A TRIP TO THE MISSION

So like my businesses, the company I work for has seen a slow down due to the economy. This meant that for a few weeks, I was only working 4 days a week (and I had it good). However, I also sought to take advantage of my 3 day weekends, and on a very sunny Tuesday, I headed over to the Mission to join some friends for Mexican food.

Now, I have been to the Mission before, but not since we had moved to the Bay Area. It's kind of a funny thing, to go from our neighborhood in El Cerrito and take the BART 40 minutes to a part of San Francisco that is so different from where we live - it's almost like visiting another country.

Once I met up with my friends, we headed over to El Farolito for lunch. There are a lot of Mexican restaurants to choose from in the Mission - El Farolito just happened to be the one my friends liked. And there are several locations in the Mission. We ended up at one a little farther from the BART station, but it was much bigger. The inside wasn't anything special - we're talking picnic tables and plastic benches, but there were a lot of people inside.

Since I had never been here, I decided to order a couple of different things to try. What I didn't realize was that I'd end up waaaayyy over ordering. First we all got a basket of chips and we got to pick different types of salsa to go with it.

And here's my meal. So on the left there are two chicken tacos and on the right, there's a chicken tostada. See, I could've just ordered either the tacos or the tostadas and been totally fine ordering just one.

However, both were very tasty. I think I liked the tacos more than the tostada just because the tostada was loaded down with too many toppings. The tacos were packed with yummy grilled chicken, and were more simple, but equally messy. I'd imagine that if we had Mexican food like this anywhere near us, we'd be going once a week.

After we finished lunch, we checked ou a new ice cream place just a few doors down called Humphry Slocombe (yes, it's quite a name).

This place makes its ice cream from scratch in small batches, and they change the flavors pretty frequently. They're known for crazy flavors like fois gras, and my friend ordered a beet hibiscus sorbet (which she liked a lot)

However, when it comes to dessert and ice cream, I'm pretty traditional, so I went for their most conservative flavors - a cup with Blue Bottle Vietnamese Coffee and Chocolate.
I found the ice cream to be well made and tasty. However, it's not the best ice cream I've had since we've been out here - I still like Bi-Rite and Sketch more.

I had a great time in the Mission, and I just need to get my lazy butt to go out there more often. I definitely have to take Tom, though, to prove that there really is good Mexican food in the Bay Area.

BRUNCH AT THE THAI TEMPLE IN BERKELEY

There's a local brunch here in the East Bay that's well known - it's at the Thai Temple in Berkeley and it takes place every Sunday. I'd heard rumors of it, but had never been, so one Sunday, we finally went with our friend Brian. It's kinda confusing if you've never been before and haven't read up on it before hand, but luckily, I'd done so, and Brian had also been there before. Basically, there are food booths and tables set up on a concrete patio adjacent to the Thai temple. It's actually pretty busy and crowded, so it's a good idea to show up early. The day we went it was raining, so I think there were less people than usual.

The first thing you have to do when you arrive is get in line to trade cash for tokens. I think there might be some rule about ppl handling cash, so they use tokens instead. 1 token = $1 and all the food is priced in terms of tokens. Don't worry, if you get too many tokens you can trade them in and get your money back. Then you can look around and check out all the stations to decide what you wanna eat. After I did some scoping, I settled on getting a rice plate with 2 toppings - yellow chicken curry and a chicken leg. I think this cost 6 tokens. :

The food here is decent. It's not super cheap by any means, but it's pretty tasty. And the money goes to a good cause. The other nice thing is that there's a lot of variety, so you can try new things. Here's Tom's plate. He also got 2 choices with pork and pad thai.

I also got a box of veggie spring rolls and in this photo, you can see a box with mango sticky rice. I think both were 5 tokens. I liked the spring rolls and on a later trip I had the mango sticky rice, which was also really good:
And here's a plate of coconut desserts that Brian got. One's fried, the other's steamed. I liked the fried one more, but it's really only good if it's piping hot.

We've actually already been back once since our first visit. It's a great place to meet up with friends, just as long as you can find seat for everyone. And like I said, it's pretty decently priced and an opportunity to eat good food for a good cause.

TOM'S BIRTHDAY DINNER

Ok. I realize I haven't blogged in nearly 2 months. And the fact that I'm blogging about Tom's birthday dinner, which took place in early March, just goes to prove how long it's been. However, let's recap what's happened in the last 2 months : visited Portland, visited Boston, got engaged, bought a house and are currently in escrow. (Did I mention that getting engaged and buying a house happened in the same two week span?) So to say that we've gone through some big, life changing events would be accurate.

However, I'm spending a lot of time at work these days (until I can hire a new employee) so I've got a bit more time to blog. So back to the post. For Tom's birthday, I took him to a surprise birthday dinner at a shabu restaurant in Berkeley called Zabu Zabu. It's sort of in this hidden location on University, but turns out it's actually pretty popular, especially among the university crowd.

We haven't been to a shabu restaurant since moving to this coast, so I didn't really know what to expect. But now I know that it's pretty much like shabu in Boston, except that it costs way more. So Zabu Zabu is actually known for it's all you can eat shabu, and they have all these different options. The only problem is, if one person orders all you can eat, everyone else has to, which is kinda crappy since I'm the most useless person when it come to all you can eat. But we decided to go with the all you can eat appetizers and all you can eat shabu (you can also get all you can sushi).

First, you get your usual set of sauces:

With the all you can eat, you can pretty much order any variety of meats - pork, chicken, beef or lamb. Of course, I went with chicken and here's the little bowl of veggies that it comes with:

Then there were the appetizers. You actually get a choice of like 12 appetizers, and again, it's unlimited. Here's the fried chicken (it was ok)

And here's an order of seaweed salad. We also got mussels, calamari and I don't remember what else. They were all pretty good.

And our all you can eat meal also came with dessert - my favorite - green tea ice cream. Overall, the food here was pretty good. I still still think the price is pretty high - the cheapest all you can eat is $25 for shabu only, and if you don't want all you can eat, it's like $18, compared with $12 in Boston. However, I'd go back for a special occasion. Otherwise, I'll just make shabu at home, like my mommy does.

QUITO, DAY 11, THE LAST DAY

Ok everyone. It's the one you've all been waiting for... the cuy post! But first, it was our last day in Ecuador. Our flight wasn't until the afternoon, so we were able to squeeze in some shopping, and more importantly, some dining, before our flight departed. Now one thing that I haven't blogged about yet is breakfast. Breakfast in Ecuador is pretty much like breakfast in the U.S. - you know, eggs, omlettes, fruit, toast, cheese - that kind of stuff. So I didn't really document any of it since it wasn't too exciting.

However, one thing I did enjoy was the lavish spread that we had every morning at our hotel in Quito. (which was twice). At the Hilton Colon, they have a lot of business travelers and airline personnel staying with them. And every morning for breakfast, they put out this huge buffet in the cafe. It has lots of stations. For example, here's the cereal/yogurt bar.

Here you can pick cereal or yogurt and top it with lots of different things like fruit, yogurt, etc. And there were a ton of fresh juices. By the way, all the fresh juices we had in Ecuador were amazing - it was just fruit, blended with water, so it was never too sweet and just tasted great.

Then there's the fruit area:

It's filled with lots of fresh, locally grown fruit. Including that granadilla that I got on the first day.

And there's the pastry/bread area with baskets filled with all different types of fresh pastries. I liked the mini croissants the most.

I've left out photos of the make your own omlette bar and the hot food stations, but here's a photo of my plate on the last day. As you can see, I was pretty moderate.

We had a little time before our flight in the afternoon, so we spent it shopping and squeezing in our last meal at Mama Clorinda in La Mariscal. I chose Mama Clorinda because it specializes in the foods of the Ecuadorian highlands, and more importantly, it served cuy. So for those of you who don't know, cuy (aka guinea pig) is eaten as a delicacy in Ecuador. It's not all that common, and much more prominent in the highlands. And it's not like everyone eats it - one of our tour guides went on and on about how much she loved it, while the other mentioned how much she dislike it. But it was something that both Tom and Cathy wanted to try. We had ordered our cuy ahead of time because our tour guide had told us that it took an hour to prepare, and we were on a pretty tight schedule.

Here's the dining room at Mama Clorinda. We were having an early lunch, so it was pretty much empty inside, but as you can see, it's very brightly colored and sunny:Since we had ordered the cuy in advance, they had it ready for us when we arrived. Ben and I ordered some more normal foods for our lunch, while Cathy and Tom shared the cuy. They're actually kinda expensive - each one costs $18.
This is what it looks like when it comes out - still pretty much intact. And it turns out that they actually fried the thing (rather than roasting it, which is what I had expected). Tom and Cathy both dug in. Here's Tom eating a leg:And here's another of him eating the head (you can make out the ears and eyes):
Overall, they thought it was pretty good. To be honest, it didn't have much meat on it - mainly skin and bones. And Cathy thought that some of the meat tasted fishy (though I personally think it was the feed that they give it). Ben also tried it and they all agreed that it was something that they'd eat again.

Meanwhile, I had ordered a roast chicken lunch plate:This wasn't so great, because the chicken ended up being fried, rather than roasted. And it was pretty dry and tough. Plus the French fries just weren't very good. But we were here for the cuy, not for the other foods.

We had a really great trip to the Galapagos - I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for an adventure filled vacation and to finish off this last post about our trip, I'll leave you with a photo of the Galapagos mascot, the land tortoise:

GALAPAGOS AND QUITO , DAY 10

Our last day in the Galapagos was spent doing the reverse of what we'd done on the first day - taking the flight from Baltra back to Quito. We took the first flight out of the day, so when we landed in Quito, it was the middle of the afternoon. We hadn't really eaten lunch, so after doing a visit to the local craftsmarket (just a couple of blocks from our hotel), Tom and I decided to leave early, head back to the hotel and eat local junk food.

Well ok, I wouldn't count my bag of Ruffles as local junk food. But Tom had a bag of chincharrones:

He deemed these much better than the ones that we have in the U.S., stating that they literally melt in the mouth. He'd also gotten himself of chips made from plantians:

I'm not a big plantain fan, and these were covered in a sweet coating, so I'd say it was just ok. (Yes, I liked my sour cream and onion Ruffles more).

After our little break, we headed out for a brief city tour of old town, where the colonial Spaniards had settled. There are lots of churches, plazas and colonial buildings in the area and after walking around for a bit, we had our last dinner for the trip at Cafe Plaza Grande in the Hotel Plaza Grande.

The restuarant is located in an old historic building that was bought and renovated by Swissotel and now houses several restaurants. The cool thing is that it overlooks the main square in Old Town - the Plaza Independencia:The restaurant serves local Ecuadorian delicacies, but it's in a very formal setting - by far the most formal place that we had visited the whole trip. But it was a nice change from flip flops, mosquitoes and sand.

The first thing that that give you is bowls of crisply fried plantains in like a flower arrangement:
along with three dipping sauces:There was peanut, sesame and something spicy that I don't remember. But I liked the spicy one.

As for the menu, it's basically a prix fixe menu, and you get several choices for appetizer, entree and dessert. For my appetizer, I got this potato cheese soup served along with local avocado:Ok. To be honest, my tummy wasn't feeling so great the last couple of days in Ecuador (I blame that chicken stick I ate on the beach in Isabella), so I didn't really have much of an appetite. The soup was pretty good, but I didn't eat most of it.

For Tom's appetizer, he got a really pretty ceviche:served with the ubiquitos popcorn and toasted corn:
Even though it was quite pretty, he thought it was just pretty good. He like the ceviche we had at Las Redes more.

For my entree, I ordered fish:It was locally caught, well prepared and very pretty. But again, my stomach just wasn't into it - I mainly ate the veggies.

Meanwhile, Tom ordered chicken:And it was fine. I tried some of it. Well cooked and well seasoned, but nothing extraordinary.

And lastly, dessert. Apparently they like dramatic things at this restaurant, because the ice cream was served over a bowl of dry ice:I'll admit, it was pretty cool, and you could make it continue misting just by adding more water to the dry ice.

Overall, we had a really pleasant dinner. I mean, the place certainly is one of those places where you'd see foreign tourists dining with wealtheir Ecuadorians. And for me and Tom, we'd certainly prefer eating this type of food in a local joint. But it was still fun to be a bit pampered and surrounded by that type of elegance. I just wish my stomach had been feeling better so I could've enjoyed the meal more. (But that should teach me about eating street food on a beach).

GALAPAGOS, DAY 9

On our 8th day in the Galapagos, we left Floreana and headed back to Santa Cruz - it was our last night on the islands. They'd planned a pretty packed day for us. In the morning, we visited the Floreana highlands and the turtle reserve there. Then it was a boat ride back to Santa Cruz where we immediately went kayaking. Right when we got back to Santa Cruz, it started to rain. We're not talking about little rain, we're talking about torrential tropical down pour, which lasted for three hours. During this time, we went kayaking, and for a not so easy hike over wet, mud covered lava rocks to see Las Grietas.

Suffice it to say that by the time it'd stopped raining, I was soaked, and in no mood to go snorkeling (which was the activity planned for the afternoon). Tom and I decided that we'd be much happier heading back to the hotel, taking hot showers, drying off and relaxing. (though we did end up missing snorkeling with sea turtles that afternoon - oh well).

When we headed back to the hotel, we were offered lunch, since it was included in our package (even though the hotel kitchen had been shut down for at least half an hour). My dad, Tom and I ended up ordering 3 of the same sandwich, and then waited 20 minutes before they came. I was kinda annoyed, given how wet I was. I had really just wanted to take a shower and grab pizza in town, but my father had wanted to eat lunch. But when the sandwiches arrived, I realized why they had taken so long:

As you can see, it's basically like a club sandwich, but they had to cook all the components before it could be assembled. This included cooking the bacon (which I removed and gave to Tom), the chicken breast (sliced thinly), warming the cheese with the ham (which I also removed and gave to Tom) and then there were those french fries. They had probably already turned off the fryer by the time we arrived, so they had to turn it back on and heat the oil.

Overall though, I enjoyed my sandwich, because it was warm and I was cold, damp and starving. That evening, we returned to the Red Mangrove Lodge for dinner at their restaurant, but it just wasn't as good after the food we'd had in Isabela. Also, they served us things that we'd had at previous dinners, so it was nothing new.

Still, we'd had an amazing trip to the Galapagos, and I was pleasantly surprised to have such great food the entire trip - I truly wasn't expecting it.

GALAPAGOS, DAY 8

For the morning of the 8th day of our vacation, we went snorkeling at a little cove on Isabela. It was cool, since the cove was so protected, and we got to see and swim with some sea lions. Then it was off to Floreana, one of the least populated island in the Galapagos chain, with only 200 year round inhabitants. It took a two hour boat ride to get to Floreana, which wasn't too bad. And we encountered a pod of very friendly dolphins.It was pouring rain when we arrived, but we were able to settle into our cabins at the Red Mangrove cabins in Floreana. They were pretty rustic and minimalist. My sister thought it was like camping. I was thinking this is a close as I'll get to camping (I DO NOT CAMP). Then we headed off for a hike to the sea lion breeding grounds. It was actually pretty cool seeing a ton of sea lions hanging out in the family group. Plus we got to see some rays and sea turtles in the water.

After the hike, we all went back to get ready for dinner. We had to shower early, because the island of Floreana is run completely on solar energy. That's pretty awesome, but it also means there's not hot water after 7pm, and the shut off the power in the evenings. Then, it was off for a 10 minute hike to the restaurant. Now as I've said, Floreana has a tiny population, so they don't exactly have restaurants or shops. We had dinner at a local restaurant, which was attached to a woman's home. It was anything super fancy like we'd had previously, but we finally got to have a local meal and it was actually Tom's favorite meal of the whole trip.

We started off with these fried yucca fritters, served with a mild aji sauce.

I've learned that Ecuadorians are totally not into spicy things, so though the aji sauce was supposed to be kinda spicy, it was really pretty mild. Those yucca fritters, though, were delicious. I'm normally not a fan of yucca, but I've never had it served like this. I just gotta say, frying makes everything taste better. And my dad really liked these, too.

Meanwhile, we were also served a bunch of sides. On my plate below, you'll see veggies, potatoes and a salad involving onions and cucumbers. As always, it was served with rice and it was all really delicious.

The main entree had been cooking on a grill right next to our table:

There was locally raised beef and the foil packets contain locally caught fish. I could tell the beef had been cooked until very well done. This isn't how most Americans like to eat their beef, but apparently, that's pretty much how they serve it. (At least that's true according to that No Reservations episode they filmed in Uruguay). Though my father didn't like the fact that it was so well done, Tom didn't mind. I think he liked the flavor of the locally raised, grass fed beef.

As for the fish. I thought it was allright. It was a seasoned white fish, but we'd had locally caught fish many times during our trip, and I just preferred some of the other ones that we had eaten.

Lastly, there was dessert:

We were served a slice of an incredible dense, sweet cake along with a scoop of super dense ice cream (which was supposed to be chocolate ice cream). I ended giving mine to Tom.

Overall, I was glad to finally have a meal involving local foods. I found it all to be delicious, and the experienced could only had been improved had it been moved indoors and away from all the mosquitoes.

GALAPAGOS, DAY 7
Day 7 in the Galapagos involved a hike to Sierra Negra, the second (or is it third) largest caldera in the world. Basically, this meant that we didn't spend a whole lot of time eating that day, so I figured I'd give you some nice pictures of the scenery. Here's a shot of the caldera itself.
And here's a shot of a lava tube:I'll admit, I didn't make it to the part with the lava tubes. I only did about half the hike, and then my parents and I headed back to the hotel where I read and took a nap. So here's a picture of our hotel rooms on the beach:The rest of the party continued on and did a full day's hike, but I just wasn't up to it. I'm really not much of an outdoorsy person, I prefer the urban jungle. By the time everyone had gotten back, it was too late for lunch, and too early for dinner, so we just got a light snack of tuna ceviche (which I didn't photograph).

To be honest, by this point in Isabela, our meals were getting kinda repetitive. I mean, they served us excellent three course meals for lunch and dinner, but I just got tired of documenting it. So I stopped taking pictures. That's basically why I don't remember what we even had for dinner that evening.

What I do remember is that it was the first day of Carnival. Even though Isabela isn't a big island (it only has around 2,000 inhabitants), they had still setup speakers and some stands farther down the beach in the middle of town. I got a tip from my sister that they were serving chicken wings at one of the stands, so after dinner, we headed over to check it out (and my other sister requested that I returned with an ice cream sandwich for her.)

What we found on the beach were people mainly hanging around and drinking beers. We found the place with the chicken wings pretty quickly. There were two ladies grilling the chicken over a make shift bbq. There was a tub full of chicken parts next to them, unrefrigerated and I totally knew I was going to get food poisoning from this (which I kinda did - but it was a mild case). I didn't mind though, it was worth it. I ordered one chicken wing skewer (which cost me $2), and it was totally yummy - grilled food just is. It was juicy and tasty. I don't know how well cooked it was, since it was so dark I couldn't tell what color the meat was, but I enjoyed it anyway. Plus, it was a rare taste of local food.

It was our last nice on Isabela, and we'd really had a great time on the island. I would miss it a lot.