Carl’s Journey

TRAPPED IN THE BODY OF A WHITE CAR

One does not drive into Downtown New Orleans between the time of 8 AM and 1 AM during the height of Mardi Gras. Despite having years and years of Mardi Gras experience, I find myself driving Gary all over town in our big white Towncar while waiting for the street baracades to be removed on this Sunday night before Mardi Gras. We shopped at Wal-Mart; we gambled at Boomtown Casino in the West Bank; we gambled and ate late night dinner at Treasure Chest Casino in Kenner; we got stuck on St. Charles Avenue after the Bacchus Parade and drove out of the traffic through a mountain of debris. We finally arrived at the Riverside Hilton at 1:30 AM Monday morning.

Despite the exhaustion, we managed to spend one hour playing the penny slot machines at Harrah’s Casino next to the hotel.

We checked out of our complimentary Hilton and checked into the Sheraton Canal which I prepaid via priceline.com. I got this hotel for only $79 a night ($93.90 with tax and fees). This particular Sheraton sits on Canal Street and most parades roll past it or end at it. The people checked in ahead of me paid $192 a night.

We watched Orpheus rolled on Monday night right in front of our hotel and ate dinner at Cafe Masperos on Decatur Street. We were in bed early that night to get some needed sleep and be ready for Mardi Gras.

Zulu and the Society of St. Anne

Gary and I carted our complimentary collapsible Mardi Gras ice chest from Harrahs and walked to St. Charles Avenue to watch the Zulu Parade. We left before the parade ended due to hunger and ate at the Clover Grill on Bourbon Street. Gary and I headed out to the river bank and caught up with the Society of St. Anne. Anyone who dressed up can be part of this group. Since Gary and I were not in costume, we were only viewers at best. Every year, the group meets in the Bywater district and marched through the Faubourg Marigny and then to the French Quarter. Meeting and talking with the people of this group is the main reason Gary and I go to Mardi Gras each year. We will dress up next year and be a member of this society.

My Mardi Gras Video

SAN FRANCISCO ADVENTURE

OOPS! Did I do that?

I have written an article on this website teaching people how to bid for a hotel room through priceline.com. My main point is that you must becareful and that once you click buy, there will be no refund at all if the purchase goes through.

Well, one cold morning about two weeks before my trip of February 20, I decided to bid for my room. With out checking my information, I clicked buy and was elated to see that my offer of $62($73 with tax) a night for a three stars hotel was successful. Elation turned to sadness when I realized that my six night stay at the Holiday Inn was for the San Francisco Airport location, not the Fisherman’s Wharf location I thought I had picked. This was a $436 mistake that was nonrefundable. I erased it out of my mind until this article. I tried to give the room to friends and family in the San Francisco area, but no one wanted to stay there. The only consolation was that if I had booked directly with Holliday Inn, it would have cost me $115 per night.

I bid for another hotel room in the Fisherman’s Wharf area and was able to get the Holiday Inn Fisherman’s Wharf for $59 (before tax and fees) a night. This hotel and its location took away the bitterness of the other fiasco situation. The Holiday Inn Fisherman’s Wharf address is 1300 Columbus Avenue. It sits between two cable car lines and one block from the bus and two blocks from the Muni train. the Cannery is right next door and Ghiradelli Chocolate Square is two blocks away; the piers are within two blocks.

THE HOLES IN THE GREAT WALL OF CHINATOWN

Gary, my mother and I rode the 30 Stockton bus everyday to Chinatown. The bus fare was $1.50 per person with a 3 to 4 hours transfer in any direction. The ride from Fisherman’s Wharf through Little Italy to Chinatown was less then 10 minutes (with stops).

Our first point of business was to stop at a little “lotto scratch off lounge”. In the heart of Chinatown on Grant Street is a small shop that sells lotto scratch off tickets. Everyday we would purchased our $15 worth tickets and hung out at the “lounge” until we failed to win any more free tickets or money. The place was always packed and after a few days, the locals began to recognized us.

We ate at our favorite eateries and our ultimate favorite is Dol Ho on 808 Pacific Avenue. This small dim sum restaurant caters to locals. This means that it is small, sparsely decorated, intimidating to non locals and it also means that the food is GREAT!! PLEASE skip all tourist catered restaurants in Chinatown. I have eaten at most of them and they are not good! How do you know if a restaurant is for tourists? They usually have nice ladies passing out flyers or menu with “specials”. I also consider the pricey and nice looking ones tourist traps.

My mother, Gary and I ate until our belly were full and the bill was $27. However, the service here is courteous but slow. How slow? I got used to continously taking my teapot into the kitchen and filled it with hot water myself. The dim sum is much better than the overpriced City View dim sum restaurant on 662 Commercial Street.

Another restaurant we ate in Chinatown was the tiny Vietnam Restaurant on 620 Broadway that had about 14 seats. This place is crowded in the early morning hours when the nearby titty bars and dance clubs closed their doors and their patrons are left hungry for real food. My Pho noodle soup was underseasoned and needed extra star anise in the broth, but my mother’s rice with grilled pork chops and Gary’s vermiceli with grilled pork and eggroll were exellent. The two lady employees worked hard to provide the patrons a good experience. We sat on the small bar stools and watched the cook threw fresh marinated porks on the grill and produced a sizzling and fragrant smoke that filled the small place. Gary had the Vietnamese ice coffee while my mother drank hot jasmine tea from a brown plastic glass. I opted for the sweetened bean in coconut milk desert. The bill was about $25.

The fresh produce and Chinese BBQ in Chinatown are the cheapest I have ever seen in any city. Most of the fresh vegetables were 1/2 the price compared to Houston and Houston is pretty darn cheap when it comes to grocery. You can buy a whole Peking roasted duck for only $9.25 to $9.75. In Houston, a whole roasted duck is about $13. Unfortunately, if you go to a Safeway a few miles away from Chinatown, the price of fresh produce is two to three times more expensive.

During one of my mother’s shopping trip, we were very hungry and decided to walk into a BBQ joint on 1131 Grant Street. Yee’s Restaurant has a large window front which patron can look in and see all kinds of Chinese BBQ from roast pork to ducks, quails and pigeons. The three of us shared a roast pork, a roast duck plates (come with saute cabbage) and a large hot bowl of pork congee soup with “thousand year old” eggs. Hot tea was on the house! The food was delicious. The roast pork was tender and its skin was crispy. The roast duck was roasted a little more tender than other places but I like it this way. It came with a tangy/sweet sauce for dipping. The thick rice soup was steamy hot and full of pork and egg. Our bill came out to be an outrageous $15! Keep in mind that $15 buy one chicken Caesar salad in the nearby Little Italy area.

We did stopped at XOX Cafe on 754 Columbus Avenue in the North Beach area next to Little Italy. Chef Jean-Marc Gorce makes the best truffles in the world. The small morsels come in many different flavors ranging from rum to Earl Grey. They all melt in your mouth. Chef Jean-Marc also has a location in Oakland but it is the original location that I go back years after years for coffee and chocolate. The truffles are affordable and you can order them on line at www.xoxtruffles.com . Don’t be fool by the young picture of him though. As cute as he is, he has gained some weight through out the years and is actually a bear now. Our box of truffles never made it back to Houston. Gary, my mother and I ate it all!

A friend had told me that his family, when they visited San Francisco, did not eat at any restaurants in Chinatown since there were not any restaurant similar to Houston’s Ocean Palace, Kim Son etc… There are a few and one of them is China Empress. I have not been to this place, but it is very famous. However, the holes in the wall I wrote about are better than most restaurants I’ve been to. Please do not let your fear denied you a wonderful food and cultural experience.

CHINESE NEW YEAR FESTIVAL

San Franciscan celebrate Chinese New Year on the third Saturday of February each year. The big festivity kicked off the night before with the crowning of Ms. Chinatown. There is a festival on Saturday and Sunday. The big parade was on Saturday night but my mother, Gary, cousin Ann and I watched it on TV in my hotel room. The weather was cold and rainy and since we all have seen the parade before, it was much more comfortable to see the parade inside during this storm.

We did have a wonderful time Saturday morning visiting the street festival in Chinatown. We tried a wonderful street fare snack called egg puffs. The lightly sweet eggshaped waffle resembled a soft cream puff dough. The one dish that I saw on every street corner was the curried fishball stew. It must be a tradition to eat this dish on this day of celebration. A noisy and wonderful dragon dance passed by us up and down Grant Street which were full of festival booths.

CRAB ATTACK AT FISHERMAN’S WHARF

I just can’t escape from my crab indulgence. This trip was no different. My mother and I ate dungeness crab on several occasions on this trip and decided that our favorite place for crab is Nick’s Lighthouse at Pier 45. The crabs were large, meaty, hot and delicious. Gary’s crab avocado salad was also noteworthy. We did have an off experience at the nearby Pompei’s Grotto. We were not informed that the crabs served at this place was cold. The best time to enjoy cold crab is the morning after a hot crab indulgence and there were too many to eat all the night before.

THE BEAUTIES OF ASIA SF

My cousins Ann and Victor invited us three to a wonderful experience at Asia SF (201 Ninth Street), a restaurant/club where all the waitress are transgender or men in drag. Our waitress was Jackie, a beautiful lady from the Phillipine. This was my mother first time here and she loved every single minute of it. For the next two hours, Jackie was the daughter and she was “Mom”.

The food and the cocktails were great but it was the drag show that blew everyone away. Emceed by San Francisco’s Tita Aida, the perfomers take the stage every half hour and performed on the bar itself. We came here on a Thursday night and discovered that it was better to see it on a week night than the weekend and since it was not too busy on Thursday, we were able to see all three shows. We went on a Friday a few years back and was rushed out within 1 hour to accomodate other diners. Reservation is a must.

HAPPY TO DO NOTHING BUT EAT

We did not do much on this trip beside walking the Fisherman’s Wharf area and going to Chinatown. We have been to Sausalito, Tiburon, Alcatraz and Muir Woods many times before and this trip I decided to accompanied my mother as she shops in Chinatown.

My cousin Ann and Victor live in Oakland but work in San Francisco. They spent much time with us and took us to many nice restaurants.

Gary and I had to sabotage the check at my favorite Sushi restaurant, Blowfish Sushi to Die For on 2170 Bryan Street. This very hip and loud favorite hangout of the young ones serve some of the best sushi. There is no point for me to mention all the different types of sushi we ate that Friday night since I don’t remember. Compare to the many sushi joint I have eaten, the bill was appropriate.

On Sunday night while my mother was watching the Oscar at the hotel, Ann took Gary and me to an El Salvadoran restaurant, Panchita (3091 16th Street). This small but elegant restaurant is in the Mission District and is known for its pupusas which is El Salvador’s thicker version of a corn tortilla quesadillas. We ordered several different version of pupusas ranging from fish, chicharon and beef. They came cut in wedges and stacked in a circle surrounding a small bowl with a dipping sauce. They were deliciously hot and cheesy and dangerous for me since I am lactose intolerant. Gary had a combination plate of chile rellenos, chicken enchilada and El Salvador tamale. They were out of the tamale and substituded a very good crab enchilada in its place. Gary thought his meal was bland, but I tasted it and it was good. Ann had a chile rellenos since she does not eat meat. Her friend, Bryan, a photographer,(www.bryanalberstat.com) accompanied us but I do not remember what he ate. My chicken mole was not what I am used to. I like the spicy and lightly sweet version that we Texan eat and this version was on the dark, bitter side, but the chicken was perfectly cooked and it came with rice and black beans.

Cousin Ann invited all of us along with Bryan and my friend Ted, also from Oakland, for our last night dinner at The Water Front Restaurant at 7 Pier along the Embarcadero. This place is very nice and elegant and has a great view of the bay. I am gratefull to my wonderful cousin for treating us to so many places like this restaurant, but I told her that from now on, when we visit, she is only allowed to take us to one expensive place. Gary, my mother and I have eaten at many restaurants and feel that we enjoy the cheaper but much more delicious eateries than these more elegant but lacking in spice and flavor places. The non politically correct way to say is that we like the intense flavor of ethnic cuisines more than the Continental/American cuisines. The seafood was very bland and the deserts are typical like most restaurant. There are always something chocolaty with an icecream assortment. I actually was craving for Cajun/Creole or good southern cooking and flavor. Unfortunately, the only spice I taste from this restaurant was salt and pepper. The fish was supposed to be mesquite grilled, but being Texans with many years of mesquite experience, Gary and I failed to taste any hint of mesquite. The fish dishes were barely grilled and Gary’s sea bass was undercooked. One fnal note on this restaurant. The bill arrived with an extra $8.00 employee insurance tax. According to Ann, a restaurant that has more than 20 employees in San Francisco must provide insurance to the employees and this restaurant passed its expense to the customers. This and the so called “resort fees” just drive me mad.

It is true that the service at these “chic” restaurant is a thousand times better than most smaller cheaper places. But I feel more comfortable sitting in a corner with a table that has 4 uneven legs and shoveling my food from a rice bowl. I ALSO ENJOYED CARRYING MY metal teapot into the kitchen of Dol Ho and get my own hot water!

WE WILL BE BACK

We had such a wonderful and relaxing time on this trip that we are planning to go back in August to spend more time there. With this extra trip, Gary and I may do other things that we did not do on this trip.

Our next trip will be to New Orleans on March 21 for Easter Weekend. I am working on my Easter bonnets.

IMPORTANT NOTE – We did not rent a car in San Francisco. There is no need for one unless you plan to drive along the coast. Most hotels in the Downtown or Fisherman’s Wharf area charge a whopping $30 to $40 a night parking. Our Holiday Inn charges $30 a night. Use the door to door shuttle to take you from the airport to the hotels. The price range from $12 to $15 each way (Oakland airport is $15). If you pack very light, take the BART from the airport. The cost is about $3 to $4 per person each way with a small additional cost for the MUNI if your hotel is not on a BART route.

Here are some more pictures. ENJOY!

Carl Han