Golden Flower Vietnamese Restaurant

667 Jackson Street

San Francisco, CA 94133

Occasion: Friday night dinner. 5.28.10

Beef Carpaccio
 My favorite place to get them! I love how they load it with tons of cilantro and crushed peanuts. I've had beef carpaccio at French and Italian restaurants, but they just don't compare to the nuc mam sauce used. I love how there's a sweet yet tangy taste to it. So delicious!

Five Spice Chicken Rice Plate
Not my usual, but that night...I felt like it. It came with a drumstick, imperial roll and rice. It was tasty and very filling and just what I wanted that night!

AT&T Park

24 Willie Mays Plaza

San Francisco, CA 94107

Occasion: May 25th. Giant's vs Washington Nationals. Giants win 4-2.

Nachos

You just have to get stadium food whenever you go to any game. This was some kind of pulled pork nacho. I like that the nacho wasn't that generic bright yellow cheese. This picture definitely does not do the nachos justice, but it was humongous.

La Boulange Cafe and Bakery

1909 Union Street

San Francisco, CA 94123

Occasion: Catch up lunch with Ella!

Goat Cheese Open Faced Sandwich with Mixed Green Salad
AMAZING! My favorite thing to get there! I love that the bread is drenched in what seems to be some kind of pesto-like balsamic vinegar sauce and the fact that it's topped with mushrooms, bell peppers and best of all...GOAT CHEESE! YUM!!! It comes with a side of salad, which makes me feel a little healthier. I love it and would recommend for anyone to give it a try...especially if they love all the ingredients!

Chloe's Cafe

1399 Church Street

San Francisco, CA 94114

Occasion: Sunday Brunch, sometime in May!

Croissant French Toast
Their croissant french toast with fresh strawberries is as good as it is hyped to be! The buttery-ness of the croissant combined with fresh strawberries that were sprinkled with cinnamon and powdered sugar was very memorable. It made me want to say "OMG". LOL!

Banana Walnut Pancakes
I was only allowed to order one because he knew I wouldn't be able to finish anything more than that. Good call. I loved biting into the walnuts, but I thought the chunks of bananas were too big. It was good, but not as good as Ella's fluffy pancakes. MMmMMmm!

Some kind of scramble (It's been so long I have already forgotten)
It came with potato fingerlings and an english muffin with their house made strawberry jam, which was very good. It wasn't too sweet nor too thick; it was just the way I liked it to be. After my major sweet consumption of french toast and pancakes. It was good to have something savory. I remember it being good and I had no complaints. Everything we had was very good and I'm so glad I discovered this little hole in the wall place!

Asquew Grill

3348 Steiner Street

San Francisco, CA 94123

Occasion: Dinner with Ella!

Skewers
She chose a salmon skewer with veggies and I chose some kind of ahi tuna. It was just what I wanted for dinner that night; something more on the healthy side! Not too greasy or too filling! It might not look like a lot of food. But it filled our stomachs!

Corn on the cob
Love corn on the cob! How can you possibly go wrong?

Domaine Chandon

1 California Dr
Yountville, CA 94599

**1 Michelin Star**

Occasion: Big Sis' Bday 5.22.10. Stop #2 Chandon! Decided to grab some snacks and chill!

Fresh Oysters
Soooo good and so refreshing. Their vinaigrette sauce was amazzzzzing.

Crab Cake
I got to taste a little bit of this. Crispy outside and flavorful chunks of crab meat

Bread, cheese and salami platter

I love cheese!

Paulette's Macron

437 A Hayes Street
San Francisco, CA 94102

Occasion: On a snack journey with my sister and Anna...back in May. My sister and I decided to go for the pack of a dozen with a great variety of flavors.

Some highlights: Chocolate ganache, passionfruit, pistachio, almond. Actually, they were all good. Definitely worth trying. The macaroons tasted so fresh, fluffy and chewy. They're great snacks to have around, especially because they're not too rich, so you won't feel guilty about having too much of it!

Horizon Restaurant and Lounge

498 Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133

Occasion: Thursday Happy hour with the besty and Hugo. 5.20.10. We came here looking for snack like foods. None of us were extremely hungry and did not want anything too filling. We had no clue Happy Hour lasted all night, so we ordered from the happy hour menu and a salad from the regular dinner menu.

Crab cake
Petite crab cake with mesclun mix topped with a lemon vinaigrette
From what I can recall, it was pretty good. I liked the citrusy vinaigrette drizzled on top. Crab meat was tasty and flavorful. The skin was fried to a good golden brown.

Loaded tater tots
tater tots topped with cheese, sourcream, bacon bits garnished with chopped green onions
Tater tots always bring back childhood memories, well for me it does. I love tater tots..it's simple and it reminds me of potato hash but in a cubey ball like form. I've never had it topped with cheese, sour cream and bacon bits before and it was delicious. It's very rich in flavor, so I got full off of it really quickly. It's definitely a guys type of snack. I enjoyed it but I can't have too much of it. Thank goodness for the salad to help balance out this artery clogging snack!

Beer Battered Calamari
Shrimp, green beans with a citrus ponzu sauce and a sweet chili sauce
You can't really go wrong with fried calamari. I like the the pieces with the tentacles. It looked like there was a lot but as we were eating I found a bed of lettuce under it. Deceiving it was, but I didn't complain. I liked dipping it into the sweet chili sauce rather than the ponzu sauce, which was too overpowering in flavor.

Pear, Pomegranate, Prosciutto Salad
D’Anjou pears, pomegranate, prosciutto, butter lettuce, blood orange vinaigrette
Probably my favorite dish of the evening. It was exactly what I wanted that night. I wanted something light, yet tasty. The savory taste of the prosciutto went very well with the sweet crunchy pear. Though I did not taste nor see any pomegranate, I wonder why it was part of the ingredients list. It was a very light and refreshing dish.

Alexander's Steakhouse

10330 N Wolfe Rd
Cupertino, CA 95014

**1 Michelin Star**

Occasion: Celebrating a Bday. 5.17.10 *Very Belated Post, but I'm back!*

Hamachi Shots
truffled ponzu sauce, chili, avocado, frizzled ginger and cilantro greens.
Came in a six pack! I thought it was delicious! For me, it was actually hard trying to take it like a shot. I'd try to take it like a shot and all I'd get was the ponzu sauce in my mouth. After the first few tries I just used a small cocktail fork to fork out all that goodness. It had a excellent blend of flavors. Chili was not too spicy, ginger didn't over power, ponzu sauce was sweet and complimented the hamachi very well. Loved it and would definitely get it again.

2+ pounds of bone in rib-eye topped with seared foie gras
His order. That thing was huge!!! It's totally a guy thing. Our two other guy friends ordered the same exact thing. Not really my type of cut. I like the more tender type of meat and I thought it was pretty rough. Well at least the bday boy enjoyed it!

Australian F1 Filet Mignon

Got it medium rare and the meat seriously was so tender it melted in my mouth. I am not an expert meat eater...yet, but from my sense of taste and feel the taste and the texture was superb! *Note* best eaten when warm...don't talk too much and leave it untouched for too long.

Lobster Mac and Cheese
I actually felt really indifferent about this. I'm not usually a mac and cheese type of girl, but the lobster and truffle oil sounded really appealing to me. I didn't think too highly of it, but a few others really enjoyed it. Or perhaps, by the time I actually took a bite out of it, it was no longer warm. Not sure, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would have.

Truffle fries

I just had to get it because of the reviews and Fanny. She highly recommended getting them and I don't regret it at all. They were amazing, but could definitely have been skipped since we ordered so much for 2. I love fries...but truffle fries are so much better.