Universal Cafe

April 27, 2009

Yeah, so I was tired on Sunday morning. Run #3 of the mimic weekend was a 5-miler in GG Park, with Sandy, JoJo and Irene. The body was tired, but feeling okay. It was nice to be finished, knowing that I could run 15-miles over three runs in 24 hours. Ew..

Thankfully, I knew that my reward was a good brunch. Will, Double-A and I met up with Key and Katharine at Universal Cafe for some good grub and drink (they have a fantastic fresh lemonade with ginger that is delightful on a summer day...and their strawberry bellini isn't so bad either...)



We shared some bites to start:

Sour cream pecan streusel coffee cake...there was definitely some butter in that crust, so yum!

Toasted banana bread with whipped cream cheese, pretty damn tasty!
Buttermilk cruellers with strawberry compote. Normally I'm not that much of a "donut" fan, but these were delicious, I think it also helps that the strawberries were so fresh and sweet.

I had the fruit plate of local heirloom citrus, strawberries and kiwi fruit, served with Acme toast topped with fromage blanc, cinnamon and honey. The toast reminded of me when I was little and used to make cinnamon toast.

And, I may have had the above side of applewood smoked bacon (to offset the fruit, of course).

Overall, brunch was delightful, although the wait to get a table for 5 was a little long (thank you Key for getting there earlier to put our name down!).

I spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying doing absolutely nothing. In the evening, Gail and I went to go watch Wendy play hockey and to keep Zach company in the stands (a.k.a. explain hockey rules and make comments about how cute Wendy looks on the ice...)

Great weekend! Wish me luck in the Relay next weekend!!!!

Tomales Bay

April 27, 2009

I'm less than a week away from subjecting myself to being part of a 200-mile relay race from Calistoga to Santa Cruz with 11 other awesome ladies. So, as part of all the prep, some of the ladies and I were doing a "mimic" weekend, where we planned to run three times in 24 hours (Sat AM, Sat PM and Sun AM).

The Sat AM run was a 5-mile trail run at China Camp in San Rafael. Joining me was Wendy, Gail, Sandy, Jojo and Kelli. After the run, the ladies (minus Kelli) drove up to Tomales Bay to meet up with Will, Key and Double-A for some oysters. We headed to the Tomales Bay Oyster Co., where we parked ourselves at a picnic table and shucked away. Wendy and I made a quick run to the Marshall General Store to grab some of their awesome clam chowder as well...

After some quality time in Tomales Bay, we made our way back to SF, just in time for Gail, JoJo and I to do Run #2 of the Relay mimic weekend. This time, we met up with Cindy, Heather and Irene at Crissy Field and battled the wind for another 5-mile run.

After that windblown experience, we headed home to clean up. Gail and I met up with the boys at Mad Dog in the Fog to catch the Sharks vs. Ducks playoff game. We grabbed some awesome food at Rosamunde Sausage Grill across the street and watched the Sharks take the game in overtime. 

From there, we headed over to Mars Bar to meet up with "everybody". There was a good crowd at Mars Bar, a conglomerate of frizzer folks. 









There was lots of catching up, dancing, and suddenly it was late o'clock, and I realized that I had to run in the morning.....

We managed to fit in a lot of activity for a Saturday, and I had unwittingly created some exhaustion to truly mimic how I might feel running the last leg of the run in less-than-ideal conditions. Err, yeah. I planned it that way. 

TGILF!

April 26, 2009

TGILF = Thank Goodness It's Lobster Friday

I picked up some live lobsters near work at the New England Lobster Company for dinner on Friday evening at our house. With all the folks in town, we decided it was a good excuse to partake in my favorite shellfish.





Gail and Kat brought crab instead, so Shellfish-master Will helped them steam those up:








Tall guy convention interrupted by some not-so-tall people:




I heart TGILF!

Lime HH

April 23, 2009

It's been a hectic social week. I've been taking a 3-day course downtown, so I took advantage of commuting in the city to enjoy the hot weather and hang out downtown.

On Monday night, it was happy hour with Coco (in town for work) with Will at House of Shields, and then dinner at Farmer Brown with the three of us joined by Adam and Double-A (both also in town for work...quite the theme for the week).

On Tuesday night, I headed to Pisco with some work folks for happy hour that turned into an all-night thing.

And alas, on Wednesday night, I went to Lime to meet up with some other work folks for happy hour...and I finally brought my camera...







Good times! I'm happy-hour-ed out!