Catching up with old friends

We checked in, freshened up (it would be a mistake to sleep) and wandered down past the Embarcadero Centre to the Ferry Building for some Mexican food. Note to self, don’t order anything that is called a “platter” unless you haven’t eaten for a week. I had stupidly forgotten about the portion sizes and barely made a dent in my tamales and tacos. It was good though. I also had a coke which is really unusual for me as I find it too sweet, but it does help when you are struggling to keep awake. The large Assam tea at Peet’s helped too. I’d also forgotten how good the tea is at Peet’s Café. We called Amy and George who were driving up with their daughter Chloe from San Luis Obispo to spend the weekend with us in San Francisco. We arranged to meet them later at their hotel.

We caught up with the Kaysers in the lobby for a while and then walked with them through China town to North Beach (that isn’t a beach, but has lots of character and some nice cafés). We stopped at an old style café called “Café Trieste” and joined the diverse (OK, random) bunch of customers inside. Notable characters: the 90 year old toothless lady, the guy dressed as a priest who said he used to be a child psychologist who came over to Chloe and scared her to death (he also though Chloe was a boy), and the sixty-something Chinese lady in the Inuit hat and flashing way too much cleavage than was appropriate. Yep, there were all sorts. It was the best tea I had all weekend though (and will probably be the best tea I will have on my whole trip - it has seriously gone down hill since then).

We wandered slowly back through Chinatown which was nicely atmospheric at dust, lounged around at the Omni hotel chatting for a while and then headed out to Belden Lane just near the hotel where we’d heard that there was a row of good restaurants. We chose a Catalan tapas restaurant called B44. We have never had a bad meal in San Francisco, and this one was really excellent. It was great to sit outside on the terrace (under heat lamps) too. I really like how knowledgeable Californian restaurant staff are about the menu and wines. Our waiter really gave us some excellent recommendations.