Archive for the ‘Bay Area’ Category
Chocolate and coffee at Chocolatier Blue
Chocolates from Chocolatier Blue
Chocolatier Blue is a new addition to our chocolate and coffee series. The earlier ones being Recchiuti, Fog City News, Tcho, XoX, Choco-la, ….
- Location: Fourth Street, Berkeley
- Coffee: I forgot to notice – chocolates were too pretty. There is a Peet’s coffee in the vicinity.
- Chocolates: Chocolate tart and flavored Amedei chocolates – champagne and popcorn, grains of paradise (a west African aromatic and peppery spice), ….
Combine growing up on self-sustaining farms, training at Charlie Trotter’s and a passion for the best ingredients … and then add the sensitivity of an artist (this comes from the better half) – you end up with great tasting chocolates so pretty that you wish you have a young love and Valentine’s day just around the corner.
Sex in the city
Financial District, San Francisco
Should have called it “Taste of Italy”….
Find out what Italian food and kinky sex has in common at Perbacco.
If you are going to the financial district of San Francisco, also check out:
Presidio – An escape from within
Officers quarters at Presidio, fog covered Golden Gate bridge in the backround
For me, San Francisco is a pretty city with great food. But, the traffic gets on my nerves. Before our household got a GPS assistant, going to the city invariably meant an argument – about taking the one way only turn, and not finding a parking that cost less than the meal. Now, at least we avoid taking the wrong turn and if we do, we are not pathetically lost.
Kailasa at Stern Grove Festival 2009
Beer and music at Stern Grove
We have recently returned from a short visit to Delhi and are a little home sick. So a couple of weekends ago we decided to go to the Stern Grove Festival for Kailash Kher’s group Kailasa. The thought of soaking in the coolness of Stern Grove listening to Tauba Tauba sounded fantastic after Delhi’s grueling heat and mugginess.
Birds and Bees of Telegraph Hill
Houses of Telegraph Hill
Yes, the famous parrots. Not as many bees as there are flowers. And, last but not the least – the stairs – lots of them.
Telegraph Hill is where Coit Tower sits. You can’t miss Coit Tower if you are in San Francisco. You can see it from far and wide, standing out like a light house which it is not. Long time back, and for San Francisco, 150 years is a long time ago, Telegraph Hill used to be a bald hill. Because of the line of visibility, the location was used as a semaphore line. The role of the obervatory was to note the type of shipping vessel crossing Golden Gate Strait and let the town folk know. Even now, in spite of the dense foliage on the hill, you can see the Golden Gate Bridge.
The very edge of San Francisco
Sutro baths from Cliff House
What have we got at the edge of San Francisco? Sutro baths of course. Our very own modern ruins. And fog. I doubt a hundred years have changed the course of San Francisco’s weather. So, who built a public bath house on a generally cold and often foggy beach? A rich dude, of course. In 1896, Mr. Sutro, who owned most of San Francisco’s western front, built an indoor swimming pool, in fact a set of seven swimming pools, at a cost of over a million dollars. Why? I guess, because he could.
Urban hike in San Francisco, from Ferry Plaza to Fort Point
Marina Greens; Click for a photos from this hike ...
Choose a day that isn’t too cold. Start the walk from Ferry Plaza. If you start on a Saturday, you will be able to pick up your lunch from the Farmer’s market. When you are done exploring Ferry Plaza, start walking westwards and stay as close to the bay as possible. Many of these piers offer pedestrian walkways. The route is unmistakable, so there is little to no chance of getting lost. If you are planning on completing the hike, plan on walking about 10-12 miles and spending anywhere between 3-6 hours.
Here is what you will see on this hike – San Francisco skyline from several vista points, sailboats dotting the sea, yachts moored at the harbors, large container ships crossing underneath the Golden Gate bridge, kites doing acrobatic maneuvers by the marina, kids playing in big or small groups, people of all ages sunbathing or jogging, couples of all genders holding hands or kissing, buildings with military architecture – extensions of Presidio. In spring, you will see Crissy Field in a wildflower bloom.
Walking tour of San Francisco’s Chinatown
Click for photos of San Francisco Chinatown
At first glance, San Francisco’s Chinatown appears to be a collection of trinket shops. Only during the Chinese New Year celebration does this place truly come alive and then one has to be prepared to brave the cold winter rains which often afflicts the celebration, and huge crowds.
Bread, merguez, jam and coffee on a Saturday
Peach gallery; Click for Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market photos
My favorite bread is Acme, charcuterie Fatted Calf, jam June Taylor and coffee Blue Bottle. One place where I can find them all is Ferry Plaza farmer’s market on a Saturday.
It is no doubt a bit of drive from Bay Area. But once you manage to get yourself there, you will definitely break your budget. I promise you that.
Elephant seals of Ano Nuevo
Papa and baby elephant seal
December to March – they arrive, they mate, they have babies.
Elephant seals are big, brown, and blubbery. If you come to Ano Nuevo Beach – a small state park on the California coastline between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz – you will see hundreds of them. Blue sea, choppy waves, rocky waterfront, sandy coastline and what looks like large brown blubbery sacks littered all around. Males weigh 5000 lbs, females 4000 and newborns about 100. Maybe they are called elephant seals because they are elephantine versions of seals, or maybe it is because of the trunk the males have for a nose. Harems of alpha males number in hundreds. Sounds more exciting than seventy two virgins, eh?
Palo Alto, A Joy of Exurbia
Cakes at Satura Bakery, Palo Alto, CA
Aside from being one of the most expensive real estate areas in US that allows them to keep the riffraff out, Palo Alto is also the home of one the best universities in the world, the Stanford University. Its campus, although not as beautiful as the old and dilapidated Berkeley, is home to a wonderful museum, The Cantor Arts Center. This museum comes together with the second largest Rodin collection in the world – an outdoor bronze sculpture garden and indoor collection of wax and terracotta pieces. Rodin was a bit of subversive artist in his times and was considered progenitor of modern sculpture, so now that we are in a modern world, his art reaches out to normal folks who are totally uneducated about mythologies and scriptures. Gates of Hell is a particularly awe inspiring piece that has nearly 200 individual sculptures, including a miniature Thinking Man. In this exurbia devoid of any public collections of great art, this museum is charming.
Gates to nowhere in a sinking city
Alviso Marina
I am talking of Alviso, the little town that can be approached at from Hwy 237, at the southernmost edge of the San Francisco Bay. It had a glorious past and was all set to become an town of utmost importance. But that didn’t happen – train tracks were built to bypass the town. The building of Bayside Cannery – one of the top 5 canneries in US in its heyday – is still standing with murals depicting Alviso’s past and present.
With views as glorious and a neighborhood as quiet, you would think that the real estate prices would be skyrocketing. But Alviso is sinking, little by little. So, it has become a forgotten neighborhood where Bay Area locals come to get a glimpse of the past and enjoy the marshes. Don Edwards Wildlife Refuge leads tours of the Alviso marshes to explain this area’s ecology. They also have events like “Beginning Birdwatching” or “Beginning Bird Photography”.
Grassy Knolls of Skyline Ridge
Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve
Russian Ridge Open Space Preserve. That one is a mouthful. Never found anything Russian about it. It is a bald hill in the midst of not so bald hills, full of dry grasses early in the winter, tall green grasses in the peak of winter and then full of wildflowers in the spring. There are other grassy knolls along the Skyline Blvd but this one is prettier than most. The parking site is a “vista point”. From here, you can see most of the Bay Area including the Bay and the bridges across the bay, which is more often than not, covered in smog.
A hike on a mid-summer day
A leaf on the trail
Purisima Creek trail, a trail through a cool moist canyon is especially delicious on a summer afternoon. I love the towering redwoods, the sound of the creek, the ferns growing along the trail and the wild flowers. I like the challenge of the 1000 feet elevation change and the relative isolation of its 8 miles. I even like the 5 miles of winding Black Mountain Road that connects Woodside to Skyline Blvd.
Locomotoring 