Green

Met up with iron-wife after her late biz lunch on Powell Street at Scala. She pull me aside excitedly. Had to show me a nice man sweater. Nice Green. Very bright. I could definitely look in my suitcase and locate it compared to my all black items. I looked at the label. Ummm.... Canali. Urrr... After an hour, I had two de-constructed blazer, two shirts and two cashmere sweaters. The owner and his assistant were so helpful. Turned out, the owner's nephew was the guy who we would need to talk to in Shanghai! What a small world.

With the new clothes, I am set now. I got an additional 10% on top of the 30%. That was because I couldn't decide which blazer to get. The owner gave me an offer I couldn't refuse. I basically got all the stuff that normally would have cost in the high 4 digits. Well, I love the stuff but never bother as the Canali brand name was way beyond my needs. With the discount, now that was an incentive.

These guys were so smooth, friendly and not pushy. They actually gave good advise. Quite good service.

MMMMM

YUMMY!  Man, we just could not say how much we enjoyed our meal in the Millennium Restaurant in San Fran.  http://www.millenniumrestaurant.com/    Found out tonight, this is a vegan restaurant so no goat cheese!  Now, that's my restaurant!  We did a walk-in as we couldn't get any reservation.  The hostess was kind enough to give us a table; we arrived at 6:30pm and the table was for 8pm.  Iron-wife had the mushroom with coconut curry.  I had that and it was good.  Tonight, I ordered the squash risotto.  Wow!!!!  The dish was creamy and had nuts on top along with a thick slice of squash.  The combination in my mouth was exquisite!  I ate half and the rest to iron-wife.  Had to share such a dish!  

Yes, anyone who visits San Fran should definitely try it.  We believe this restaurant is much better than Greens that we tried last night. 

2 G's

No 2G as in dollars.  It was the first letter of the restaurants we had our meals.  So wonderful!  Unbelievable was all I could say.  The first one was in Berkeley.  We drove over from San Fran.  The name: Gather.  Here's the link: http://www.gatherrestaurant.com/  Go there!  From San Fran, one can take the BART all the way there.  Or drive if you have a GPS and dare to drive.  It was just insane how people drive here.  I had a Corolla, should have a tank!  Anyway, this article is all about food and not driving.  

At Gather, I had a Pollenta, lentil and poach egg dish.  The flavour.  Iron-wife had a hearty tofu skin sausage with potatoes and leeks I believe.  Wonderful taste.  Did I mention enough about that?  Our dishes were about USD 13 plus taxes.  Soooo good.  It wouldn't have anything to do with the 2-hour workout we had before hand :-P

We drove around Berkeley afterward.  What a d! ve at some places!  Only pockets of cute places.  Really sliding downward. 

We drove home through the Bay Bridge with a quick stop at Treasure Island.  Nice view.  Iron-wife has the pictures, will post later.  After the hard rain last night, the view was spectacular.

In the afternoon, we walked all the way to the Fisherman Wharf from the hotel.  Took the long way.  We burned a lot of calories today.  We headed to Greens for dinner.  It is the Mecca of vegetarian food.  Apparently, the chef is very famous. Restaurant link: http://www.greensrestaurant.com/   This place was located in building A of Fort Mason, at the far end of Fisherman Wharf.  Wine was good: Pinot Noir 2007 California.  Sampler plate of appetizer: sweet potatoes, beets, brown rice with walnut.  Then the Lentil soup.  Wow... Our main courses, they were fantastic.  Iron-wife had the mushroom Shepard pie; I had the chili.  Soooo Soooo good - except mine!  It was good but there was goat cheese.  That's one of the food that I couldn't stand. Strong goat cheese would make me throw up.  Bummer as the chili was good less the goat cheese.  The mocha Iron-wife had as part of the dessert was the best I had.  Convinced her Starbucks was no where close to this calibre.  She agreed.  Not cheap though.  USD 150 later.  

With all the good food, we decided to walk home from Greens.  Almost an hour walk up hill about 1/2 of the time.  We sweated.  The cool San Fran evening weather didn't stop us.  

nice meal

Wow, what flavour! We had a superb meal tonight at the Millennium Restaurant here in San Fran. Link here: http://www.millenniumrestaurant.com/restaurant/index.html I had the flannel soup with crushed nuts. The flavour and the texture. Then I had a Portobello mushroom dish with apple salad and coconut curry. So nice. I used Opentable.com 1/2 hour before our reservation. Walked there from the hotel. Seated and the way we went. This restaurant was a vegetarian one but served alcohol. I had to say, alcohol and vegetarians just don't mix. I had a martini and 5 minutes later it went into my head. Price not that bad. Two of us: 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, 1 wonderful dessert and, 2 drinks later. The cost was USD 103.00. Not bad for downtown San Fran.

tour

We have completed the first half of our NA tour. Started from the East Coast we are moving West.

Today we woke up at 3:15am, at the airport by 4:30am, through security by 4:55am without body scanning. I have enough of a dose, thank you. 4:56am, triple-shot skim milk latte at SB. That was the best one I had from SB anywhere. Hot, foamy and strong vs the usual watery brown liquid. At the airline check-in counter, I finally realized my membership has been moved up to Silver. Wow, so exciting. NOT. I had to fly that airline in the States. Lesser of the evils out there.

Couldn't complain as we are now both a Platinum & Silver members with upgrade vouchers and all. We got auto-upgraded to Biz class for this East Coast to West Coast trip. Nice, in a sense we were not in coach cramped for hours with peanuts and filthy seats.

We did a station stop at MSP, the central hub of our American airline. Pretty much spent the day w/ iron-wife's sister family. 3 young ones. Energetic. We did brunch, a basketball game, tunnel digging in the snow, iPad demo, Xmas gift exchange, playing with kids. A full day. By 3:45pm we were on the road to the airport. 4:40pm we were on the flight to the West Coast. One Scotch, 3 glass of nice red wine and a chicken dinner and yes, free Wi-Fi on board (thanks G 00g le!), I dozed off most of the flight. The liquid intact was my "sleeping pill". I was gone....... Woke up just in time for landing. A short taxing we were at the Terminal.

Took the BART downtown. What a run-down piece of crap. I was spoiled in China, clean efficient subway and cars. Scary thought! Guess things here were a bit complacent. A $uper p0w er is becoming a 3rd world c0untry, and not knowing it!

Off the train after 45 min or so, 3 blocks of hauling bags and harassed by a bagger we arrived at our hotel. A "Green" hotel that won awards. Orchard Garden (it was such a memorable name I had to look up from my iCal). Walked into our room... Small... Smelly too. As if the guest before us forgot to change socks. The bathroom was about 1/2 the size of the room. The actual room, if my A$$ was any bigger, I could have problem walking between the bed and the desk. The free Wi-Fi... This is SF man, the free meant restricting the speed to 512K. How backward was that? I had to purchase the 1.5M speed! The provider was not the hotel. It was directly charged to my credit card from the provider. The silly part, the programmer didn't even have a drop-down box for country. A 2-alpha box for countries. "CA" or "CH" for China? I am going to cancel my reservation for our return trip next week in SF. Not worth the money. O yes, the gym. Big sign, small room. 2 bikes and 2 treadmills. That was it.

Head spinning... East Coast time, 2:25am Sunday. West Coast 11:25pm Saturday.

totally spent

my energy that is. It has been a ride the last 3 weeks. I have been to HKG, MFM, Guangzhou and Shanghai. Traveling, working, rescuing..... Just spent. Many different directions and not enough energy and sleep. No detail postings to this site until after I am in the air again next Monday. That is, I'll download my last few weeks of experience to my laptop and when I land in Boston Monday evening next week, I'll just do rapid firing one after another. Yes, I am doing an American trip, unexpected. BOS->MSP->SFO->SMF->....->SFO->SEA->NRT->PVG. All in 2 weeks. It all started with a 2 1/2 days of work meeting on 19th to 21st. Wild imagination huh?

All I am saying is doesn't matter how many adjust and review and align conversations I had with these owners of the Shanghai business, they are screwed due to their "I am better than everyone of you guys, do as I say, and everything will be perfect". Right... We just WASTED 2 months of nothing because of that! My adjust conversation finally went to the employees instead; in 2 weeks, we had what we needed to make things happen; too late. We are pulling out. We put in 100% and they didn't believe in our thinkings. "We are still the best!". Refused to use email, no reply, "If I have time, I will call you because I think you are worthy at the moment"; otherwise, I'll yell at you because I think you are stupid. Wow... found out the "English" writing was not even Grade 5 and couldn't even type Chinese! I lost money in this deal. More later.

On my 4th bottle of red wine in 2 weeks. Or was it 5th bottle now?

T'is the season

November and December much anticipated hairy crab season.  Time to consume!  The Queen of Macau just love her food.  The delicacy.  She allotted 4 hairy crabs for me.  Really appreciated.  These were the pricy ones.  In one sitting, Queen of Macau can have about 7.  Wow...  Best to consume w/ vinegar as well as the 12 to 20 years old Chinese yellow wine to break the richness from the roes.