The Girl In Sonoma {San Francisco}

by Emily

Our last two days were spent enjoying the beauty of California wine country. And eating. So much eating! We were trying to pack in as much fun as possible on our last full day and we went a little crazy ordering food. We definitely didn’t finish everything shown, but we did eat quite a lot.

We started Friday with coffee,

and fruit and bread.

We split a Satsuma, an unpictured banana, and a rosemary roll from ACME Bread Company.

We saved the sourdough roll for an amazing lunch of bread, cheese, and chocolate.

Plus earl grey panna cotta for dessert.

We had the Cowgirl Creamery Mount Tam fresh from the source because we were there for a history lesson and cheese tasting.

Best tour of the trip!

After cheese, it was time for wine, with a tasting at Matanzas Creek.

The grounds were gorgeous and the wine was de-lish! We liked it so much we even bought a few bottles to bring to Thanksgiving.

Next up was beer (and more cheese!) at Lagunitas Brewing Company. Brown Shugga was my favorite, unsurprisingly.

They had pretzels out for palate cleansing between tastes,

but we also got a big plate of cheesy nachos.

This was the point in the day where I was getting a little too full!

But we forged ahead with a trip to Bouchon Bakery for a butterscotch éclair.

And finally settled in at The Girl and the Fig for an outstanding dinner.

Those light green olives were shockingly good.

I had to get a lavender mojito, it was made with Cruzan rum!

We started with a cheese plate with apple, house-made fig cake, spiced nuts and baguette.

We choose a P’tit Basque sheep’s milk, Bohemian Creamery’s The Bomb goat’s milk, and a Bleeting Heart Moolicious Blue. Because we had to fit cheese into every single meal that day.

Adam and I shared for dinner. Local mushroom raviolo with sunchoke purée, truffle pesto, local mushrooms, and chicories.

And the house-smoked trout sandwich with farm egg salad, caper aioli, pickled red onion and dill.

Both were absolutely amazing. The sauce under the pasta and the pickled red onions on the trout totally made the dishes.

We got an after-dinner drink with Firelit coffee liquor and Sailor Jerry rum.

And had dessert that was my favorite dish of the entire trip. Chocolate and salted fig caramel trifle with cocoa nibs and Italian meringue.

Adam was amazed by the nibs and I was obsessed with the marshmallowy meringue. Plus we came home with a jar of their salted fig caramel.

We had such a wonderful dinner at The Girl and the Fig that we ended up going back for brunch on Saturday! We met up with a medical school friend who is doing his residency in Fresno and he said The Girl was his favorite Sonoma spot.

Fig Fashioned.

Mussels and frites for the table, which I was totally brave about and ended up loving.

And the best grilled cheese sandwich of my life.

We left completely stuffed; the three of us were barely able to get coffee, hours later.

Our flight was a red-eye and it didn’t leave until after 10 pm so we were able to spend the whole day catching up. Our friend chose to spend his one day off for the week with us so we were thrilled to make the most of it.

A perfect end to a perfect vacation!

25Nov2014

The Slanted Woods {San Francisco}

by Emily

Wednesday morning we stopped at Peet’s for an eggnog iced coffee to go with my Ferry Building farmer’s market pear.

Then we made our way over the bridge through the pouring rain,

and up to Muir Woods for a stunningly beautiful hike.

We bought trusty $4 ponchos to get us through the 4+ miles in the downpour, but I wasn’t able to take many pictures.

Mostly we just got shots of Adam and me being goofballs.

We got completely soaked but still had a wonderful time.

Afterwards we went back to the hotel to dry off before our late lunch at Coqueta, a Spanish tapas place that knocked our socks off.

My cocktail – cream sherry, Luxardo amaretto, sherry vinegar, Manchego, and golden raisins – was one of the best I’ve ever had.

We split a variety of small plates, all of which we enjoyed greatly.

Huevos Nacional – deviled eggs filled with spring pea, smoked pimenton alioli, on pickled saffron potatoes and olive oil poached bonito.

Housemade potato chips with shaved Manchego and vermouth vinegar salsa. A play on bagels and lox of smoked salmon, queso fresco, and truffle honey.

Wild and cultivated mushrooms with garlic, chili, and sherry.

And Catalan-style vineyard greens with a caper-raisin puree, raisins, pine nuts, and garlic. <– my favorite dish of the day

For dessert we did caramel popcorn with Manchego cheesecakes that were amazing caramel lollipops with a liquid cheese filling.

And churros with drinking chocolate and a mixed berry powder for dipping.

Every last bite of this meal was inventive, fresh, and freaking delicious.

After more walking,

a stop at Humphry Slocombe for fluffernutter ice cream with butterscotch sauce, (<– Adam got ice cream almost every day)

and a New Orleans style coffee from Blue Bottle,

we were ready to drink our dinner at 21st Amendment Brewery.

21st Amendment brews Hell or High Watermelon, one of my top favorite beers, so we were excited to taste our way through their menu.

We shared Hell or High Watermelon, Vina, Framboise Forte D’or, Belgian Chocolate Stout, and a yummy honey meade from a guest brewery.

Also, a giant plate of fried cheese curds.

Ridiculous! And we were completely sober by the time we finished the 4 mile trek back to the hotel.

Thursday morning I fueled up with a praline chestnut latte and a local apple.

Plus a great rose macaron that we picked up along the way.

But the super steep hills still totally kicked my butt.

We were supposed to spend the morning in Golden Gate Park but unfortunately the crazy rain scared us away. We ended up eating our way through Japantown.

And actually even getting some Whole Foods hot bar while we hid and tried to keep dry.

Thankfully our afternoon plans were an indoor tour/tasting at Anchor Brewery.

We had a great time and definitely recommend it.

The rain cleared up in the afternoon while we spent some time in Chinatown.

And Boba Guys served us the best bubble teas of the year.

My almond milk coffee with boba and housemade almond jelly was delicious.

Then we were back to the Market Building where we couldn’t resist a final Vietnamese iced coffee from Out the Door.

An ironic choice considering our dinner reservations.

The Slanted Door has been on my list for years and it did not disappoint.

Piña colada – El Dorado 3 year white rum, house coconut cream, fresh pressed pineapple juice, pineapple gum, and lime.

Adam got a truly fabulous steak and I did three veggie options for my meal. Fried kabocha squash – palm sugar & lime caramel sauce, thai basil.

A green papaya salad – pickled carrot, rau ram, crispy shallot, roasted peanut – that was my favorite dish of the day.

And the Catalan Farm spicy broccoli – braised tofu, lion’s mane mushroom. The spongy mushrooms were so cool!

We did another round of churros for dessert.

As well as a brown butter cake trifle with huckleberries, lemon curd, and hibiscus meringue.

The meringues were as tasty as they were gorgeous. A great way to end our fourth day!

24Nov2014

San Francisco Recap, Day 1 & 2

by Emily

If you follow me on instagram you’ve already figured this out, but {surprise!} I’ve been in San Francisco for the past week. Adam had the last two weeks of November for vacation again this year so I took the time off as well. We spent week 1 on the West coast and now we are headed off to Ohio for Thanksgiving family time. So far it’s been great!

I have a ton to share from SF – we basically walked and ate all day, every day – so I’m going to try to keep myself from being too wordy, but I’ll still need to split this up into three posts…

We had non-stop flights each way which was awesome. Monday we flew out around noon so we had a little time at home in the morning and then with the time change a full afternoon of vacation. Plus there was free television and movies on the plane which was basically the most exciting thing ever.

Plane food. Coffee, plus a white cheddar and pumpkin butter sandwich and tasty pretzel sticks.

The time flew by and before we knew it we were struggling up super steep hills on our way to dinner.

We had a late reservation so we stopped for bubble tea first. Brown sugar ice milk with egg pudding and grass jelly. Apparently I love egg pudding. And grass jelly.

And we got to keep our cool bottles.

Dinner was Waterbar, a sustainable seafood spot right near the Bay Bridge.

I got a cocktail with Buffalo Trace bourbon, Heering cherry liqueur, Benedictine, and orange zest.

We split a leek and parsnip soup with smoked trout that was very yummy (I had lots of good trout this trip).

And for dinner I did pan-roasted sablefish – caught in Fort Bragg, CA – with globe artichokes, butterball potato, grapefruit, nicoise olives, and chervil.

I adored the artichokes, but sadly didn’t like my fish at all. This was the only meal that I didn’t love on the trip. My food was practically floating in a watery sauce and I hate that. Adam, on the other hand, thought my dish was great and basically licked his plate clean. He enjoyed his ono with uni butter so much that I still definitely consider the meal a win.

And we did have brown sugar brioche bread pudding, with butterscotch pecan ice cream, for a fabulous dessert.

’twas a great first night.

Tuesday morning we headed out for a run in the neighborhood around our hotel. We ended up happening on the Palace of Fine Arts. It was beyond gorgeous.

I am so glad we got to see it.

We had a beautiful morning exploring Fisherman’s Wharf.

Including a stop for a fresh bowl of crab chowder.

We took the ferry for a tour of Alcatraz.

Then we spent the afternoon at the Ferry Building Marketplace.

We loved it there and went back almost every subsequent day. I was crazy jealous of people buying fancy mushrooms.

We shared a greens 2 juice from Pressed.

An iced coffee with milk and sugar from Blue Bottle.

And a Duck Yeah sundae – vanilla ice cream on duck fat pecan pie – from Humphry Slocombe.

I thought the ice cream was great, but not as good as Ample Hills. Adam looooooved it.

We also hit up Slanted Door’s Out the Door for Vietnamese iced coffee and buns.

Chicken bun for me.

We had dinner reservations at SD later in the week and this first taste got us very amped up.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the piers and staring at the sea lions.

Snacks included salt water taffy,

chunks torn off a loaf of sourdough from Boudin,

and a very lackluster drinking chocolate from Ghiradelli.

The chocolate was literally the only dish that didn’t knock our socks off all week, a pretty good track record if you ask me.

We were exhausted from walking around all day so we did Mexican take-out and hotel room cable tv for dinner.

Mushroom nachos for me.

It was a great first two days!!

Wednesday and Thursday coming tomorrow…

19Nov2014

Pumpkin Beer Mini Round Up

by Emily

Let’s be real – this post isn’t for you guys, it’s for me. I needed a list of pumpkin beers to reference when I freak out next season because the first squashy brew has hit the shelves. Posting to the blog means that my personalized list will be readily pulled up on my cell phone. I promise the next post will be for you! Please do make recommendations in the comments though.

love it – must buy again

ACE, Pumpkin Hard Cider {#3}

Blue Moon, Cinnamon Horchata Ale (no, there’s no pumpkin, but this ale deserves a mention)

Great South Bay, Splashing Pumpkin (pumpkin ale)

Harpoon, Pumpkin Cider

Harpoon, UFO Pumpkin

Ithaca Beer Co, Country Pumpkin (pumpkin ale)

Rogue Farms, Pumpkin Patch Ale {#1}

Southern Tier, Warlock (imperial pumpkin stout) {#2}

like it – could take it or leave it

Elysian Punkuccino (coffee pumpkin ale)

Naked Flock, Pumpkin Cider

Port Jeff, Boo Brew

hate it – do not buy again

Captain Lawrence, Pumpkin Ale

Flying Dog, The Fear (imperial pumpkin ale)

Magic Hat, Wilhelm Scream

What are your favorite pumpkin beers?

17Nov2014

Weekend Top Three

by Emily

{1} I made my Buffalo Chicken Baked Pasta. But I made this version cheesier.

Like, soooo cheesy; I accidentally spilled in most of the bag of cheese when I meant to do an extra sprinkle.

I also added more buffalo wing sauce, a bit more spinach, and swapped in whole-wheat pasta, ranch, and lean ground turkey for chicken breasts.

It was delicious.

{2} We soothed our fiery mouths with pumpkin beers.

All four ended up being fantastic. I wasn’t expecting to love the ales because I tend to prefer stouts and ciders, but they were some of the best pumpkin brews of the season.

{3} I found on-point bubble tea right next to my work.

One of the doctors told me about it and I might have to give her my firstborn. Awesomely chewy boba and tons of flavor options (they even had pumpkin!). Shown above is strawberry rose black tea with tapioca and rainbow jelly.

14Nov2014

Weekly Wrap Up

by Emily

As of this morning, the cold of winter is finally here. Ugh. But I had a good final week of thin hoodies and no gloves. Good eats too! I did a lot of train eating – bars for breakfast, guava cheese empanadas… – but the LIRR was too packed for stealthy photography. Here’s what I did capture…

breakfast {coffee, coffee, coffee}

Never hot, I don’t care if it drops below zero, you can pry my iced coffee out of my cold, dead hands.

Chameleon cold brew with the last of the honey almond milk, which I loved.

Espresso! With milk and sugar.

I tried the chestnut praline latte from Starbucks. I really liked it.

Marshmallow cold brew.

lunch

Turkey, sharp cheddar, and pumpkin butter sandwich on a pumpkin spice English muffin. With an apple and bbq chips.

Plus the last cookie.

Maple raisin oatmeal with a red pear.

And an afternoon treat of Turkish coffee that a coworker brought in.

Dannon Creamery cherry cheesecake (yum, much better than the strawberry!) with chopped strawberries and blueberries. TJ’s kale chips. I passed the kale around the breakroom and my coworkers all said they might buy some themselves.

Dannon Creamery vanilla pudding with strawberries, plus the last of the kale chips and bbq chips. This was the best store-bought pudding I’ve ever tasted. And Adam stole the milk chocolate pudding and loved it.

I tried, and did not love, the new Coke.

dinner

When I got home on Monday, dinner was waiting in the crockpot for me.

Chicken with bbq sauce, smoked brown sugar, and fresh cranberries. I ate mine on a big bed of spinach.

We had salted caramel cheesecake and a yummy pumpkin beer for dessert.

Pizza and salad.

A giant bbq chicken slice from Pinos. The crust on these is amazing, super fluffy and light but still crunchy.

Plus Whole Foods hot bar – garlic broccoli, pickled cucumber, and salad with veggies on top.

We also got hot chocolate that we’d been excited about all week – supposedly it was made with ganache – that ended up being a big cup of hot milk.

You cant win ’em all.

7Nov2014

No Sleep Till Brooklyn; Weekly Wrap-Up

by Emily

Oh my gosh, Brooklyn is so freaking great! <– I could probably just stop here, that pretty much sums up the salient points of this post

I was a little all over the place this week so I don’t have a ton of pictures to share, but Adam and I did go out to two amazing dinners that I need to rave about. Other than that, I have about 30% of breakfast/lunch/snacks.

The husband worked several overnight shifts this week and I took advantage of my alone time by making the super adult decision to stay up until 3am on a work night catching up on the entire new season of “Criminal Minds.”

source

Here are some snippets of cafeteria breakfasts…

That second thing was some biscuit/pastry Western omelet hybrid. Strange, but not bad.

And of course, there were many {many} coffees.

Yogurt bowl lunches…

KIND Banana Nut Clusters with my blackberries and butterscotch peanut butter with my raspberries.

And snacks at my desk…

I also bought the new peppermint cookie chocolate bites from Starbucks and they were great.

Now on to the good stuff, two amazing, fantastic, fantasmic, socks-rocking dinners in Brooklyn!

#1 Berlyn

This space was gorgeous. I couldn’t get any good shots of the décor (or the food for that matter!) but our table felt like it could be sitting in a clearing in some German forest.

I ordered the Hemingway Daiquiri and it ended up being the best cocktail I’ve ever been served.

The menu listed Caña Brava Rum, Luxardo Maraschino, grapefruit juice, and lime juice, but I swear that I could also taste cinnamon in there. I liked it so much I kept us out late ordering a second round after dinner. Adam’s beer was amazing as well; I don’t remember it’s name but it positively reeked of honey.

We shared a house-made pretzel to start,

which came with the best honey mustard I’ve ever tasted. <– noticing a theme here?? I wouldn’t say that Berlyn is the best restaurant I’ve ever been to but many things on their menu were certainly the best ever in their categories.

Adam ordered pork schnitzel for his entrée so I decided to try two small dishes.

Potato pancakes that came topped with smoked trout and pickled cucumbers.

And fried Brussels sprouts with a pine nut aioli.

Best fried Brussels sprouts we’ve ever had and the aioli was seriously indescribably good. Adam and I both were gasping at how yummy it was.

The dessert course didn’t sound quite as terrific to us so we headed over to Four & Twenty Blackbirds for the best espresso in Brooklyn.

And came home with slices of pie to eat in front of “Brooklyn 99.”

My salted honey slice was legit.

#2 Thistle Hill Tavern <– from the owner of Talde and Pork Slope

I ordered a New Old Fashioned, which was made with Four Roses, Laird’s Applejack, maple bitters, lemon, and brown sugar.

So good, though bourbon is always good.

I started with the Kale Taco Salad. Kale dressed in salsa verde with cheddar, spicy pickled vegetables, and a fried tortilla.

This was the best kale salad I’ve ever eaten (<– I’ll stop now, promise!).

Dinner was the fish and chips with their famous salt and pepper fries.

I don’t know why I keep ordering fish and chips because I never eat much of the fried fish, but this was definitely the best version (sorry!) I’ve ever had.

Adam swooned his way through a slice of maple bourbon pumpkin pie,

but I held out for the best ice cream in the world, Ample Hills.

Good God. “No Sleep till Pumpkin” = coffee ice cream with pumpkin gooey butter cake and underneath was “PB Gets Fluffy” = marshmallow ice cream with chocolate flakes and homemade peanut butter cookie dough. Just fabulous. Neither of us could believe how good the pumpkin coffee flavor was.

What is the best restaurant in your city?

4Nov2014

Halloween Weekend Wrap-Up

by Emily

Did everyone have a spooky weekend? Or at least eat lots of candy? I didn’t dress up this year and I didn’t manage to eat a single piece of candy, boo! The whole weekend was pretty lame, frankly. Saturday I spent hours holed up with a friend working on some continuing education credits. And Sunday Adam and I were both a bit under the weather so we took advantage of the time change to catch some extra z’s.

Here were a few fun things…

Hallow’s Eats

Breakfast was on theme. Coffee with chocolate soy milk, an apple, and a Clif Monster Chocolate Mint Z Bar.

The bar was so good, I need to find more of this flavor.

Dinner too. A tasty bowl of leftovers.

Pasta with roasted broccoli, browned mushrooms, rock cheddar, fancy evoo, and turkey bacon (my new favorite kind, from Wellshire).

And I may not have eaten candy, but I did go to Snow Days for shaved ice.

Roasted black sesame ice with mochi and sweetened condensed milk. It was amazing. The ice is sliced into sheets rather than crushed and the texture is totally unique.

Say Cheese

When I was done with my work on Saturday, Adam and I drove up to Port Jeff for a dinner date at C’est Cheese. We shared a beer sampler.

And a cheese plate.

Plus the Spanish Salad.

Field greens / Manchego / orange slices / red onion / black olives / honey tarragon vinaigrette.

Burgers With Bear

We did Sunday brunch at Bare Burger. I got the Western – turkey burger, no bun, with turkey bacon instead of pork and maple horseradish mustard subbed for smokehouse sauce.

With giant bowls of froyo for dessert.

Dinner was Chipotle but I’ve promised to stop blogging about that!

Raw Review

Finally, a product review. I was sent a free sample of Maui Brand Raws Turbinado and Whites Crystallized Natural Cane Sugar.

I received these products free of charge but I was not provided with any additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.

Available on Amazon and in some stores, their sugar cane is grown and processed on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The sugars are non-GMO and vegan (<– not all granulated sugar is vegan).

I tried the sugars (which come in convenient 10 calorie to-go packages) in iced coffee,

and chocolate chip cookies,

and was quite pleased with their functional properties compared with regular sugar. I’m a fan.

Eating Chalk

Tag Archives: booze

The Girl In Sonoma {San Francisco}

The Slanted Woods {San Francisco}

San Francisco Recap, Day 1 & 2

Pumpkin Beer Mini Round Up

love it – must buy again

like it – could take it or leave it

hate it – do not buy again

Weekend Top Three

Weekly Wrap Up

breakfast {coffee, coffee, coffee}

lunch

dinner

No Sleep Till Brooklyn; Weekly Wrap-Up

source

Halloween Weekend Wrap-Up

Hallow’s Eats

Say Cheese

Burgers With Bear

Raw Review

I received these products free of charge but I was not provided with any additional compensation for this post. All opinions are my own.