Getting into vacation mode

Hi everyone and Happy Sunday! I am psyched to have another day off to hang out with my hubby. I can’t tell you how nice it has been being able to devote time to each other alone, without housework or work or family around. We are off exploring Napa today, but I wanted to tell you about some of our trip so far.

Right after checking into our lovely hotel, we needed lunch like never before. As always, I had done a lot of research on the restaurant offerings in the area, and I knew where I wanted to go. There was no time for photos along the way, it was mission food.

We only had to walk a few blocks before we reached Market Bar. Located in the Ferry Building, Market Bar has a beautiful outdoor eating area, and we scored a nice table that was partially shaded.

One of my favorite vacation-y things to do is to order a drink at lunch. A pint of the local Anchor Steam while people watching was the perfect choice, and it went down smoothly and deliciously.

With many glasses of water. . . flying dehydrates me SO much!

Lunch was a no brainer. We had actually decided on the fresh seafood platter for two before we even arrived.

Lobster, shrimp, oysters, and Dungeness crab, along with crusty French bread and butter. The seafood was incredibly fresh and cold. I usually do not like West Coast oysters, but then again I never had them on the West coast. We had local Hog Island as well as Kumamoto oysters, and I loved them both. Much smaller than East coast oysters, but juicy, briny, and plump with flavor. The crab was my favorite though, it was meaty and tasted of the sea. The beer was a perfect accompaniment, and we were quite satisfied after our meal.

After lunch we walked along the Embarcadero and enjoyed the sun and not having to be anywhere.

The Bay Bridge

The heavenly market outside of the Ferry Building. There is something about beautiful, colorful vegetables and flowers in the sunshine that brings me so much joy.

However, the highlight of my afternoon was these guys:

Pier 39 is home to hundreds of sea lions, and we watched them for quite awhile. They are hilarious! They bark, they swim, they argue, and they are so cute! After standing in the hot sun, we needed a refresher, so we headed to Pier 39’s San Francisco Coffee. The iced vanilla latte that I had was the best coffee I have had in a long time. The coffee was perfectly roasted, rich, buttery, and not bitter at all. I wish they had one of these in Boston!

We  headed inland after our coffee treat and started walking some of San Francisco’s famous hills. What an awesome workout! I love walking a lot when I travel and trying to see everything by foot.

We found this delightful candy shop, Z Cioccolato in North Beach.

The entire store was filled with the sound and aroma of freshly popped caramel popcorn.When I found out that it was $1 a bag, I had to have some! It was as good as it smelled, sweet and crunchy with a soft buttery caramel. The store offered so many different types of candy; the taffy display was pretty and colorful!

The walk back to our hotel included Little Italy, which is HUGE! All of the cafe’s and pastry shops were tempting, but we were pretty full and planning on a big dinner so we kept going and made it back to the hotel in time for the hosted wine hour.

The hotel was having a Chagall exhibit and was serving French wine, whose name I unfortunately didn’t get. I did have a cool glass of white rather than my usual red, and it was the perfect way to relax and unwind after walking miles.

I hope you are enjoying a nice long weekend. My next post will definitely delve more into the food and wine scene here in San Francisco and in Sonoma Valley.

Don’t forget to leave me an ingredient comment on my Chopped challenge post, and to link to it on your own blog if you decide to participate! I will randomly choose 3 ingredients on Saturday and will do my shopping, brainstorming, and cooking on Sunday.

See you again soon! 🙂