Day Two
Our hotel stay included a continental breakfast buffet each morning in the hotel restaurant. It had a wide assortment (with the same choices each day) of food including mini scones and mini croissants, various quick breads and coffee cakes, cereal, yogurt, fruit, toast, slices of ham and slices of cheese, hard boiled eggs, juice, ice water, coffee and tea. We woke up pretty early that morning and our brunch reservations weren't until noon so we went to the breakfast buffet in the hotel to eat a light breakfast. I made a little ham and cheese sandwich with the croissant and had some cantaloupe, the mini scone and green tea. It was just right.
After a short visit back to our hotel room we took the bus to the Ft. Mason/Marina area of SF. Actually we got off the bus a ways before Ft. Mason and walked the waterside walkway to the Ft. Mason pier area. We had at least 2 hours before our reservation so walked the windy walkway past the restaurant towards the Golden Gate Bridge and Presidio park area. We found wild fennel and nasturtium growing all along the pathways by the water. It was foggy so you could only see the bottom of the bridge (it was interesting how the fog made a distinct line). We didn't quite make it to the Presidio, but got close and then turned around and went back to Ft. Mason and hung out on the pier till it was time for our brunch reservation. We had made reservations at Greens Restaurant, a famous vegetarian restaurant (I've had all the cookbooks for years, the recipes have always been very interesting and good) run by Chef Annie Somerville.
They led us to this perfect table for two right up against the huge windows that overlook the boats in the Marina, the Golden Gate Bridge and bay, and the Marina neighborhood. About halfway through our brunch the sun came out and the sky was blue, although much of the Golden Gate Bridge was still in fog. We were quite hungry and a bit chilly from our walk before getting to the restaurant so we started with hot chai lattes and a scone and a piece of huckleberry coffee cake. I ordered an egg, asparagus and fromage blanc dish with a square of puff pastry on the bottom and the top . The flavoring of the dish was delicate and quite good. A. ordered a frittata that had cheese, vegetables and Italian seasonings in it with potatoes on the side, but neither of us can remember exactly what was in it. I do remember that it was very tasty. We decided to have some decaf coffee and split a slice of cheesecake for dessert. The cheesecake was so good, it was creamy and wasn't too sweet and you could taste that there was cream cheese in it (I love cheesecake but there's nothing worse than a too sweet cheesecake which unfortunately most cheesecakes tend to be).
We waddled out of there and walked back towards the bus stop and past it to another bus stop that would bring us to Pacific Heights. We joined a walking tour given by a SF City Guides volunteer called Victorian SF. These walking tours were great, they are run through the Public Library and all the tour guides are volunteers. You learn a lot of local history and tidbits on these tours, and in fact every tour we took that week (we took 4) had at least a couple of locals taking it. After the tour we stopped at the Pacific Heights Whole Foods and bought some water to take back to our hotel room (much cheaper than the mini bar bottled water).
We took the California cablecar line back to our hotel, dropped off our water, called Z. to say hi before she went to sleep (she was at her grandparents house with our kitten Calvin while we were gone) and then got on a bus to North Beach. There we went to this little hole in the wall pizza place called Golden Boy Pizza and each got a square of Sicilian pizza to go (mine plain, A.'s pepperoni). We ate it while we walked to our next SF City Guides tour called North Beach at Night. The pizza was tasty but it gave me heartburn/reflux which pretty much stayed with me the rest of the trip so this was the beginning of the Pepcid/Tums routine for me.
After the tour was over we took the bus back to the hotel and collapsed in bed, it was a long day!
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