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)