Chicago Marathon Val

Hi blogworld! It’s been awhile since I’ve been here… I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I know everyone and their mother has already posted about the FoodBuzz event in San Francisco, so hopefully this post will shake things up a bit and will show you a different view of San Francisco!

Coincidentally I was in San Francisco this weekend for my cousin’s wedding, of which I will post some pictures tomorrow – it was QUITE a wedding!! (Please ignore any ensuing typos, I feel like a bad blogger for being away for so long and I’m just anxious to post and be done with it and I’m currently too irritated with Wordpress to bother to edit!)

In the meantime, enjoy some photos of scenic San Francisco, to learn how a vegan eats in SF, and last but not least, to see some hilarious pictures of my family at the wineries! Yes, my family + mass quantities of wine = hilarity…

Stopping in Fisherman’s Wharf so Mike could get his favorite (clam chowder), I made sure to pose with my dad in front of the bane of my existence – the Pinball Museum!!

The last time I was in SF, my mom and sister went to Greens Restaurant while I somehow got stuck touring a boring, old, claustrophic submarine and the Pinball Museum with my dad.  My dad’s great, but the pinball museum is NOT!

More of Fisherman’s Wharf

We took a double decker bus tour, since it was Mike’s first time in SF and I wanted to show him the sights.  This was a great idea and a fun way to see the city!

That gorgeous green building is where Coppola wrote The Godfather

 

Driving over the Golden Gate bridge on the upper deck was a crazier experience than I anticipated! I actually thought it was thrilling and even a bit scary… you are SO high and not very secure, and it felt like a roller coaster ride! The view was spectacular and I didn’t think we could capture its beauty in a photograph, but I was wrong!

Remember that restaurant I wanted to go to the last time I was in town, but missed out on?  After much begging, pleading, and bribery, I convinced my family to take me there.

My dad was a bit worried that he wouldn’t like anything on the menu, so he and Mike made sure to have a clam chowder and plenty of beer before hand at Fisherman’s Wharf to make sure they were full

I got the brochettes for my entree:

Fun fact: Greens is built in an old military building and was originally staffed by Zen students.

I shared the spring rollls with my mom for an appetizer… the peanut tofu was topnotch!

My brochettes were delicious! You really can’t go wrong with the combination of quinoa, tofu, and veggies!

Greens is a vegetarian restaurant, but they also have a few vegan options on their menu.  I tried the vegan banana cake…

So good! I have heard so many great things about Greens over the years, and I’m so happy that I was finally able to experience its glory for myself

I also bought two tiny vegan maple pecan muffins from their bakery, which I brought to breakfast the next day.  We hit up an oldschool diner in the Fisherman’s Wharf neighborhood that I suspected wouldn’t have a great deal of vegan options!

Well, I was part right…. As you can imagine, nothing on the menu was “vegan” as is, but the waiter was very accomodating when I asked him if I could have a plate of grilled veggies with some avocados.

This was actually a great breakfast! I was craving veggies anyway, so it hit the spot, alongside my vegan muffin (yum!), some fruit, and some tea – I brought along some green tea from home.  This meal really made me realize how easy it is for restaurants to throw together something vegan – typically I find breakfast dining to be the hardest meal as a vegan, but I would be perfectly satisfied with a plate of roasted, grilled, or sauteed veggies in a pinch!

 The view from Lombard Street (the super curvy one):

Mike, my dad and I hiked across the Golden Gate Bridge, which is about two miles long.  We were told it would tak 1.5 -2 hours to walk it, and it was a very foggy day, but it was on my dad’s bucket list so we sucked it up and went anyway!

Apparently there are about 300 suicide jumpers every year off the bridge, which, as a social worker, I do not find funny.  However, I did find a tad bit of humor in this crisis counseling sign – good idea!

We ended up making it across in about 35 minutes, which included stopping so Mike could video our shenanigans

Next stop: Napa Valley!

Our wine tasting instructor, Rich, was hilarious.  He amused us for a few hours with his antics, tales, and odd poses….

He impressed Mike and I by saying that he knows Vince Vaughan (we are HUGE fans!!), but I have a sneaking suspicion this was just part of a ploy to get us to buy more wine… it may or may not have worked….

Who saw The Office last week when Jim purposely inadvertently pushed Michael into a koi pond?

Proof that it really was a koi pond:

I love piggies of all kinds, and statues are no exception!

Lunch was another pleasant surprise – there was a vegan option ALREADY ON THE MENU – a veggie plate! It may sound lame to some, but I was thrilled to pieces to see this item on the menu.  It was actually very delicious and my family kept taking bites off my plate…

After we finally tapped out all of the wine in Napa we toured the wineries, we headed to Tiburon for the wedding rehearsal dinner, which was on a quaint Italian restaurant on the water.

The not-so-quaint

Again, veggies were found….and devoured soon after.  The meal was set up buffet style, but the waiter quickly brought me a plate of the pasta sans cheese. 

And that brings us to the half way point in our trip – stay tuned to see a recap of my cousin’s beautiful wedding! And don’t forget to enter my Sweet Riot chocolate giveaway!

A change of scenery: San Fran from a non-FoodBuzz perspective

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.