Monday evening, it's 8:00PM pacific time. My work day is over. I'm wiped out. I'm at Bacar, 448 Brannan St in South Beach San Francisco. I just had an excellent garlic and potato soup topped with bacon. Mmmmm. I had a Hocus Pocus California Syrah 2005 from Santa Barbara County.. Not good. Too austere to green. Not what I want in a Syrah. I knew I should have ordered the Aussie Syrah. Ce' la vie. Not to be a quitter I switch to a Bordeaux. Chateau Larruau, Margeaux 2002. Heavenly. Wow! It makes me close my eyes when I drink it. It's so silky smooth. I'm transported, my mind calms and clears. It makes me think of Molly. Mmmm, and she'll be arriving about midnight tonight. Did I mention there's been a jazz duo serenading my nightly meal. Stand up bass and tenor sax. Nice. I'm tired, chilled, mellowed, jet lagged, content.
Walking back to the hotel through SOMA is a kaleidoscope of San Francisco citizens. A women singing opera on the sidewalk outside the Hotel Utah. An assortment of geeks, goths and hippies eating a late night meal at Whole Foods and a skateboarder barreling down 4th St. barely stopping at a red light at Folsom. I get back to the hotel and crash hard. I'm awoken by the phone about 12:30 AM. It's the desk clerk. In a voice that sounds more like a question than a statement he says "Sir, your wife is here?" Hah! How does she look I ask? Just kidding. I say yeah that's right, send her up and I fall back into slumber.
6:00 AM Tuesday and I'm out on the streets again. The sky is just starting to lighten, the San Francisco Chronicle trucks are making their rounds, light foot traffic populates the sidewalk. It always surprises me to see so many homeless sleeping right on the sidewalk. A city with so much wealth and with so many homeless people living on the streets is a confounding juxtaposition. I always flash back to 1980's New York. You don't see that much more in NY. What's up SF?
Wednesday night. On a recommendation from someone at the bar in Bacar Molly and I are off to Cole Valley to a restaurant called EOS for dinner. The restaurant is at the corner of Cole and Carl. What a great little corner of San Francisco. We made it a goal not to go anywhere we've ever been before. We're deep in SF. Down in a handsome residential neighborhood of three story victorians and beautiful tree lined streets. What a comfortable place. We take a little stroll and then enter EOS for the meal of a lifetime. Every bite of food was a surprise and a total sensation. The food was Asian Fusion. The chef was asian magician.
Afterwards we walk down Cole three blocks to Haight Street to Amoeba music records. This is one of the greatest hippy dippy, punk rock, alt music, all-music stores on the planet. I love all the Fillmore West concert posters for sale. That's SF style art. You don't see that anywhere else. As the Ramones squawked Gabba Gabba Hey at us we lingered and browsed. We looked at old Cramps records, Beatles and Marley. Holding hands, we left.
Time for one night cap though. We take a quick cab ride to the St Regis. What a great bar. Great ambiance and sophistication. The bar area is defined by a five foot bank of flames set in a glass rock encrusted fireplace. The floor is dark woods. It's a stripped 6" parquet floor. The lounge is populated with asian influenced furniture and jazz electronica fills the empty spaces. As we sip our wine and nosh on our artisianal cheese plate with grilled breads I'm wishing this was our hotel. Definitely a nice way to end the day.
Thursday we breakfast at the Grand Cafe at the Monaco Hotel. What a great room! The ceiling rises two stories and the whole room is so well done. Every surface is designed and decorated. It's like modern French Rococo with a San Francisco twist. Not overdone or overwrought but perfectly understated with bold and whimsical sculptures. The room is a delight to be in.
After breakfast is a brisk walk up San Francisco's Knob Hill to get the blood pumping. We're headed to the Top of the Mark. Closed! But lucky for us we spy Grace Cathedral and spend time exploring it's cavernous spaces. Next we cab it down to the Union Street shops. The street is perched above the Marina District and below Pacific Heights. We spend a sun soaked afternoon milling about, poking in and out of shops, restaurants, coffee shops and bars. When the day is done we head back to The Monaco where we're greeted with a Wine Tasting in the lobby that includes a masseuse and a Tarot Card reader. We're definitely not in Kansas anymore.
Friday we tour through South Beach. We stroll by my haunts when I'm working in SF. My wine bar, Bacar, my lunch place, BrickHouse, my favorite place to sip coffee el fresco, Centro in South Park. What a feeling it is to sit and have breakfast, soaking the sun and savoring the green grass and trees while it's freezing in Boston.
Back to the adventure though, the next morning we hop on San Francisco's subway system called BART. We've planned to take the N-Judah line to Golden Gate Park and the de Young Museum. We chance upon a retrospective of Vivenne Westwood. I didn't know who she was and was thrilled to find out she was married to Malcom McClaren and was the fashion force behind the Sex Pistols and the punk rock scene. Ah, glory days. That was a fun exhibition. To see the clothes I used to wear in a museum. Does that mean I'm a dinosaur? We also went up the viewing tower at the DeYoung. What great views of the west side of San Francisco. You can look out across the rooftops of the Richmond District, the verdant greens of Golden Gate Park, the hills climbing up to Twin Peaks and more rooftops of the Sunset District as it's elevation drops to the winking Pacific.
Why take the Bart back? We hop on the bus and motor along the southern edge of the Richmond District. We cut southward across town and find ourselves in Hayes Valley. We hop off the bus and are soon seated in a French establishment called Absinthe. We pass on the Absinthe and order a couple of beers. Two tall pilsners of perfect color and temperature. We sit at the bar and soak up the ambiance. The decor is French brasserie, fresh loaves of bread are piled in a metal basket on the wall. The bar fills with after work and neighborhood clientele. The dyke bartender easily stays ahead of the orders. The bar sits on a corner and we watch the world pass as we idle in Hayes Valley. This was such a nice little interlude I know I'll be back to Absinthe again sometime. We leave to meet friends at the Petite Cafe in the Monaco Hotel. The Petite Cafe is a masterpiece in Nouveau design.The design is all swirling and curvaceous from floor to ceiling. The bartender was a tile man by training and decided he had to work in the Petite when he saw the floor. It's an incredible curving mosaic. There's another whimsical sculpture here mirroring the one in the Grand Cafe. We enjoy the company of friends at the bar until our eyelids get heavy. Not wanting the day to end we reluctantly call it a night.
Saturday morning arrives. It's our last day together before I leave. We've been all over the city. What's left to explore? Lots! We get a late start and I think since it's past noon maybe we could hit a little Russian Hill wine bar called Bacchus we heard about on Hyde Street. No such luck. It's way to early to be open but we get incredible views as we stroll north. To our right is an incredible view of Coit Tower with the White City's roof tops marching towards us over the rolling valley below. We soon pass the crookedest street in the world, Lombard St and looking north take in an incredible view of the bay. We hoof it down the hill to the west and into the Marina District. We venture into Fort Mason and discover a "secret" ocean front walk from Fort Mason to Fishermans Wharf. It always drives me nuts that when I'm at Fishermans Wharf that I can't just drive over to the Marina and to the Golden Gate Bridge. Now I know there is a land route! Just not for cars.
After our walk we head back to the Marina and brunch at Grand Cafe (not the one at the Monaco) on Chestnut St. The sun is shining and families are out. The street is alive with Saturday morning activity. We poke around the shops and book stores. After making the loop on Chestnut we head up Fillmore Ave and stumble on Fillmore's Spring Festival. We find the best shops on our trip on Fillmore. There are high end design shops mixed with funky kitschy antique and "junk" shops. All the shops have wine tastings and hors d'oeuvres. But before I jump in a cab and head to the airport we head down to the Ferry Building Wine Merchants wine bar to sample a couple flights. The Ferry Building is a recently renovated waterfront masterpiece. It's huge cavernous interior has been turned into a food lover's nirvana with beautiful organic, gourmet and artisinal foods All over San Francisco wine bars offer flights which are wine tastings. We order a flight of red and a side of cheeses and bread. Typical of the whole trip electronica music is the background for our final soiree. The place is packed. The wine is good. We're sitting close, side by side, touching, keeping warm, savoring the moment. Ah l' amour.
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