My Big Sister is 33!

June 7, 2007

June is a busy month, especially with so many birthdays to celebrate. This time, it was my sister's, who's 33rd birthday was yesterday. My mom was still in town (she leaves today...boo!), so we had a great gathering at my sister's house in San Jose.

A bunch of family and my sis' buds filled up on take-out persian food from Saffron Restaurant in San Jose. The restaurant itself is located in a pretty depressing strip mall close to where I used to live in San Jose, but they do a lot of catering and take-out business and the food was great.

Lots of obligatory cute shots of the kids and family are below.

Happy Birthday Angie! Safe travels to my mom!

Our Favorite Swede Turns 28!

June 5, 2007

Last night, we went to Andalu in the Valencia Corridor to celebrate Anna's 28th birthday...

We ordered a ridiculous amount of small plates, check out some pics below of a sampling of the many dishes:

Never a disappointment, the Ahi Tartar Tacos with Chili and Lime, Mango Salsa. On Tuesday nights, Andalu has a special where they serve up $1 Ahi Tartar tacos...yum!

Cambazola Cheese Fondue with Fuji Apples and Asian Pears
Halibut Paillard with Cilantro, Ginger, Soy, and Hot Grapeseed Oil
One of three Sliders - Mini Burgers with Basil Aioli and Tomato, Shallot Rings
Braised Lamb Cheeks on Parmesan Mashed Potatoes, Natural Jus with Rosemary
Banana Lumpia Split with Dulce de Leche Ice Cream, Chocolate and Caramel Sauces
Fresh Donut Holes with Castillian Hot Cocoa

When we had all first sat down for dinner, we noticed that there was quite the gathering at the main bar, right next to our long table. This was when I noticed that Andalu now had a full bar (previously, they only had a wine license). This was a good thing. The next item in the train of consciousness was that all the people at the bar were women, namely lesbians. We were curious. It didn't help that one lady coupling kept making out next to our table and right next to Sandy.

Turns out that the ladies were out to support an artist named Tiz, who had done most of the art that was displayed on the walls of Andalu. The two below of roosters were particularly scary.

After dinner, some of us grabbed a drink down the street at Kilowatt. It's such a natural transition to go from Andalu to Kilowatt...

Happy Birthday Anna!

Weekend Re-Cap: Olivia's Big Dance Debut

June 3, 2007

FRIDAY NIGHT

My mom flew into SF on Friday night, which also happened to be her birthday (June 1). Will and I picked her up and brought her to our new hood where we took her for a nice birthday dinner at a cozy little neighborhood restaurant called Sumi. Sumi has been in the neighborhood for close to two decades and the owner, a little asian woman named Sumi Hirose, is apparently there every night. Sumi is credited as one of the first true asian fusion restaurants in the city

Will and I had walked by this place numerous times on our recent neighborhood jaunts, and we had been interested in trying it out. Especially because they boast a 3-course $25 prix fixe menu from 5:30-7 pm nightly.


Anyway, my mom didn't fly in until close to 8 pm, so we missed out on the prix fixe deal, but alas, we were not disappointed. I didn't have enough time to go home and grab my digicam, so no pics here, but we enjoyed some great dishes.

Mom and Will started with the soup of the day (with applewood smoked ham and garbanzo beans), while I had the smoked salmon served on Belgian endive and with a fantastic pickled ginger/cucumber salad. For an entree, I had the pan-roasted duck breast served with a sweet cherry sauce, wild rice pilaf and sauteed spinach greens. Mom had the halibut and Will had the salmon, all very good picks.

SATURDAY

I was amazed that my mom let me sleep in, knowing that she was anxious to see the little ones in south bay. We headed down there by lunch time for kiddie time.

Olivia has been taking Age 3-4 combination tap-ballet dance classes at Dance Attack Studios in Los Gatos since last fall, and has been loving it. The big event on Saturday night was the Ice Cream Dance Recital that the dance school was putting on for some of the classes.

Check out the pics of Olivia getting ready for her big debut:

Olivia's combo class was doing a tap performance to "Rubber Ducky", so their costumes were bathing suits, matching towels and yellow ribbons in their hair...awwww.....

Check out the video of Olivia rocking the "Rubber Ducky":

After the recital, they handed out ice cream sandwiches, guaranteed to spoil everyone's dinner. Our family headed to Cupertino to Dynasty Seafood Restaurant for dinner. The bonus of going with my aunt and uncle is that we get pretty good service because they are regulars.

After dinner, I went back to the city to grab Wendy and meet up with a couple friends in town from Calgary, Rob "Warzone" and his girlfriend, Anna at Casanova in the Valencia Corridor.

SUNDAY

Sunday was a really nice day overall. Not so much weatherwise, but for my sanity. I had a ncei sleep in, and then Will and I walked around the corner to try out brekkie at JavaLisa. Javalisa is a nice little coffeeshop with food on 18th street where Market curves north-south. They have good coffee and a nice menu of crepes, bagels and omelettes. I had the New Orleans crepe, with chicken, mushrooms, onions, sundried tomatoes and cheese, yum!

After brunch, I caught up on life stuff at home, and then went to Lake Merced with Key and Katharine to do the 4-mile loop. My butt needed that run.

Later that evening, I made dinner for Will, Kenny, and Key, part of a small pre-going away for Kenny, who's hitting the road to Montreal later this week. I whipped up a pan of extra-meaty lasagne and mixed salad.

Believe or not, Kenny actually had some salad, so he can no longer be labeled a "salad dodger".

Rioting At GenArt's ShopSF

June 1, 2007




Last night, I volunteered to represent sweetriot chocolate at the Gen Art ShopSF event at The Galleria:San Francisco Design Center in SOMA. What???

• Q: What is sweetriot?
• A: sweetriot is a start-up chocolate company out of New York that sells these amazing little dark chocolate-covered cacao nibs in three flavors: 50, 65 & 70.

• Q: What is Gen Art?
• A: (From their website) Gen Art is the leading arts and entertainment organization dedicated to showcasing emerging fashion designers, filmmakers, musicians and visual artists. With offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami and Chicago Gen Art produces over 100 events annually ranging from a week-long film festival to massive star-studded fashion shows, DJ competitions, art exhibitions, multi-media events and much, much more.

So, last night's event was called ShopSF, and was showcasing fashion designers, in addition to having fun with shopping, cocktails, music, and some pampering. My friend, Geneve, works with sweetriot and they needed a little help with west coast representation to help with manning a table for sampling sweetriots awesome chocolate covered nibs.

• Q: What is a nib?
• A: meat of the cacao bean – the fundamental item from which chocolate is made. These dark, rich bits remain when the shells detach from the beans after they have been roasted.

Thanks to a crash-course in sweetriot chocolate products and the company, we answered a lot of questions.

A short re-cap of the sweetriot sampling activities and some of the questions that we fielded:

• Crowd favorite: Flavor 65
• Most commonly asked question: How much caffeine? (Answer is: a 1 oz. tin of sweetriot nibs have less caffeine than a 1.4 oz. cup of decaf coffee).
• Where can you buy sweetriot locally? Check out the website here, but you can buy individual tins at retailers such as Bi-Rite, Rainbow Grocery, Real Foods, Harvest Market, Village Market, Draeger's, Berkeley Bowl.

Check out a couple pics below of the sweetriot volunteers:

Anyway, it was a fun event and there was a ton of good people-watching. Check out sweetriot if you ever see it at a local store or event! So good...