more sf lovin' - part one

sometimes when you've travelled to a city often enough, you think that you've seen all that the city has to offer. and then you suddenly find something quite new and exciting even though it's been right there all along.

that pretty much described my weekend escapade three weeks ago to my favorite, beautiful city of san francisco. this was my sixth visit so i honestly thought i've been to every part of the city. btw, this is going to be a super long entry..just so you know.

my lil getaway started with my 7am flight to san francisco which meant i had to get up at an ungodly hour of just before 4am to get ready before going to the airport. the poor cab driver has to drive me to the airport so early i felt a lil bad. the driver was pretty friendly... perhaps too overly friendly... we had some conversations about food and other stuff and had quite some things to talk about which was kinda nice, i guess.

but when we got to the airport, he asked if he could take my picture on his cell phone, promising that he wouldn't post it on the internet. and then he showed me a picture of him with another asian girl on his phone saying that he likes taking picture with his passengers.  err.. okay..weird... but no thanks, creepy guy. now on hindsight, i should have probably jumped out of the cab and ran.

anywho, one good thing about travelling this early in the morning is that i got a whole row in the plane to myself. stretched out and all, i was determined to take a nap before my exciting day ahead in san francisco!

when my plane landed at the airport, i was so refreshed by how warm it was. poor ryan who drove a lil too early from folsom got there about half hour earlier and had to wait another fifteen minutes cos my flight was delayed in chicago.

the day was definitely looking up, all sunny and warm and was in the mid-60s. perfect weather for just strollling around and driving on the steep roads. i've had the day mostly planned out, where i wanted to go and most importantly where i wanted to eat :)

my first food stop of the day was a sweet place i've been talking about ever since my last visit to san francisco: kara's cupcakes! but this time i went to their original store at marina since we've always wanted to try the mini cupcakes.

even after all the wanting to try the mini cupcakes, we ended up with the regular sized ones since we thought those mini ones were kinda small..lol. we left the store with four different cupcake flavors: fleur de sel, neopolitan, banana caramel and passion fruit cupcake. they were as awesome as we remembered it to be. the only thing though was that it had a tad too much frosting than before.

nonetheless, i still love the cupcakes! :) my most favorite!

the cupcakes spells 'love xo' if you can't see it

as we looked around, we were pleasantly surprised to see such a nice neighborhood with a ton of petite specialty stores and several restaurants. i suggested that we walked around the neighborhood since we had some time to kill before we had to meet our friend, james for lunch. i really love days like these - warm, laid back and fun to explore the quaint stores at our own pace.

it was such a nice day although it was a tad chilly under the shades. one thing i realized is that sculptures of heart seems to be a san francisco thing. in fact, i actually stumbled upon one in the area :)

i love it! i didn't have time to scrutinize it closely but the "teacher's pet" part somewhat caught my eye. (not that i was one..just saying. hehe)

our next stop was lunch at the house but this will have to wait for another entry.

after lunch, james said that he still had space for another meal and ryan semi-agreed that he could use a snack and well, i thought dessert would be the perfect way to end lunch. i suggested the ferry building since there were stuff to see and food to eat so it would make all three of us happy.

i always knew that the ferry building was there..heck, i even drive past this place everytime i come to san francisco but i've actually never been into ferry building itself. i think it is because i didn't think there were much to do here but boy, was i wrong when i found out online that ferry building marketplace was one of the places to go to while in san francisco.

on tuesdays, thursdays and saturdays, the farmer's market right is set up right in front of the building but they were already packing up when we got there.

i nearly jumped with joy when i walked into the marketplace and saw that there were a ton of specialty food stores. i was uber excited! i didn't know where to start. i wanted to go into each store but at the same time i wanted to look around to see all of them at once in the marketplace. this sure is a foodie's haven. :)

as we were exploring, i found something i wanted: gelato at ciao bella. :) i've actually seen pints of ciao bella sold at fox&obel but have yet to find it in other grocery stores.

they had quite an extensive selection but i ended up with mango sorbet, ryan with triple espresso and james with strawberry. they were all so yummy :) but honestly, how can u possibly go wrong with gelato?

apparently after all that amount of food i had, i still had cravings for seafood. ryan called me a seafood fiend which i shamelessly agree..haha. i absolutely adore seafood. i mean c'mon, we were in san francisco where the fresh seafood is abundant and reasonably priced. we found ourselves at a fresh seafood vendor where they offered some assortment of seafood salads and warm dishes prepared fresh. at the front of the store, they even have freshly shucked oysters for raw oyster lovers.

the two i decided to get for snacks were tuna pokē (which means to slice or cut) and the calamari salad with bell peppers and onions. pokē is a raw fish salad in hawaiian cuisine. the seafood was fresh and it tasted pretty good although the tuna was overpowered by the sesame oil in the dressing.

we sat by the pier as we shared our seafood salad. ahh, this is the life...

the lack of sleep has finally caught up with me so i suggested coffee since ryan and james needed their coffee fixes too. peet's coffee was next and i got myself a soy latte and man, it was good. very good tasting bitter fresh coffee with a hint of sweetness from the soy milk. enough to pick me back up.

ryan is quite picky with his coffee especially because he needs a very strong bold coffee and he's been disappointed a number of times even at starbucks. but peet's coffee hit all the right notes with its freshness and coffee punch, just like they promised on their sign that says they set a timer to ensure that their brewed coffee is enjoyed within 30 minutes. he was so happy with the quality of the coffee.

as evening approached, we had to check in to our hotel in daly city before heading out again for our restaurant week dinner reservation at chouchou restaurant which would also be another blog entry on its own.

well, i've decided to split this post into two so part two coming your way real soon. :)