SOMA Street Food Park

If you haven't been to the SOMA street food park yet, you're sure missing out on something great.  They have a huge open area down in SOMA (11th & Division (near Harrison) St) with several food trucks that change daily, open seating and a few TVs to watch sports and movies on.  Its great in the summer, just make sure you bring a jacket to ward off the wind in the cooler months.  You can watch Warriors (or Giants or 49s) games or go to Trivia Nights on Tuesdays, or one of their many theme days.

This is what the website says about the park:

The SoMa StrEat Food Park is a culinary carnival and urban playground with a rotating lineup of culinary curiosities that are sure to amaze, delight and astound. The park features food trucks, beer, wine, carnival games, wifi, TV screens, and heat lamps for the cold nights. Our park is fun for the whole family even the dog.

They have this fun beer tent that serves beer, sangria and wine.  Its bottomless Sangria on Saturdays and Mimosas on Sunday. If that's not a reason to visit, I don't know of any others!

Mmmm beer.

Their trucks rotate daily (even between lunch and dinner). This time we ate from the Odang Udon truck.

And then I got a burrito from the taco truck. I really wanted to LOVE it, but there was some SUPER spicy sauce on it, so instead I switched with the B Man and ate his udon.

And then I thought I needed to try the chocolate covered bacon from the Bacon Truck....BIG FAIL. It was so gross :(

But overall, we had a great time!

DAR Presidio Chapter

I can't deny that I'm a joiner...I joined Phi Mu in college, I joined Junior League when I moved to San Francisco and now I've joined DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). Well, I joined DAR in DC, but never ended up doing anything with them.  When my friend Lauren here said she just joined DAR....I remembered that I had joined before!  I figured, what the hell, I need to make new friends here in SF, so I'll give it a shot.

We had our meeting at the beautiful St. Mark's Lutheran Church 

They made the meeting really fun and interactive and even had FOOD! You clearly know the way to my heart when you offer food, AND make them theme appropriate!!

Driving down US 1

The B Man and I decided that we should take advantage of the long weekend and take a drive down to Santa Cruz.  We decided to take the scenic US 1, also called the Pacific Coast Highway (PCH) and enjoy all of the beautiful views of the coastline.

PCH was built in 1034 and covers pretty much all of the coast of California.  It cuts in and out of the mountains....

And you pop out and see these amazing views...

And the waves crashing against the coast

And then we came up on Big Sur

Lots of surfers out there!

Wine Country (A-G-A-I-N)

Its a hard life, but someone's gotta do it.   I mean really, its hard. Just look how hard it is!  My bi-monthly champagne order from Domaine Carneros and because we wanted to kick the long weekend off with some bubbly.  And because I'm a club member, we got to sit on the private terrace.  I'd suggest you make a reservation because this place gets PACKED. Its pretty much the first stop on the path to Napa.

Annnndddd got a F-R-E-E tasting! You can't beat that! And Laura, our server, was amazing!  She may or may not know the B Man's uncle who has been coming for the past 5 years or so.

I brought the B man along, mostly because he drove us. And he's pretty cute.  It was a lovely sunny day on the patio.  We soaked up the sun and bubbles and decided to make a second stop while we were in Napa.

Next up was Domaine Chandon!  I mean, you can't top Domaine Carneros, but Chandon was pretty good. We didn't do a tour, but we did do a tasting. I did the Rose tasting and the B Man did the classic. We didn't make a reservation, we just walked in, we just walked in, enjoyed the champagne and took in the great views.

Mmmm....

I'll take the bottle please!

 You could take a bottle outside and sit in the sunny grass.

And on the way home I always get so excited to see the city emerge and take in the breathtaking sites of the city!

Just LOOK at that skyline!

It never gets old....

SF Street Food Festival

The B man and I attended the SF Street Food Festival at Pier 70 in the Dogpatch neighborhood.  Basically, you could find any local restaurant selling their food to the hungry people.  I think there were over 100 owner-operated food businesses....lots of YUMMY FOOD!

I found a lot of cool information about Pier 70 from their website.

Pier 70 is such a cool area that they are trying to rebuild into a multi-purpose area. In the future, they want to see repairs to the buildings and even add in zoning for small

Right now, only building 12 is being re-purposed and hosts a wide variety of open air festivals and events such as the street food festival.  It has a long standing history since the 1800s and will hopefully be revived to its glory! At its peak of activity during WWII, more than 1800 people worked at Pier 70 each day!

It will take quite a while, but here's a timeline of activity:

Now let's get to the actual FOOD.  It was super hot outside and I may have been a bit hungover so I really wasn't feeling any food for the first hour or so. But the B man surely was. He wanted ALL OF THE FISH TACOS!

Which was should we go?

First stop, Tacolicious. I've been to their brick & mortar, its pretty good!

B Man SUPER happy with his tacos!

There were plenty (maybe at least 4 different tacos and dim sum and tuna tartar) of food eaten by the B Man.

I finally got my shit together and ordered some food from Magnolia BBQ....OMGeeeee this is AMAZING.  I've been to their brick & mortar store in Dogpatch and its delightful! So much so that you kind of get the meat sweats (this girl's paradise).

Sentinel Building

Right next to the iconic Transamerica Building is the Sentinel Building.  Its San Francisco Landmark #33.

This building was built in 1907 and is also knows as the Columbus Tower and Coppola's Cupola.

The Sentinel Building is located in between Little Italy, Chinatown, and the financial district so there are plenty of great restaurants and stores nearby.  Cafe Zoetrope is currently on the ground floor of the Sentinel Building.

I love this city, you can turn the corner and see such cool buildings as this!

Columbus Tower
916 Kearny Street
San Francisco, CA 

Boudin Bakery

The other day I scratched off another item from my bucket list when I visited the Boudin Bakery near Fisherman's Wharf.  I'm not sure why I really wanted to see it, but I was excited to see the history of this San Franciscian icon. Boudin is know for its sourdough break (self-proclaimed as the "Original San Francisco Sourdough French Bread"). It was established in 1849 by Isidore Boudin and still uses the same starter yeast-bacteria culture it developed in 1849. Its said that in 1906 Louise Boudin is credited with saving the business by saving the starter yeast culture in a bucket when the bakery caught fire after the epic earthquake.

A replica of the bucket that Louise saved the business in. Most of San Francisco was burned during the earth quake. The business was able to go on because of Louise's quick thinking.

I thought this was cool, this is how they used to deliver the bread to your house! You had a nail on your front door and the delivery person swung the bread and stuck it to the door! Um...YES PLEASE!!

I learned that the bread is "Scored" on the top to let moisture escape without cracking the crust.

Some of the various different logos over the years

WHOA! Look at the cool shapes the bakers can make with the sour dough! A hippo!

A couple other things that have supposedly been created in San Francisco...

• The martini
• Irish coffee
• Popsicle
• Cioppino
• Fortune cookies
• Crab louis
• Chop Suey
• Mai Tai

What makes this bread different?  The power of flour....and....

San Francisco indigenous yeast and foggy climate produced an exceptional bread - tangy, with a crunchy crust, and chewy center that is, to this day, pretty dang addictive.

Sourdough getting prepped

LOOK AT ALL THAT DOUGH!

The dough vault

Mixing the goodies

The rounder

The bread gets cooked...

and they turn it into things like loafs and a turtle!

I had so much fun...even if it was by myself!

Boudin Bakery
Pier 39
Bakery & Cafe
Pier 39, Space 5-Q
San Francisco, CA 94133
415-421-0185

Mon - Thur: 8 am - 8 pm
Fri - Sat: 8 am - 9 pm
Sun: 8 am - 8 pm