Our Big Night Out | SF 2016

Tuesday, 20 September 2016Monday, 19 September 2016 Starr4 Comments

Last time on SF 2016, we did a walking tour through Chinatown, Nob Hill, and Fisherman’s Wharf. After a lot of steps logged on people’s fitness trackers, it was time to head back to the hotel to get ready for dinner…

Also, you may have noticed that I have gone back to my Tuesday/Friday posting schedule. I chose it for a good reason, and the Monday/Thursday was really throwing me off…

After soaking up a little bit of sunshine post-arcade games, we took cars back to our hotel to rest our feet and get ready for dinner. Our reservation wasn’t for a few hours, and we didn’t trust ourselves to actually nap, so our hotel room started watching Netflix’s Stranger Things.

We got thoroughly heebie-jeebie-ed watching the first episode and only then learning that one of the lamps in our room flickered. A lot. (On the show, the lights flickered when the monster was nearby.) Having the thick curtains drawn and all of the other lights out certainly didn’t help! (Cue me hiding in the blankets.)

Then it was time for dinner! After a group vote, we wound up at Harris, a traditional steakhouse. It was easy to forget that while we were just getting together with friends, this is a formal restaurant, as we were reminded when a waiter asked one of our party to remove his hat. (Yes they did!) Ben and I split the big ol’ porterhouse with foie gras. (Harris will allow you to split a steak and give each person their own plate for sides for an additional charge.) To be honest, I was disappointed with the steak. At this price point, I am expecting a lot more, and I felt a little bit sick after eating. I didn’t want to finish my portion, even though I came into the meal super hungry. (I didn’t even have the opportunity to regret filling up on bread because we were all given one piece per person.)

Still wanting to eat and treat myself for our Big Night Out, I knew I had room in my belly for dessert and went for the baked Alaska. Again, it was fine but just not what I was expecting. Baked Alaska has never been my favorite, and we failed to clean the plate for this one.

Afterwards, it was back to the hotel to get ready for part 2 of our Big Night Out: dancing at the club. We pregamed a bit in the hotel room, getting hyped on music videos and touching speeches about friendship. The guys specifically sought out an Asian nightclub for the sake of the bachelors in our group and landed on Origin.

OH I get it, because Neo goes to that Asian club in the beginning of *The Matrix*, right?

Unfortunately, I suspect that Origin was too well-known as a hot Asian club, and people didn’t want to go to an established Asian club so when we arrived at 11:30, it was… well… suspiciously empty…

When we walked in, the people sitting in front of us and the folks standing by the bar weren’t even there…

Luckily, we sprang for table service so we were able to drink and dance and SIT. We were really glad that we didn’t pay the extra $$$ for a table on the dancefloor, because those tables were just a few feet in front of ours and we liked that ours were out of the way enough that we could leave our jackets there without worrying about random people walking by to take them.

Ultimately, some folks drank too much and the rest of us spent end of the evening taking care of them. I was able to climb into bed at the ghastly hour of 3:30AM. (Remember, that’s 6:30 Eastern time…) This was just dandy, as I had a 5AM alarm to look forward to hearing… But it was a fun night out and I was excited for a fun Sunday ahead of me because it was time to be reunited with Christine!!!

Where would you go for dinner and dancing for a Big Night Out? In our ride the day after, our driver told us his recommendations for fancy dinners and nightclubs, even including the new hotness in the Asian clubbing scene. We’ll keep them in mind, but maybe they’ll be out of style by the time we return!

Have you watched Stranger Things? Ben and I finished a few days after returning and I had goosebumps all over my body every episode.

Hills & Games | SF 2016

Monday, 12 September 2016Monday, 12 September 2016 StarrLeave a comment

Last time on SF 2016, we arrived in San Francisco and discovered that San Francisco Comic Con was taking place at our hotel! And then we ate and caught up and tried to adjust to the different time zone so we could have more adventuring…

Despite heading back to our hotel room at about 1:30AM PST, all four of us were rudely awakened by the sound of bells clanging at 7:30. While we were able to get a little more sleep after that rude awakening, our bellies had us wanting food soon enough. (Remember: our stomachs were still running on East Coast time.) There weren’t any set plans for breakfast/brunch, and in fact the group was originally just going to mosey around and find whatever, but our room convinced the group to get dim sum.

We called around, trying to minimize our wait on a Saturday morning for dim sum, and were told there was zero wait at Canton Dim Sum & Seafood. It was close enough to the hotel, so we walked over and found not only no line but hardly any people? High alert. While we had a nice time here, it was mostly the company that made the meal good and I would not recommend visiting… Lesson learned, don’t get dim sum in Soma.

After eating, we started to walk. And walk and walk and walk and walk and walk. We walked up the infamous San Francisco hills as we passed through Chinatown and grabbed some bubble tea on the way.

Look at that steep incline… as you’ll soon see, it only got steeper

Onward and upward until we reached Nob Hill, where we had this really stellar view of Alcatraz and of how much higher we were than where we started.

Yes, my legs were burning and yes, I was huffing and puffing a bit at this point

Cali & Cosplay | SF 2016

Thursday, 8 September 2016Thursday, 8 September 2016 StarrLeave a comment

Surprise! I went to San Francisco over Labor Day weekend so that Ben could see his college friends and so that I could see Christine! Shout-out to my fave who stayed behind in the city when she heard that I was going to be in town, even with many attractive offers to travel out-of-state tempting her!

We flew out Friday evening after work and arrived about half an hour earlier than we had planned. (Thank you, tailwind!) Checking into the hotel, I had the most magical realization:

img_2045-01 — SPOTTED: Eric & Ariel (in the same corset I wear for Ariel!) while rolling up to the hotel

San Francisco Comic Con was happening at our hotel! We have never seen a hotel lobby as crowded as this one was, but most of all, I have never been in the throes of a convention like this before and I was pumped beyond belief. While Ben’s friends were staring in awe at these nerds whose costumes they didn’t recognize, I had a singular thought in my mind the entire weekend:

These are my people.
I need to be among them.

It was a nice treat to see so many cosplayers and nerds celebrating the things they love every time I walked in and out of the hotel.

img_2046-01 — How great are these hand-made costumes?

Long story short, I resolved to get my nerdy self to a convention next year! We’ll see how that resolution goes!

We had a quick catch-up meal at Delarosa behind the hotel, and had to go all the way around rather than through the back of the hotel because an intimidating security man said so. (My guess: Talent coming in/out of those doors? I saw a poster that indicated Jenna Coleman was there!)

Most things closed by 11PM, so we headed up to one of the hotel rooms and just caught up and chatted for a while. It was nice to have the group all together again and free to just chill. The last time I saw most of these folks was at a wedding, and naturally, the then-newlyweds weren’t as free to hang out with us. This time, all of us were there for Labor Day weekend, to relax and spend time with friends.

Pacific Standard Time really started taking a toll on us this evening, as we stayed up until 1:30AM talking… but that was really 4:30AM Eastern Time! The time difference was always a blessing in the morning and such a curse in the evening.

What are your favorite things to do in San Francisco?
Have you been to a convention before? I’ve gone to conferences, but not conventions, and I am just dying to go. Would you dress up if you went?

Dim Sum, Dessert, & Soccer| NYC 2016

Tuesday, 30 August 2016Thursday, 1 September 2016 StarrLeave a comment

Last time on NYC 2016, we were a lot more successful with the alliterative post titles… and we really tried to experience some more typical tourist activities like Smorgasburg (which I left the island of Manhattan for, yes) and Broadway and even some shopping in Times Square, which both of us have learned to avoid. It was time for our last full day in my home city.

Note: I took almost no photos this day EXCEPT at our dessert-dinner, which will get its own dedicated post, so brace yourself for a lot of text and not a lot of pictures to go with it, sorry!

One thing I came away from our latest trip to New York with was the feeling that we managed to do so much this trip without exhausting ourselves. We had a lot of activities, but I didn’t plan every minute of every hour. We had a lot of leisure time built in. (Remember those cuh-razy naps in the middle of the day? Unheard of for me.)

We made plans to get dim sum with Ben’s friends that we were partying with in Koreatown the other night (which was bonus time with them, as we had only planned for dim sum!), so Sunday morning we headed down to Chinatown. Dim sum in Chinatown on the weekends is a great opportunity for catching up, because you will be waiting in line for a while. We wound up being seated fastest at Joy Luck Palace, which, to be honest, I wouldn’t visit again. The food was all pretty meh and we had to specially ask for egg custard tarts, aka dan ta 蛋挞! Those should be standard, not something we ask them to make for us and then wait half an hour to eat. (But shout out to the manager who did acquiesce our request for those little golden delights.) Also, in a show of who is truly more popular in the New York metropolitan area, Ben’s old college roommate’s family showed up for dim sum and I got to meet a lot of family members that I didn’t get to see when they graduated!

(There was also a lot of Pokemon Go, as the app had just been released a few days prior to our trip and there were a lot of Pokestops in the area!)

After dim sum, we chilled for a bit in Columbus Park while waiting for some other folks to meet us. My friend Yufeng showed me Columbus Park for the first time when I visited a little while ago and it is like a tiny piece of China in the middle of Chinatown. There are seniors doing tai chi and a lot of small kids running around with their grandmothers calling after them. Old men playing Chinese chess in their singlets, middle-aged ladies doing choreography for fitness. Often, there will be some music playing to accompany the dancing and/or tai chi. It’s a really serene park that I love spending down time relaxing in. We chilled while watching a local league basketball game go down (they were really good!) and I panicked once when a small child ran directly to me for help in tying off his water balloon. (It’s like he knew that tying off water balloons is one of the skills I was too afraid to learn?!)

With the whole crew assembled (and a few new Pokemon for our friends), we walked over to the Bowery Beer Garden (located beneath the Wyndham Garden Chinatown) to watch the much-anticipated UEFA Euro Final between Portugal and France. We got there pretty late as far as a good view of the TVs went, but we were still able to enjoy the game. Soccer is one of the few sports that I get really into watching, but I haven’t been following for a while. When asked which team I was rooting for, I didn’t know until the end when Portugal scored their sole, game-winning goal and I felt devastated. Evidently, I was rooting for France! It was a lot of fun to watch the game, despite how hot and mosquito-y the day had started to feel.

Ben and I then parted ways with our friends to start heading over to Greenwich Village for our dinner reservation. Well, dinner might not be entirely accurate. I wanted to treat Ben to something special, so I got us seats at Unlimited Possibilities (U.P.) by Dominique Ansel. I will have a more in-depth review coming up soon, but it is an 8-seat tasting menu of all desserts. The theme of ours was American Dreams, with each course based on a different era of American success and ideals. I would definitely recommend eating a light dinner beforehand, as the courses, while well-thought out, aren’t very big. And it is dessert! (We scarfed down some more Joe’s Pizza in Washington Square Park before heading inside because duh.) It was a really nice experience that I’m glad we could try once.

Holding little silver balloons and bellies full of sweets, we headed back up to our hotel to meet one of my oldest friends, who lived just a few blocks away. (I thought he had moved, but he’s still there after a few years!) We had a quick catch-up late-night meal at BXL East and it was just like old times. I’ve known him since I was 12 and no matter how much time passes between us talking, we fall really easily back into laughter and jokes, which I appreciate so so much.

Our last morning in New York, we woke up, enjoyed our coffee parting gifts from U.P., and munched on pastries at the nearby Paris Baguette, which may be becoming a departure tradition for me. Then, one last yellow cab trip to the Javitz Center to reminisce about a very boring conference for Ben and away on our bus we went.

And you can bet we got Bojangles upon returning to DC this time.

What is a treat-yo-self meal that you like to indulge in when you visit New York? It was my first time doing a ~fancy~ meal but I know there are a lot of other ways to blow cash on good food in the city!

What are your favorite dim sum dishes? Mine are the 凤爪 chicken feet (!!), the 蝦肠粉shrimp in rice noodle rolls, and 蛋挞 egg custard tarts, among many others.

Where else should we have visited in New York? We can go next time!

Bagels, Brooklyn, Broadway | NYC 2016

Tuesday, 23 August 2016Thursday, 1 September 2016 StarrLeave a comment

Last time on NYC 2016, we wrapped up Friday with a lot of food adventuring with my brother before finishing out the evening dancing in Koreatown with Ben’s college friends. Saturday, I finally ventured off the island of Manhattan…

Saturday morning, Ben and I woke up bright-eyed and ready for something we had been waiting months to taste again: bagels. Bagels are one of those foods I really took for granted when I left the New York metropolitan area. I like them in general, but I have a special feeling when I eat the ones from my home metro region. (And while I’ll eat basically any bagel I see, I know a bad bagel.) Pizza and bagels in my home city can bring tears to my eyes. So we headed to the nearest bagel shop to us. Luckily, it was a block away and a traditional Jewish bagel joint! We were in luck!

JUST KIDDING it was Ess-a-Bagel, one of the most popular bagel shops in the city, especially among tourists. We wound up waiting in line for literally 2 hours. I loathe waiting in line, especially for food, but there weren’t many bagels shops nearby and I figured if I was going to wait for something while in New York, a really great bagel was worth it.

I also decided to finally try a bialy! Yet another food item that I didn’t know I was taking for granted until I left the area and saw nary a mention of the traditional Polish pastry.

A bialy, whitefish salad on everything, and lox with the works on whole wheat everything

After filling up on bagels… it was time for us to meet my friend Ying to leave the island (!!!) and head to Brooklyn for Smorgasburg. Smorgasburg is the “Brooklyn food flea market” and has become really well-known as a spot where many innovative food vendors can set up shop on the weekends for foodies to try their wares. It is home to many Instagram-famous foods, like the Ramenburger. Now I was pretty apprehensive about Smorgasburg for a bunch of reasons, like my hesitance to leave Manhattan for food when there is food aplenty all over the island, my general side-eyed skepticism of Brooklyn and Williamsburg’s hipster scene, my extreme side-eyed skepticism about the hype of the food at Smorgasburg, to name a few. But I was still excited to finally experience this foodie haven that so many people have been urging me to try out, despite already knowing that nothing would taste as good as the Instagram hype was big.Read More »