Chan-er Turns 33!

September 28, 2008

Wendy's big 3-3 birthday is on the 29th, but we took some time on the weekend to celebrate her birthday.

On Saturday morning, I went for a long run (~11 miles) with Kali and then Will and I started sorting out moving stuff in the afternoon. We took a "moving" reprieve and went to hang out with Wendy and the Spanish surfing contingent at gorgeously-sunny Dolores Park.

For dinner, a good crew of 12 went for dinner to CONDUIT Restaurant for Wendy's birthday dinner.




I had the carpaccio with arugula and spicy peppers to start, yum!
Will and a couple other folks started with the tortellini of braised oxtail, french onion and gruyere. This might have been the winner for the starters, it was delicious!
Gail had the tomato salad with watermelon, basil and ricotta salata. For dinner, a bunch of us had the braised Short Ribs with potato, torpedo onion, carrot and horseradish. This was wonderful, scrumptious, the beef was so tender it almost melted in your mouth. Apparently, CONDUIT is known for this dish, and now I can see why...
Shaun had the roasted pork with sweet corn, fava and bacon. There was nothing left on his plate, so I'm assuming it was good.
Sue Hee had the fettucine with beef-pork sugo and parmagiano reggiano.

After dinner, our plan was originally to go to 500 Club, but early arrivals to that little dive bar alerted us to the fact that there was a funeral wake celebrating the life of some hipster named Bob, so we relocated to Elixir Bar.






Happy (early) Birthday Wendy!

Mission Beach Cafe

September 21, 2008

On Saturday night, Will, Jasmine, John and I went for dinner at Mission Beach Cafe. I had been there for brunch and to pick up Blue Bottle drip coffee before, but had never had dinner there. The menu at Mission Beach Cafe has been re-vamped by new-ish Executive Chef, Ryan Scott (of Myth and "Top Chef" fame), and their pies are masterpieces by pastry chef, Alan Carter.

To start, we shared four plates (delish!):
- fresh shisito chiles with confit cherry tomatoes, fleur del sel sweet corn soup with avocado and tomato oil
- watermelon and cherry tomato salad with basil, fennel and sherry vinaigrette
- mesclun greens and pear salad with radicchio, feta cheese and sugared walnuts
- truffle fries with citrus gremolata and parmesan cheese

We also did a "tasting" of four entrees, which we all shared (can't remember everything that they came with):
Pan-seared yellowtail jack fish with baby carrots,
Sea scallops
Seared duck breast with grilled peaches, baby yukon golds, green olives and hazelnuts
Grilled pork loin

All the entrees were pretty tasty. My favorite was the duck, followed by the pork. The sea scallops were perfectly done and were generous in size, they had an interesting cream-based sauce that was paired with something a little bitter, but worked pretty well. The broth with the yellowtail jack was phenomenal too.

We had some desserts too (the butterscotch banana cream pie was delish!) and then headed home to nurse our food coma.

It was awesome hanging out with Jasmine and John, we didn't get much time to catch up at their wedding in August, so this was perfect! Congrats newlyweds!

Mom & Pops in Town

September 20, 2008

FRIDAY

Ah, TGIF! Today at work, we had a "fun" event, where teams of folks in the Product Development part of Genentech competed in a Pentathlon. I was on the athletics team and competed in a 5K relay and the Tug-O'-War. We did pretty well, I managed to pass a bunch of folks on my leg of the relay. I think I put my back out in the tug. Oy!

My folks are in town, so I headed down to South Bay after the Pentathlon for dinner with the family at my sister's house.

After dinner, I went back up to the city to hang out with Will and our friends from out of town: Double-A, Jasmine and John (coincidentally, all are from Vancouver!). We introduced the Van folks to the stiff drinks at the Latin America Club.



SATURDAY

On Saturday morning, my folks with my Aunt and Uncle rolled into SF to hang out with us. Will and I took them for brunch at Maverick and then we headed over to the new house. My Dad is a locksmith, so he was a big sweetheart and re-keyed all the locks in our new house.

Thanks Dad!

JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge

September 19, 2008




Last night after work, I participated in the JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge that took place at Crissy Field with Team Genentech. Our team won the "Largest Participation Award" for the company with the highest number of registered runners (388). Our company also sponsored great long-sleeves technical shirts for us to run in. Sweet!



The Corporate Challenge is a 3.5 mile race, and the route started at Sports Basement, and looped Crissy Field to Fort Point and back. It was a gorgeous night and the views of GG Bridge were inspiring.

It was an interesting race for me, I wasn't sure how to pace myself, as this was the shortest race I've ever competed in. In ended up running the course in 30:39 (~8:42 min/mile), which I was happy with (my goal was to run at least a 9 min/mile pace).

Go Genentech!

Working on New Material

September 14, 2008

It was another fantastic weekend in the city, gorgeous weather, lots to do, friends to enjoy. Our friend, Double-A, came into town early for his work trip and hung out with us in the city over the weekend. Will and Wendy took him surfing on Sunday while I enjoyed the city, snuck in an 8-mile run along the Embarcadero (during San Francisco Sunday Streets!), and then hung out with Key in Hayes Valley. The surfers got back in the city early in the evening and we headed to North Beach, where we grabbed yummy Indian food at Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House (this place cracks me up, good and affordable North/South Indian food at an Irish pub...love it!).


Why North Beach you ask? It's because our main reason for going to North Beach was to meet up with Robert and Sue Hee to catch "An Evening with Robin Williams: Working on Material" at Bimbo's 365. Robin Williams is a SF local who regularly does last-minute shows at Bimbo's to test out new comedy material, with the proceeds going to charity.

This show was hi-larious! He is so funny, the show was about 90 minutes of pure bust-a-gut fun.
I have so much respect for comedians, especially the really good ones. Big ups to Robert who gave us the heads up about the tix going on sale on Wednesday. Super sweet!

Saturday Night With the Kiddies

September 14, 2008

On Saturday night, I headed down to south bay to babysit the kiddies so that Angie and Jack could go out and celebrate Jack's birthday. Those kids crack me up...

Lobster! Lobster! Lobster!

September 13, 2008

Do you know what the month of September means? It's back to lobster season!!! (That is, if you follow the only eat shellfish in a month ending in "r", a.k.a. not during the summer). There's a great wholesale lobster company close to my work called the New England Lobster Company, where we get fresh lobsters for $10.95/pound. Sue Hee was gracious enough to host, so we brought all the fixin's and feasted!











Good times! Good eats!