was terrific and so were the rosemary bread sticks.

For our main dishes, mom had their handkerchief pasta with pork ragu and duck egg.  Heather told us this never comes off their menu and now we know why...yes, it is THAT good.  The pork ragu is decadent and delicious.  I had the lamb main dish, it was perfectly cooked and tasty with squash blossoms, zucchini and olive puree and a spicy curl of sausage.  My dish may have had a slight lead in the "winning" dish of the night, but not by much, that pasta was fantastic!

Mom and I usually like to end our Italian meals with a limoncello but this was not an option on the menu so we ordered 2 espresso.  As we got to talking I realized mom had never had Vin Santo.  I've had it in Tuscany and enjoyed it and thought, "heck, why not?'  So we ordered two glasses of Vin Santo.  And boy are we glad we did...this was the smoothest Vin Santo I have every had.  It was a Badia di Morrona 2006 and it truly tasted like honey.  And, it was an extremely generous portion.  For us, the meal was absolutely perfect.  The total cost came to $140.

We left the restaurant at about 10pm and walked a few blocks to the Muni J line stop.  This neighborhood is definitely residential, the streets at 10pm were very quiet and few people were out and about.  We took the J line to it's last station stop, Embarcadero and walked 10 minutes back to the hotel.  We then fell asleep in a happy food bliss.

Saturday, July 2nd

It was another beautiful sunny day and being a Saturday we high-tailed it down to the Ferry Building, can you see a pattern developing here with the Ferry Building?  BUT, the big draw to the Ferry Building on Saturday's is the farmer's market, it is fantastic.  We stopped for a quick caffeine fix at Peet's Coffee and by 9am the farmer's market is bustling.  We walked through the market stalls, there is so much great produce, cheese, charcuterie, flowers, breads, it's a market shoppers paradise.  We picked up a few things including the pomegranate molasses mom had been on the hunt for, for months.

We've been to the Saturday farmer's market here before, 2 years ago and had the most unbelievable porchetta sandwich in the world, and no, I'm not exaggerating.  It was all thanks to Fodorite Kristina for tipping us off to the Roli Roti truck back in 2009.  By 10:30am there is already a line forming for this heavenly sandwich.  We had every intention of going back here for this memorable morsel, but the more I started to think about it, the more I didn't want the memory of that first fantastic Roli Roti porchetta sandwich to be tarnished.  Maybe I was having doubts after the Blue Bottle Coffee let down, so I asked mom how she would feel if we didn't have the Roli Roti porchetta sandwich for lunch?

Leave it to mom to come up with the most enticing alternative to the Roli Roti...mom said, well, we haven't tried the clam chowder or the grilled cheese sandwich at Hog Island Oysters, why don't we try that?  BRILLIANT idea mom!   We wouldn't be deflated if the porchetta didn't live up to our memory, which, honestly I think it would have been just as terrific, but hey, why not try something new!

We wandered over to Hog Island and they weren't quite open for lunch yet, so we got in line.  Yes, I do believe there is always a line at Hog Island!  We were about 4th in line and as soon as they opened we were seated in a terrific spot outside, but in the shade, it was getting hot in San Francisco!

Our server, Greg, was great, super friendly and ready with recommendations.  When we said we'd like to try the clam chowder and did it come in a cup or bowl, since we wanted to share it, he said we could order one and he would have it split in 2 bowls, perfect.  Then we said we'd each like a grilled cheese sandwich.  Well, it looked us in the eye and said, "You really just want one to split," and we said, "OK".  Boy are we glad we followed his advice.  The clam chowder was unlike any I've had and believe me, I've had a lot after spending 4 years of college in New England.  This chowder was so silky and creamy but the best part was that the clams were whole, fresh clams still in their shells, wow, can't get more fresh than that.  When Greg placed the grilled cheese sandwich down and our eyes popped out of our heads he gave us a nod, a smile and an "I told you so" wink.  This sandwich was another out of this world, oozey, gooey, crispy bread, crunchy, perfect golden brown grilled cheese sandwich.  And, the pickled fennel and radishes that were the garnish to the sandwich made our lips pucker with savory delight.

This perfect lunch was an early lunch for us since we only had coffee for breakfast, so by 11:30am we paid our lunch bill and headed off towards our hotel to drop off our market purchases and then make our way to Fisherman's Wharf for our afternoon tour.

Instead of going back to the Ferry Building and trying to cram onto the Muni F line there, that would take us to Fisherman's Wharf, we left the hotel and walked over to Market Street and hopped on an almost empty F line streetcar there.  I'm glad I came up with that little deviation because when the streetcar we were on arrived at the Ferry Building it was mob scene getting onto the streetcar.

While researching things to do for this trip I found Mr. Toad's Tours on Trip Advisor.  Here is their website.   http://www.mrtoadstours.com/index.html   I thought the 3 hour "Postcard San Francisco" Tour sounded fun so booked it.

We arrived in the Fisherman's Wharf area about an hour before our tour was to start and wandered about for a bit and then walked to the meeting spot.  Our tour guide, Eric, was terrific, very knowledgeable and alot of fun.  We rode about the city in a 1924 Yellowstone bus.  It was remarkable how many smiles on passers-by we saw from our perch in this vintage open air bus and I'm sure we are now etched in many a vacation photo across the globe.  Eric kept up the commentary continuously throughout the entire 3 hours, not a small undertaking, his sense of humor was great and I learned quite a bit about San Francisco.  We also saw alot of neighborhoods of San Francisco we hadn't been to yet, and probably wouldn't have had time to see on our own.  We even had a stop at a fortune cookie factory in Chinatown.  We chugged through the Presidio, a first for us, and glided down to Crissy Field and a stunning view of the Golden Gate Bridge.  We loved this tour, there were lots a terrific photo opportunities too and being a sunny day made it all the more better.

Just before 7pm we left the hotel and headed to Flour + Water for dinner.  Here is their website:  http://www.flourandwater.com/

Before I go on with our dinner experience I want to mention how I found this restaurant.  Last November we went to Bologna, Italy for a week.  On the flight over to Italy I read in the Delta Sky magazine a one page article about the chef at Flour + Water in San Francisco.  We knew we'd be back in San Francisco eventually so pulled that page out of the magazine.  The article mentioned this chef had gone to Bologna in order to learn how to make pasta.  It just so happened that we had booked a market tour/cooking/pasta making lesson with a family in Bologna (Bluone Tours).  While spending the whole day with this family, shopping, cooking and making pasta in their home the conversation turned to this article I had read.  It turned out the chef at Flour + Water had worked with this same family in Bologna...talk about a small world.  So, when mom and I decided to go to San Francisco, it was a "given" in our minds we had to go to Flour + Water for dinner one night...and you guessed it, we are very glad we did!

To get to Flour + Water using Muni we took the F line streetcar up Market Street to Powell and changed to the #27 bus.  Once on the bus it took about 15 minutes to get to Bryant & 20th where we got off and walked 3 blocks to Flour + Water.  Did we have a reservation?  Yes.  Were we very early for this reservation?  Yes.  You see, Flour + Water only takes reservations for about half the tables in the restaurant, everything else is a first come first seated basis.  We had a 10pm reservation and were there about 8pm.  We asked the hostess if it was possible to be seated earlier and she said she would put our name on the waiting list, but it would be about an hour wait.  We asked if there was a wine bar in the neighborhood and she directed us up the street to a place called Schmidt's.

When we walked into Schmidt's there were maybe 3 tables full of diners and no one at the bar.  We took 2 stools at the bar and ordered a couple glasses of wine.  The bartender was friendly and let us taste a couple wines before ordering.  Wines by the glass were reasonably priced at about $7.  The chalkboard menu was full of a huge variety of bratwurst.  Within an hour the entire restaurant was full and food coming out of the kitchen looked pretty tasty.  This is definitely a place to keep on our radar for another time.

At about 9pm we walked back down to Flour + Water and the hostess seated us at the bar within 5 minutes.  The bar here is used for restaurant seating, so if it's crowded sitting at the bar waiting for table is not an option.  Our bartender was Eric,and he was a hoot, super friendly and terrific with wine recommendations.  When we told him we liked dry white Italian wines, he said we had just described their whole wine list!  :-)

We decided to start with a pizza and had the fennel and sausage pizza the crust was thin and crispy, just the way we like it.  Since this restaurant is known for it's pasta we both decided to go with pasta dishes and not venture into the secondi menu (which had just 2 or 3 choices).  I had the garganella with pork meatballs and Italian chard.  Mom had the strozzapreti with capers and horseradish (unusual sounding, but delicious).  Both pastas were excellent, perfectly cooked and extremely flavorful.  As if the pizza and pasta weren't perfect enough, we had the basil pannacotta garnished with strawberries for dessert. This dessert was perfectly creamy, we loved it.  We let Eric, the bartender, recommend a dessert wine for us and he didn't disappoint.  Our 2 espressos made a perfect ending to this great meal.  The approximate cost of the meal was $120.

We were going to take the bus back towards the hotel, but as luck would have it, as we exited the restaurant a taxi was right in front of us and we jumped in.  This was quite possibly the best taxi driver I've ever encountered.  He was funny, and had us laughing for the 15 minutes it took us to get back to the hotel.  Once back in our room it didn't take us long to fall asleep!

Sunday, July 3rd

I have to admit, for me, this day had it's ups and downs.  I had booked the Sonoma Experience Wine Tour with Wine Country Tour Shuttle, but on Friday I got a call from them saying we were the only 2 people booked on the Sonoma tour and they were "upgrading" us to their Napa wine tour. 

I really was not pleased with this for several reasons.  Reason #1 was that while looking for a wine tour to do, this company said the Sonoma tour was no more than 12 people, while the Napa tour would be 40 people.  Reason #2 the Sonoma tour had a later start time, 10am as opposed to the 8am Napa tour start time.  Reason #3 the Sonoma tour would visit 2 wineries and would give us 2.5 hours free time in the town of Sonoma to do as we liked, so it seemed like it would be a bit more laid back tour.  But when I ran the change of plans by mom, she said, "Why not?  Let's do the Napa tour" so we did.

I also have to mention here that when I woke up on Sunday morning I was not feeling my best, I thought maybe the raw oysters from Thursday were catching up with me.  I truly don't know why I wasn't feeling well, let's just say, whatever it was that I had it lasted all Sunday, all Monday (yes, flying home was not a treat!) and I missed 3 days of work when I returned home.  Tests run by my doctor's office at home showed negative results for 4 different types of typical food poisoning, so it's still a mystery what hit me, but let me tell you it hit me hard for 7 days.

I say all this, because my description of this Napa wine tour may be slightly skewed because of how I was feeling.

We arrive in front of the Ferry Building just before the 8am start time.  I knew things were going to be bumpy when the girl checking everyone in didn't have our name on her list and she told us to stand to the side.  There was a call made to their main office and we were finally placed on the last of 3 buses that were doing the Napa tour.

The bus sat 40 people and every seat was full.  The bus was not what I would call the "big-strato-cruiser" type of bus, but more like an extended small bus/van.  The guide was knowledgeable, but from our point of view he had very little personality, very different from the 2 other tour guides we had over the last couple days on the Gourmet Tour & Mr. Toad's Tour.

The drive into the Napa Valley from San Francisco was about 1.5 hours.  The first stop on the tour was at the Domaine Chandon winery.  We tasted 4 different types of their sparkling wine for a $10 tasting fee (above the price of the tour).  I'm a huge lover of the bubbly stuff, and of the 4 we tasted there was one that I liked and would have again.  The winery itself is lovely and the winery guide we had really knew his stuff.  If I was back in the area, I wouldn't hesitate to stop here again.

The second winery stop we made was a the V. Sattui Winery.  We had never heard of this winery before and for good reason, they only sell their wines at the winery or online.  This was a very nice setting with lots of picnic tables outside.  We had about 1.5 hours here and we did the $10 tasting and got to have 6 different wines.  We did buy a case of wine, half the Sattui chardonnay and half the Sattui Gamay Rouge, it was a good deal at 20% off if you bought a case. We had it shipped home and it arrived about a week later.  After tasting the wine here we perused their terrific deli shop. The prepared foods here looked terrific and tasted great.  Our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs when we ordered a chicken pesto sandwich on foccacia bread and a huge stuffed portabella mushroom.  At that time I didn't realize how this might contribute to my discomfort, but it sure did taste good as we ate it!

After lunch we had 2 more wineries to visit and I was fading fast.  The 3rd stop was at the Rutherford Grove Winery, they mostly sell red wines and I'm not a huge red wine fan and by now nothing was tasting very good to me.  Mom liked the sauvignon blanc here, the only white they make, and bought 2 bottles of it.  The last winery stop was at the Rutherford Ranch Winery and it was a lovely tasting room, but I couldn't even muster the stomach to having anything here and didn't even pay the $10 tasting fee.

By the time we left Rutherford Ranch it was sweltering hot and the airconditioning in the bus was not the best we'd ever experienced.  We had about a 50 minute bus ride to the ferry in Vallejo that we would take back to the Ferry Building in San Francisco.  The ferry ride was about 1.5 hours and thankfully it was smooth sailing with pretty scenery.  We arrived back in San Francisco just before 5pm and we headed back to the hotel to start packing our bags for our return home. 

We left the hotel just before 7pm and walked to The Slanted Door restaurant at the Ferry Building to meet my friends RM and J for dinner at 7:15.  RM and J live in the Bay Area and I had traveled to South East Asia in March this year with them.  Prior to getting to San Francisco we had made plans to have dinner and I thought what better place than The Slanted Door so we could re-live some of our Vietnamese food experiences.  Mom had met RM once before but this was the first time meeting J and I knew we would all get on well (I was right!).

RM and J were waiting for us when we arrived right at 7:15pm for our reservation and we were seated immediately.  The Slanted Door has terrific views, and just like the last time we were there, it was packed to the gills and buzzing with lots of activity. 

We decided to share all the food family style and started with the Slanted Door spring rolls and the green papaya salad.  Both dishes were great.  Mom never had green papaya salad, the rest of us had lots of it while traveling in Vietnam and this version was fantastic.  RM ordered a bottle of sauvignon blanc and our server "warned" us it's a "rustic" wine, which meant, it was unfiltered and bottled in a metal recyclable bottle, similar to a metal water bottle.  I'd never seen wine bottled that way before and the date it was bottle was written right on the bottle.  We really enjoyed this wine and I wish I could remember the name of it!  It was crisp and refreshing.

For main dishes we ordered the scallops, the dungeness crab cellophane noodles and the shaking beef. All were delicious.  The shaking beef here was outstanding compared to the version we had at E&O earlier in the trip!  The scallops were great, but I really liked the cellophane noodles the best.  We passed on dessert, but mom and I had our espressos.

By 9:30pm we were saying our good-byes as RM and J got on BART to head home and we walked back to the hotel.  So, for a day that had a rocky start, it ended on a very happy note, sharing a great dinner with good friends.

Monday, July 4th

It was a very early morning, and we left the hotel at 5am via taxi, since BART was not yet running.  At that time of the morning, on a holiday it took 25 minutes to the airport and it was $40 plus tip.  When we walked into the terminal I was glad we arrived early for our 7:30am flight, the lines were massive.  Fortunately I had checked-in online and we only had to wait a few minutes to check our bags.  The line for security was snaking down the hallway, and luckily we didn't have to wait in that line since we were able to use the Delta sky priority security line which was much shorter.  This line used the full body x-ray machine, which was a first for us.

We found our gate and waited to board.  The boarding process was smooth and we were happy to have been able to get 2 exit row seats.  We arrived in Atlanta on time and had a 3 hour lay-over, which felt like an eternity (not feeling well while traveling is not my favorite experience!).  Our flight to Savannah was delayed by about 30 minutes but we did get upgraded on that flight and from the moment I sat down in my seat I was asleep.  When we arrived in Savannah I turned my phone on to find a message from Delta saying our bags had arrived in Savannah on an earlier flight (that was a first!), so we had no wait what-so-ever at baggage claim.  We grabbed our bags that were sitting in front of the baggage office, hopped in the car and headed home.