Dylan visits SF

Finally, another one of my UK friends managed to make it out to my corner of the world for a visit, and the past three days we have covered quite a bit of ground. I picked Dylan up on Sunday night in a Zipcar Volvo and after a brief stop at the apartment to drop his bags, we returned the car and went to Big Foot Lodge, a quirky bar on Polk Street, for a few rounds of celebratory drinks.

On Monday we slept in, and to assist with our re-hydration I made us freshly juiced carrot, orange and ginger juice, along with scrambled eggs with pesto and fresh pears and strawberries. After a few work obligations were taken care of, we zipped around town for a few hours in another Zipcar, taking a driving tour of San Francisco neighborhoods after lunch at Blue Barn Cafe in the Marina. We were taking advantage of the brief sunshine after rain all day on Sunday and more forecast for Tuesday.

On Monday night, we shared a very special meal at RN74, a Michael Mina restaurant downtown. The meal was incredible and definitely in my top five, maybe top three, of all time. Then again, I should search my blog for how often I have said this of a restaurant. :)

Indulge me while I share photos of our courses, but this food (and wine pairings) were phenomenal.

First, we had cocktails at Heaven's Dog in SOMA a short cab ride away.

Then, Dylan chose wisely with a pairing of grilled shrimp, a vanilla-saffron hollandaise sauce, and a glass of St. Aubin 1er Cru Chardonnay. The pairing of the two was like a match made in heaven, and we savoured every bite.

 

Our special wine for the evening main meal was a 2005 Nuits-St.Georges 1er Cru. Amazing.

We somehow missed photos of our main course, but don't worry, there is still the cheese and dessert courses to come....

 

They also gave us a list of the wines we drank that night. This list was before we ordered glasses of Sauternes and Tokaji, but what a great souvenir!

We had a wonderful evening, excellent food, impeccable service, and we started up a conversation with the table next to us and found out we were talking to a drummer of a very well known rock band (not to be published here).

Fortunately we didn't actually get home too late, because on Tuesday we were up early (8am) to get ready, pick up a Mini Cooper, and go wine tasting in Napa for the day. Our first zipcar didn't work, but they were able to give us another Mini Cooper in a nearby lot, and refund us about 30% of the reservation. We were up tasting  before 12 noon, although it was raining so hard and persistently all day, that Dylan wasn't able to see as much of the scenery as I had hoped. A rainy day is very conducive to wine tasting though, and we tasted at four vineyards: Grgich Hills, Chappellet, Cakebread, and Domaine Chandon. I was restrained and only purchased two bottles of Chardonnay from Chappellet that I thought were exceptional for the price.

By the time we drove back to San Francisco, filled the car with gas, picked up a few things at Whole Foods, and returned the Zipcar to its home it was 7pm and we were completely exhausted from 48 hours of maybe just a bit too much fun! We had a quiet evening at home, watched LOST, and fell asleep very early.

Today is our last day hanging out together, as I leave for Tahoe tomorrow morning, but we have each had some work to do, and in the end, I had to manage a water heater situation whereby water was overflowing out the top of it all morning. As I write, it is being replaced, and I am looking forward to a hot shower in a few hours and getting ready for dinner tonight at A16. What a great week already!