Whoopin' it up in the Financial District

Last Friday we decided to live on the edge. Our friends had a babysitter for their one-year-old son, and were meeting us for drinks after work in San Francisco. I think we were all desperate for some adult fun, so we decided to go bar hopping in the Mission Financial District! WHAT?

We had fun too, let me tell you. We met at One Market for drinks after work, only to be confronted with a bar full of half-drunk boring lawyers/businesspeople/stiffs wearing suits - on a FRIDAY? This is San Francisco people. It seemed like a perfectly fine restaurant, but too fancy and too loud for us. Instead we strolled across the street car tracks to Market Bar in the Ferry Building. Within five minutes we were seated with a bottle of cheap (and tasty!) Austrian wine and an overpriced cheese plate. After a long week of work, I need a table at a decent restaurant, friends, and a bottle of wine (noticing the wine pattern around these parts? Man I'm a lush).

The wine caught up with our almost-empty stomachs, so we let Market Bar and got more wine, duh. Little known secret - Taylor's Refresher only charges $1 corkage. $1 gets you 4 real wine glasses, a silver tray, and the cork sucked out of your wine bottle. Add this to a relatively cheap burger, fries, and onion rings, and you're in heaven. And that's before the heart attack.

The Ferry Building isn't exactly bustling at 8pm on a Friday, but the wine bar was definitely open and Slanted Door was busy. Mental note to try the wine bar out sometime...

After we were kicked out of Taylor's (because they were closing) we really felt the pressure. Late nights in the Financial District should not be attempted by amateurs. The street was pretty dark, and the sidewalks were pretty much deserted, but the shining beacon atop the Hiatt called out to us. You have to have a sense of humor before going to Equinox, San Francisco's only spinning restaurant. It's on the 20-something floor of a hotel surrounded by 30-something floor buildings. You do the math.

Another round of cocktails and we were ready for a pretty crappy dessert. Who cares? We were drunk by then anyway. I think we enjoyed the Cockburn Port the best. Cockburn Port, the city spinning around us, a whole evening with our friends...you just need to be a little creative to find the fun in the Financial District.

Going to Napa for something other than wine?!

After a crazy busy holiday season, we're finally excursioning around the Bay Area again! Sitting on the couch was nice for a while, but it finally came time to spread our wings and hop in the car. This past Saturday we trekked to COPIA - The American Center for Wine, Food and the Arts. How California can you GET?

Admission in the month of January is totally free - and I can see why. There was almost nobody there. It was like walking into the conference room floor of a hotel: nice art on the walls, a beautiful view, and a few really interesting exhibits...but that was about it. You could pay for a wine tasting or try freshly-squeezed OJ from a very well-advertised juicer. The cafe was closed for renovations. The exhibit hall was actually very interesting - lots of cool historical information about food, food products, and American cuisine, but I can't say that it really warranted the hour drive.

In retrospect, COPIA would have been a lot more fun if we would have planned to attend one of the many classes they offer - cooking, wine tasting, gardening. We showed up expecting to be entertained, only to realize that we probably should have planned out our entertainment before coming.

The building and gardens were beautiful, and the color-organized kitchen utensils in the gift shop was quite amusing. Next time we go to COPIA, I think we'll TRY to go when it is crowded and busy...then it might not seem quite so slow. Visiting a winery may have been a lot more exciting on a sparse winter weekend.

Feed the Guests

When we have guests visit from around the country, dinner choices become a week-long discussion weighing "uniqueness" against "comfort". Many of our guests don't have the adventuresome restaurant choices in their hometowns that we have in the Bay Area. An out-of-town guest restaurant should be fun and original without scaring the guest! Here is our list of favorite restaurants to take out-of-town guests. We'll keep updating it as we get more ideas!

Chow (SF) - Comfort food at its best, and really cheap! This place is the best for a comfortable, reasonably priced dinner with a little SF flair. The open-air patio in back and exposed kitchen give this place plenty of character to start a conversation. (Yelp)

Cafe de la Paz (Berkeley) - Fun second-floor restaurant overlooking the Gourmet Ghetto of North Berkeley. Looking down on the Gourmet Ghetto for half the price of take-out across the street at Gregoire. Not Bad. (Yelp)

Yoshi's (Oakland) - Go for a show, or just go for dinner, or just go for wine/sake and sushi. You actually get to take off your shoes and sit on the floor. Bring the whole family. (Yelp|Reservations)