Day Four was Tuesday and we slept a little bit later and then went out for breakfast around 9am. We went to Sears Fine Food, around the corner from out hotel, which is famous for it's silver dollar Swedish pancakes. We each had an order of those of course and enjoyed them (all 18 of them!). This is the kind of place with a line outside, but the it wasn't too long and moved very quickly so we didn't have to wait very long.
Tuesday was museum day, so after breakfast we walked to the subway (which later came above ground and was an electric bus) towards Golden Gate Park. We got off a couple stops too early (it's hard to know when to get off the bus as they don't stop at every street), and walked a bit to get to the other bus we needed to catch to get into the park. We could have walked the whole way but a bus came quickly and we figured we'd save our legs for all the museum walking we had ahead of us. First we went to the de Young Fine Arts Museum. We saw an amazing show called The Quilts of Gee County, really beautiful quilts made by African American women in Gee's Bend, Alabama who were pretty isolated from the rest of the world since the 1960's due to racial bigotry (I read that very recently ferry service was finally restored to their island). We also saw the Chicano exhibit of works from Cheech Marin's huge private collection and we walked around most of the rest of the museum. We were hungry for lunch but the line to the cafe was really long and we didn't feel like waiting around as we wanted to get to the other museum (The Legion of Honor). So we stopped off at the observation tower first and saw 360° views of SF in the fog before heading out.
We walked to a bus line that brought us about a block from the Pacific Ocean in front of a Safeway supermarket where we waited a loooonnnnngggg time for the other bus that would bring us to the museum, our stomachs grumbling as time went on. Finally a bus came and we were on our way. A couple stops later a man got on and told the bus driver that California Street was closed because of some guy going crazy and running down people with his car (yikes!). We knew we had a very long bus ride back to the hotel and most of it was on California Street, but hoped it would be okay by then.
So we get to the Legion of Honor and went right to the cafe where we had an excellent lunch! A. had a steak salad and I had a ham and gruyere panini sandwich. I was told my sandwich would be brought out to me (they had these numbers on tall holders to put on your table) but it took forever to get it. A. was eating really slowly but still had almost finished his salad and my sandwich was nowhere in sight. It was very crowded and busy but I managed to flag down someone and eventually got my sandwich (apparently it had been in the kitchen homeless and numberless). So maybe the fact that I was starving had something to do with it, but I really enjoyed that sandwich! It was 3:30-3:45pm by the time we finished lunch but we had plenty of time to see the Monet in Normandy special exhibit and some of the permanent exhibits before the museum closed. We took the bus down California Street and while the street was open our bus broke down so we left 2 seats on that bus to go stand in the next overcrowded bus. We passed a Starbucks with police tape around it and later found out that this is where they apprehended the maniac who was running people down earlier that day. Truly horrible :-((
We got back to the hotel about 5:45pm and got on the front desk laptop to figure out where we could eat dinner that night. We used the online restaurant reservation system opentable.com to make reservations at Trattatoria Contadina in North Beach but they were for 6:30pm so we went up to our room and quickly got changed and then headed out to take the bus to North Beach. This place was about a block or so off the main drag in North Beach but was on a cable car line so our front window table afforded me (A.'s back was to it) views of cable cars going back and forth all evening. The tables were fairly close together and next to us was a local couple who were regulars and knew the owner so he came out and talked with them while we eavesdropped (it was impossible not to!)
We shared a buffalo mozzerella and tomato salad. I ordered the Vitello Saltimbucca alla Aurilia (Veal scaloppini layered with prosciutto, mozzarella cheese and sage, served with a marsala wine and tomato sauce, fresh sautéed seasonal vegetables and garlic mashed potatoes) while A. ordered the Vitello Arrosto Patate e Spinaci Tartufati (Roasted veal fillet with porcini and wild mushrooms, fresh rosemary, onions, white wine, shallots, bay leaves and a flavorful beef broth, served with truffled garlic spinach and garlic mashed potatoes). Politically incorrect I know (we only eat veal in really good Italian restaurants which means we very rarely eat it) but oh my were they good! The Saltimboca had a bit of tomato sauce on it which I've never had prepared that way before. It was an interesting addition. Afterwards we had decaf lattes and shared a tiramisu for dessert. Yum!! We took the cable car back to the hotel and while in bed tried to figure out what we were going to do for dinner the next evening. We were going to be out of the city all day so needed to make our plans before we left in the morning.
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