Monthly Archives: November 2008

Sai Jai Thai Restaurant and busy day…

Leave a reply

I’m tired and the weather wasn’t pretty today. At least I didn’t have to go to work so we had time to do some fun stuff today.

Our friend Susan is getting married so she invited me to go with her and friends for wedding gown shopping. She made an appointment at the Bridal Galleria in Embarcadero since they were having a Lazaro trunk show. I never did the bridal gallery type of wedding gown shopping so I was excited to go.

I took the Muni to the Ferry Building and had a very entertaining ride by our bus driver. We (Ron also decided to go downtown to work) took the 38L which passes by the Mervyn’s on Masonic and the bus driver was like “our next stop is Mervyn’s and Best Buy. Mervyn’s is going out of business so they’re having a big sale! So go check it out!” A few people chuckled on the bus. He had different comments for almost every stop. The only problem was that when I got to the back of the bus, I couldn’t hear him anymore and sort of overshot by stop by one and had to backtrack to the Ferry Building.

As we waited for Virginia, we got in the long coffee stand line. We had to fortify ourselves with Blue Bottle Coffee before heading to the bridal gallery.

The staff there was very helpful and the designer was there! I was excited to see all his beautiful gowns and it was fun to see Susan trying them all on. I was shocked because I didn’t expect Susan to actually pick a gown but she chose a very elegant gown. Seems like today, many of the brides who came in actually bought their wedding gown… there was a woman next to us who was having trouble breathing after she chose her gown.

That appointment took almost 3 hours so I was starving by then so I went with Virginia to meet up with our SO’s since they were together. We ended up going out for late lunch, early dinner at Sai Jai Thai Restaurant which is in the Tenderloin. It’s a bit of a sketchy neighborhood but the food is really good. There was some guy harassing a woman outside of the pool hall that was only a few doors down, he was cussing her out in front of the place… a bit scary to just walk by so I don’t think I’d frequent this place after it gets dark.

Dan and Virginia love this place so they did the ordering. We had the papaya salad with the salty crab. This was super spicy! But very yummy. The salty crab was a bit weird though, kind of sweet and savory. Dan says it’s been fermented.

We also had the red curry with chicken. It was spicy but also sour so it cut the edge off the papaya salad. It went well with some rice but we think next time we order red curry to choose beef instead.

Lastly, the famous pork shoulder. The crispy edges are really good and the dipping sauce makes the dish.

After our meal, we headed back home to rest then went out again to our friend Dwight’s housewarming and birthday bash. It was good to catch up with new and old co-workers but now I’m exhausted.

Sai Jai Thai
771 O’Farrell Street (b/w Larkin & Hyde)

Restaurant Cassis

Leave a reply

http://www.restaurantcassis.com/

I had dinner with Shirley and Patrick tonight at Restaurant Cassis, a restaurant only about 3 blocks away from where I work. We thought we’d try this place since they have a three-course prix fixe menu for $25 so sounded like a good deal. They offer the prix fixe menu Sun thru Thurs 5:30-7pm (closed Mon).

Parking is pretty easy around the area, mostly street parking unless you want to park farther away at any of the lots around the area (which are expensive!).

The staff was very attentive upon my arrival. The restaurant seemed quite spacious and there were maybe four other sets of diners. It was weird though, when they were going to seat us, they wanted to stick us between two couples at this table near the window when there was a perfectly nice round table for three in the middle of the room. We chose the round table.

They brought us an amuse-bouche (free food is always a plus) of toast with salmon cream cheese.

You can see their prix fixe menu updated online. The appetizers did not sound all that appetizing unless you wanted to pay a few extra dollars for an “upgrade”. We did not so Shirley and Pat chose the soup of the day: mushroom soup and I had the gazpacho.

I’m not sure the last time I had gazpacho but I didn’t really enjoy the texture, it was a little “grainy” for me, like it wasn’t blended enough or something. I drank every last bit though since I still liked the flavor.

For the entree, I had the mussels served with fries. This dish is very deceiving in that Patrick thought he’d still be hungry after only fries and mussels so he ordered a large side of spinach. As he was eating though, he already started to be full since he ate all the fries and kept on soaking up the soup with bread. Yummy stuff.

For dessert, I had the frozen grand marnier souffle with orange zest. Very creamy and I loved the whipped cream. The orange zest was a bit weird for me though, too strong.

Shirley had the berry crisp which didn’t have enough berries, just a lot of cream and deep fried pastry. Patrick had the floating dessert which tasted like those marshmallow Peeps!

Overall, it was a dinner worth the $25 but we all agree, if we go there again, we’d likely order from the regular menu instead. It was good to catch up with Patrick and Shirley and I hope we can do it again soon.

Restaurant Cassis
2101 Sutter Street

National Novel Writing Month

Leave a reply

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

This month is National Novel Writing Month. What is it exactly? Well, I think of it as sort of a challenge. It’s a way for people who have always wanted to write a novel but thought they never had time. Starting November 1st, you just start writing and writing and writing… and the goal is to finish a 175 page (50,000 word) novel by November 30th.

I first tried to do this about 3 years ago and didn’t get past 10,000 words… for one, probably my novel idea wasn’t very good and also I procrastinated and didn’t start writing until mid-November.

So going to try it again… going to start writing today… and sorry I won’t tell you my story idea but if it’s any good, maybe one day I’ll post it…

Check out their site and let me know if you’re going to join in so we can push each other to finish!