USA 2011: San Francisco Part 4

You will be pleased to know that the next day was much better weather than the cold drizzle of the day before. There was that famous San Francisco fog, but it cleared into a nice day. And a nice day means walking and foods!


I was walking up to California Street, and there were some cute little kitties painted on the side walk. I also passed by the Nob Hill Cat Clinic, which I thought was pretty cool, just because I am a cat vet. I peered in to see if they had any kittens I might hug (I was in severe kitty withdrawals at this point), but they didn't seem to so I kept on walking.


Walking to Wholefoods. I do love it so. I had come here by suggestion to try out their famous hot food buffet, and to try out some vegan breakfast options. And to do some more grocery shopping! I am happy to report that I was finally able to track down some Tings here.





As always I was in awe and in love with the huge variety of amazing fresh produce that is available in the the US. Look at all this goodness!


I am also in love with the huge variety of vegan ice creams that the US have available. My supermarket only has So Good Vanilla, sometimes Chocolate if I am lucky. Look at all of these! There was another cabinet next to it as well. Excuse me while I quietly weep.


There were also lots of vegan baked goods. Not all of these are vegan, but most of those donuts were. Oh, I just realised I said the Pepple's donut I had the previous day was my last donut of the trip. I lied.


So here was my breakfast. In the box, from the vegan hot food breakfast section, there is soyrizo hash (nom!), tofu scramble (a bit bland) and breakfast potatoes (I left the capsicum portion of this in the bain marie, the potatoes were amazing). I also had a crumb donut (quite good) and a So Delicious Coconut Strawberry and Banana Yoghurt, which was OMG delicious and I had to mini internal rage over the dismal state of commercially available vegan yoghurt in Australia. Let me just have another quiet weep.


After breakfast, I walked up California Street to Grace Cathedral, for some more touristy and cultural adventures. On this particular day, I was wearing my Secret Society of Vegan's Saving the Unicorn t-shirt. As I was wandering through, a girl came up to me and said 'High five for vegans'. And we did. We vegan high-fived. Totally awesome.


The cathedral has an indoor and outdoor labyrinth. Nothing like the movie of the same name, these are flat with the lines tiled onto the floor. I walked the labyrinth, which was soothing. It isn't a maze, there are no options, you just walk the path until you get to the middle.


There was also lots of pretty stained glass. This is the Rose Window. But they had lots of nifty windows there, including one for Einstein.


The have this statue there, Bufano St. Francis. Apparently it is meant to be welcoming. Maybe I've watched too much Doctor Who, but this creeped the hell out of me. I bet it totally comes to life and chases you if you are in there after closing.


Across the road from the church is a beautiful little park. There are fountains and flowers and grass. Again Brisbane, please note example of beautiful public green space. It's a great spot to sit for a minute, maybe have a little snack, and look out over the skyline from Nob Hill.


Nob Hill is on a hill. Duh. It is a super pretty section of the city, but you have to walk to get there. I had walked up from California Street, which to be honest I didn't find that horrifically steep. When you look at the streets coming off from California Street though, you can see that it is quite a climb!


But you will be rewarded with exceptionally pretty views out over the city and to the hills beyond.

I stopped back at the hotel to drop off my Tings before catching the BART back the 16th Mission. I was going to another grocery shop.


Rainbow Grocery is a co-op that is full of some pretty nifty stuff. I was expecting something like Sidecar or Food Fight, but it is much bigger and not all vegan.




There are a lot of nifty vegan products, including this pretty awesome tubs of vegan cookie dough. They also had a great bulk section. I did a little bit more shopping here, including some Cafe Gratitude cookies and a slice of raw peach pie (more on that later).

So far, my day had been pretty heavy on visiting grocery stores, but fear not - in my next post I shall talk about the two amazing restaurants I visited for lunch and dinner (plus another grocery store).

USA 2011: San Francisco Part 3

Tuesday morning dawned... in a fashion. In a freezing, grey, raining fashion. All the adventure was catching up with me, and I was also feeling a little ookey, so I slept in a bit before heading out and braving the weather with my tiny umbrella. My plans involved staying pretty close to the area.


A late breakfast/brunch found me back at Little Bird Coffee House for a second round.




This time I ordered some amazing Blue Corn Waffles with Fruit and Maple Syrup, along with a side of Fakin.



I lingered a little, enjoying my Kindle and the free wifi, and ordered a gigantic soy hot chocolate, and a cinnamon sugar Pepples donut - the final donut of my journey. How cute is that plate? I love white plates with blue on them.


I then walked a few blocks down to the Civic Centre district, and I went to the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Please note this photo was taken on another day. The day I actually went to the museum it was grey and raining. Apparently it never rains all day in San Francisco in summer. Except for this day. Oh well, I'd been having a magical time with the weather so far. The Asian Art Museum is fantastic. If you like Asian Art (and I do), there is so much there to look at. Here are a few photos.








Pretty things! Not surprisingly, I loved the pieces involving animals. I also really like ceramics, they are so pretty! And I loved the mythology behind so many of the pieces. I took two tours while I was there, the first through their Bali special exhibit, and the second was a Goddess tour, which was awesome as there were only two of us and the docent. Afterwards, the docent took us back to the Bali exhibit and gave us an extra special tour with lots of extra information. It was great!

I know what you're thinking... but what about food? OK, please don't be mad at me for letting down the team... but I didn't actually eat lunch this day. Originally I was going to go to an asian vegan restaurant nearby, but they were closed on Tuesdays, so I was just going to go with the flow. But I had such a big, late brunch and was just feeling all a bit blah that I just had a snack from my bag. It's OK though, I shall make up for it with dinner.


Dinner was at Saha. Saha was on the list that Lauren for Portobello in PDX had given me, and was on the same street as my hotel, just a block down! Saha is in the Hotel Carlton. I got there before the restaurant opened, but they let me sit in their lobby and use their free wifi, which was nice. Saha is an omni arabic fusion restaurant, with lots of vegan options.


After being seated, I was presented with this amazing turkish bread and dipping oil, with all sorts of spices in it. Being a lone diner, I didn't have to share and got to eat it all! Mwahaha. I was super hungry by now, so there was no chance of me filling up on bread. The bread was just the beginning.


Because it was cold outside, I also ordered some of their beautiful Arabic tea, which has cardamom, mint, sugar and clove. So warming and yummy.

They had an option where you could choose a soup or salad, a small plate and a main for a certain amount (I don't remember what), so I went with this.


First up was the warm asparagus salad. Oh. My. God. Pan-seared asparagus with papaya, olive oil and za'atar. This was amazing.


My small plate was a no brainer - BBQ Tofu and Mushrooms - Oyster, shiitake, & brown mushrooms marinated with tofu in cumin, soy sauce, sesame seeds, za’atar & coconut milk. This was so yummy, the only problem was I didn't have a spoon to scoop up all the delicious sauce, and I was out of bread. So I just slowly scooped it up with my fork. It was all I could do not to lick the plate in the restaurant!


For my main, I tossed up a few options and asked my server for her suggestions. I went with the Saha Red Curry. It was delicious. Not quite what I was expecting presentation wise. The curry had tofu (but only two pieces), pumpkin and mushrooms in it.

I was loving my meal. The flavours were amazing! However, you may notice that the serving sizes are somewhat... small... particularly given I hadn't had lunch and now my appetite had been reawakened!


So I had to order another dish. This is the Saha Ravioli (vegan version) - Shiitake mushroom ravioli in sauce of fresh mango, red pepper flakes, fresh mint, and touch of coconut milk. These were amazing, and nicely carby and filling as well.


Which brought me to dessert. I had Bisbusa - Yemeni cake with syrup and sorbet. I had raspberry sorbet made by a company called Ciao Bella. This was the perfect end to an amazing meal. I love syrup with cakes.

Overall, Saha is AMAZING. I can't recommend it highly enough. The only downside is that the portions are small if you are have a big appetite like I do - I could have eaten so much more of everything I ordered. This is fine, because you can just order more and experience new tasty dishes (MOAR FUDS IN YOU BELLEH!), though it will not be a cheap meal. But it will be a mind-blowing meal. So save your pennies and get thee to Saha. Oh, my server's name was Jennifer, and she was super sweet and lovely and helpful. Yay! Another thing I liked about Saha is that it is the first four letters of Sahara's name. Yay kittehs!

Next up, more San Francisco!

USA 2011: San Francisco Part 2

After lunch it was time for more walking and exploring.



My travels took me by Chile Lindo, a little hole in the wall place that had come highly recommended by the lovely Lauren from Portobello in PDX. I didn't get the vegan empanada, much as I wanted to, as I was still feeling a bit overcome by from the cheesecake I'd eaten about half an hour before. I still took photos of it though. And then there was a crazy person asking me about the photos and having this big conversation and telling me I was dehydrated because of the way my fingernails looked. He was nice enough, just rather crazy and would not stop talking. Then there was another crazy lady who joined us, and I got stuck with her for a while longer. And finally I was able to break free without being rude. One day I do hope to actually get some food from here.


Walking around the Mission of course means more murals. Here are some seals.



And there was one wall covered in all sorts of cool quirky paintings of comic book characters. I love them!


Next stop was Mission Dolores, where I spent some time wandering around and taking photos of the pretty stained glass.

Afterwards I had planned to go and check out Creativity Explored, which was meant to be a funky little art place. It was a funky little art place, but it was a closed funky little art place. Alas. I did find an adorable little shop next to it though that had some amazing cards, so I got one for my friend's birthday. They also had a sign on the counter saying they wanted pennies, so I paid for as much of the card as possible with the little buggers. Seriously, Australia got rid of one cent coins ages ago, and our wallets are better off for it! I had so many annoying little pennies weighing me down.



I was able to get a few photos of the hills surrounding San Francisco. It is kind of surreal, like the city just ends and hills begin! San Francisco has a grid-like pattern to the streets that US cities seem to love. The problem with that is that the only way to get photos like this is by stopping in the middle of the road! Hence why I have only a couple of them.



I was still feeling a little overcome from the pie, but then stumbled across what I needed to cleanse and pick me up - ice cream! Bi-Rite is a super cute ice cream shop that has a couple of vegan flavours. It was very busy - there was a line out the door. I had some time to spare and I just new vegan ice cream would fix me right up. I got the chocolate and coconut flavour, and it was delicious!


I walked by The Women's Building, which was covered in amazing murals on all the walls.

I then walked down Clarion Alley, another alley filled with murals.




By this stage I was kind of walked out and muraled out, so it was time to get some dinner.


Gracias Madre is considered a must eat destination in San Francisco. It is vegan Mexican cuisine.


I decided to get some small dishes to make up my dinner, as I had to have room for dessert. I chose the Quesadillas de Camote (sweet potato and caramelized onions folded into tortillas with cashew nacho cheese and pumpkin seed salsa). This was great, except the pumpkin seed salsa was soooooo hot. I have a bit of a sensitive stomach to hot things, so my stomach was on fire and a bit uncomfortable rather quickly. Originally I thought it was the sauce, and it took me a little while to work out it was the topping, which I then scraped off. Much more comfortable after that!


I also got Greens con Chile y Ajo (seasonal greens sautéed with fresh garlic, and chiles), which may seem a bit of a boring choice, but I needed me some greens and this was delicious!


I also got some Horchata to drink. This was my first horchata experience. It was cool and sweet, which made my burning stomach lining feel some relief!


FLAN! This was the dessert that had to be had. Everyone talks about the flan, and now I can too. Amazing! I am not sure why they even bother having other things on the dessert menu, because you'd be crazy to pass up on this!

Gracias Madre is a place I definitely want to go back to, as there are many other tasty looking things on the menu I would love to try, and this time was a little bit dampened by an upset tummy. It would be good to go with other people, so I could try a lot of different things!

Then it was back to the hotel room, and swiftly to sleep. It was a big walking day!