You are here: Home / Archives for San Francisco

You Had Me at “Orange Meatless Chicken”

September 1, 2011 By 14 Comments
IMG_4153.jpg

Last night was my fourth GrubWithUs dinner and my first where I got to dine with the lovely Jana! These dinners are a great way to meet cool new people and also, equally cool, to get to try a wide variety of dishes from a cool new restaurant all at once. Previous GWU meals have included:

And last night I got a chance to go to Yum Yum Hunan, a Chinese restaurant in lower pacific heights on Divisadero. And we had a vegetarian menu! Double score.

Shockingly enough, TWO (!!) of the eight diners did not show up so for the six of us that were there—more for us!

IMG_4153

We started with either hot and sour or eggflower soup, veggie spring rolls, and potstickers. The potstickers were awesome! I tend to think egg rolls don’t taste like much besides the awesome neon sauce, but these were good too!

IMG_4155

IMG_4157

they brought food out so quick it was super overwhelming! all of a sudden our table was just absolutely overflowing with plates and I didn’t really know what to do with it. Anyways.

IMG_4164

We had four different entrees:

IMG_4159

Salt and Pepper Tofu (all right)

IMG_4161

Bok Choy and Mushrooms (good!)

IMG_4167

Kung Pao Tofu (really good!)

Eggplant (photo fail)—was really delicious though, highly recommend

IMG_4169

Orange Meatless Chicken (!!!) this was what I was by far the most excited for. I love orange chicken. This was absolutely my favorite dish.

Everything was served with either white or brown rice. Dessert was fried bananas and green tea ice cream.

IMG_4171

There was great conversation, there were fortune cookies, and there was checking in on Yelp. (One of our diners is a Yelp staffer, another an aspiring Elite!)

IMG_4172

IMG_4174

I really hope my fortune is accurate.

IMG_4176

I would definitely come back to Yum Yum Hunan for some more potstickers and meatless chicken. Smile

new September goals post coming soon. have a great Thursday everyone!

Do fake meats creep you out? Maybe it’s only because I’ve been a vegetarian for less than a year, but I love them Smile

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Pancakes (Food) Tagged With: , , , , , ,

    Bright Spots

    July 19, 2011 By 24 Comments
    IMG_3168.jpg

    Okay I’m going to be totally honest. The last 1.5 weeks or so have totally sucked.

    Work and related stuff has been very stressful, and it’s kind of spanned out into other areas of my life—stress, not getting enough sleep, being too tired to work out, being stressed about not working out, emotional eating, weight gain, more stress—ew. I’ve just been really busy and not feeling good, with a perpetual headache, and fruit flies have invaded my apartment. I am not in a great place.

    But with that being said, not all is bleak! Though I may not be at my happiest, there have been several bright spots in my life lately. I want to take a moment to point out some of these happy things that have kept me going during the last few days.

    IMG_3168

    1. GARMIN!!!

    I got one! I got one! I got one! **jumps up and down** I had wanted to get one of these and I finally ponied up the $136 (up from $128 the last day that I had checked… boo) and after waiting for Super Saver Shipping (thanks, Amazon) and yesterday IT CAME!

    Pathetically, I haven’t used it yet (and it’s been more than 24 hours!!!) but I had plans I couldn’t break yesterday after work and today I came home intending to take it out for a spin but… I’d forgotten to charge it! #fail. Probably for the best though, as I had a massive headache and instead took a nice hour walk through the Sunset district, which was what I needed. Tomorrow morning though… it’s on!

    IMG_3169

    2. STAND UP DESK!!!

    I’m one of those weird healthy people at work sometimes. (The other times I’m making a half dozen trips to the kitchen in one hour for a handful of Stacy’s Pita Chips, all the while convincing myself that the calories don’t count if it’s just a handful of chips…) Anyways, I’ve been REALLY hating sitting down all day. Having gained several pounds since I started, my adult (and sedentary) job, I’ve just felt lethargic and like my butt is molding to the chair. No more! Now I can work standing up half the day. I am very excited about this and I already feel my back getting stronger (slouch much??) though after day one I could have SWORN I was hungrier. Ha. Next goal is to buy a BOSU ball to stand on while working at my standup desk. That would be winning.

    (My desktop background is Big Sur. Bonus bright spot—BSIM 2012!)

    IMG_3190

    3. FREE ICE CREAM AND NEW BOOKS!!!

    I got a coupon in the mail for a FREE pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream today! That’ll brighten all but the darkest of days. The only problem is deciding what flavor!

    I also have three books to read: Eating Animals (trying to figure out my stance on meat-eating once and for all since my “I’m not sure if I should be a vegetarian” post…), The Male Brain (dating in the mid-2os decoded, yo) and Born to Run (yay!).

    BloggerMeetup

    4. BLOGGER MEET UP!!!

    I am trying to get the ball rolling for a big bay area blogger meetup in late August or early September. There are so many bloggers out here and I’ve only met a fraction of them and I would be really excited to help put something together to meet new friends! I already found out about some new bloggers today on Twitter so that is really awesome and I look forward to it! If you or someone you know is in the SF bay area, leave a comment or pass the word along!

    SFM

    5. WORLD RECORD MARATHON TIME!!!

    I tweeted this already but here’s a laugh for you. I changed from the half to the full for the SF Marathon, and I got my bib confirmation # email today, and it turned out my expected finish time had stayed the same. I am predicted, via this email, to run a 2:00 marathon. It’s ridiculous and obviously impossible but I giggled. I’m beyond happy with a 2:00 HALF! Hence that being my original goal. World record here I come!

    IMG_3185

    6. I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO LIKES CANDY CORN?

    Okay, it’s like, top 5 favorite foods. So many people hate it. Today on my walk, I wandered into a drugstore that had an ENTIRE DISPLAY of candy corn. Not only the classics, but also the caramel, and CARAMEL APPLE candy corn (never heard of it… going back to buy some) and autumn mix (can I get a what what for mellowcreme pumpkins?) I don’t care if this stuff has been sitting there since October—it would still taste the same—it just made me happy to see it. And to plan to go back and buy some.

    I’m in a better mood already just writing about these. Now it’s back to work, but at least I can try to focus on a few of the positives. Have a great night everybody!

    Have you had any “bright spots” in your life recently?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Musings Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

    Weekend Wrap-Up: GrubWithUs, Harry and AIDS Walk SF

    July 17, 2011 By 20 Comments
    m220797030.png

    What a week(end).

    Last week was crazy stressful, mostly because of work. I logged pretty ridiculous hours and then was trying to do other stuff at the same time and it didn’t work out so well. And I did NOT get a chance to relax this weekend. But it’s okay because it was mostly fun things! Friday I got to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time: attend a GrubWithUs dinner!

    m220797030

    GrubWithUs is a company that organizes group dinners for 8 people, usually. You sign up on grubwithus.com and your meal price (usually between $20-30) includes all the food, tax, and gratituity, so once you get there you only have to pay for booze (separate checks). Then you just show up and meet 7 other interesting people! I’ve been wanting to go for a while and finally got the chance. I was especially excited because it was at one of my favorite restaurants in the city: Firenze by Night in the adorable neighborhood of North Beach (little Italy).

    I got there a few minutes early so I wandered into a candy shop across the street (oops). Everyone was SO nice who worked there and you could taste their fudge (delectable) and sample the salt water taffies for free! My kind of place. I bought $3 worth of candy on impulse including a really huge roll of Smarties I’m saving for a special time.

    IMG_3091

    IMG_3097

    IMG_3095

    And I got free caramel corn with purchase. Ridiculous. Not the best place to go for my new lose-5-pounds resolution, but hey, it’s free.

    IMG_3098

    Then I headed over to the restaurant for dinner. I had a great time! There were a few guys there who worked in the tech/capital world (that’s what most people are at these things in San Francisco, young tech people—such as myself!), a PhD student from Stanford, an engineer from Chile, and a man who worked at UCSF. I love meeting new people, and it’s really cool to do so in such an environment. And it didn’t help that the food was DELICIOUS.

    IMG_3100

    IMG_3102

    IMG_3105

    (UGLY AND BLURRY IPHONE PICTURE… I am aware this does not look yummy at all. Pic below is from the first time I went)

    IMG_2946

    IMG_3107

    IMG_3109

    This place has the best gnocchi I have ever had. Literally melts in your mouth. And the fish of the day was ridiculous. I cannot even explain it, it was that good. When people say things like that on blogs I usually roll my eyes, but no, this really was THAT good. And the best part was I got to take home a bunch of leftovers so I’ve enjoyed that fish again on Saturday and now Sunday. Triple win.

    All together it was a really fun meal and I hope I can sign up for another GrubWithUs dinner soon! You should definitely check it out if you’re in SF, LA, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Atlanta, or DC.

    Also, can I just say that a nice Friday evening dinner out, great food, sparkling conversation, no booze, and home and in bed in jammies by 10:30PM tired with a full belly is the BEST way to spend a Friday?! Maybe I’m old, but man. That wins now, every time.

    IMG_3120

    Saturday came and I planned to run 16 miles. It was my last real run before SFMarathon. Basically, I intended to head out super early which didn’t happen, but I tried my best. I ended up getting stuck in cold and wet for most of the time. That’s really the only way to describe it. The bridge was foggy but once I was on it it was legit raining and then by the time I made it to the other side this was the view of downtown SF.

    IMG_3127

    Beautiful, huh? Brrr. Then, for the THIRD time, I tried to follow the SFM course through the Presidio (because I know that is going to be the hardest part, at least for me) and I got lost! I cannot figure out how to get to Lincoln Boulevard from the pedestrian side of the GG bridge! So my entire plan got foiled and I ended up running a kinda sucky route and only doing 14 miles at a 10:30 something pace so it was a WEAK and not fun run but hey, you’re always going to have days like this and I’d rather get them out of the way now so I can hopefully actually finish SFM! :)

    IMG_3117

    Saturday I had a meeting for AIDS Walk SF (I was a “key volunteer”) and then got on a bus downtown to the Metreon for… Harry! (source)

    Harry-Potter-And-The-Deathly-Hallows-Part-2

    I saw it with a friend in IMAX/3D (except I can’t really see the 3D part of it) and it was AMAZING. I had heard all good things and I couldn’t believe how much I loved it. I cried so much it was ridiculous. I actually appreciated having the unwieldy 3D glasses because it hid the downpour of tears running down my face. It was a very emotional movie and I’m already thinking about when I can see it again.

    IMG_3137

    Sunday (today) I was up at 5:30am for the AIDS Walk! One of my friends is on the committee for it so I offered to volunteer. It’s a cause near and dear to my heart; as many of you know I spent the last 2+ years doing AIDS work in Africa. I ended up sitting on a street corner for about six hours and working with a park ranger and other volunteers to frequently stop the walk to let the cars go through (we were on the only open road in GG Park). I took NO pictures of the mass of walkers (they predicted 25,000) because it was a pretty stressful job. Most people were super nice, but others got angry at me when I asked them very nicely to wait for a minute so we could clear out the traffic! People kept grumbling that if they had to stop walking for a minute they wouldn’t be able to go again. I didn’t know how to react to that, but needless to say, the time went by pretty fast. It was cool to be a part of the event and brought me back hardcore to my UCLA days of being an RA (all the chatter on the radio!) and on the steering committee of a huge HIV/AIDS fundraising event called Dance Marathon. It was a good time though, but I was very ready to move on from that corner once it was over Smile

    IMG_3149

    IMG_3152

    IMG_3155

    Home and planning out the ridiculousness of the week ahead—work, food, workouts, runs, SLEEP, blog—and trying to get in a little mini-workout before I go out to dinner tonight. I really want to take a nap. Very, very bad. Fun weekends are great, but not when they leave me saying at the end, “man, I need a weekend.” Smile Though next one looks pretty open, so hopefully I can lay low.

    Hope everyone had a WONDERFUL weekend!

    Courtney

    What was the best part of your weekend?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Musings, Pancakes (Food) Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Xtreme Grouponing: Bootcamp Edition

    July 12, 2011 By 18 Comments
    Groupon1.png

    Hi, my name is Courtney and I’m addicted to Grouponing.

    Okay, really daily-deals-ing of any kind. I am a sucker for a good deal. The problem with being a sucker for a good deal is, like a sale, you end up spending money on something you probably wouldn’t have spent money on in the first place. And then when you use it much later as a coupon, you forgot that you already paid for it so it feels like free stuff. Tons of deception going on with these coupons. But clearly “knowing” better hasn’t stopped me.

    There’s my groupons…

    Groupon1

    And my LivingSocial deals…

    Groupon2

    And a Trubate…

    Groupon3

    And the list grows and grows. Currently in my possession, I have, among others:

    • A coupon for Farm Fresh to You (CSA), which I haven’t used because I’m scared of everything going bad…
    • A coupon for Old Navy
    • $20 to Green Apple Books (best bookstore in SF that I’ve been to)
    • $40 for Hobson’s Choice (a bar on Haight Street right near me specializing in rum punches)
    • A coupon for Cinnaholic, only the most amazing vegan cinnamon roll EVER! I could eat this every single day…

      • Groupon5

     

    • $15 to Blue Front Café, home of one of my other favorite things on Haight Street: the falafel burrito with spicy hummus.

      • IMG_2821

     

    • Two months of unlimited Bikram at Bikram Yoga in the Mission…

    But then I heard that place stunk (like, unforgiveable levels of BO) so I ended up buying the 8 classes for $24 at another studio. And guess what that same studio offered just days later…

    Groupon6

    YEAH. I spend $24 for 8 classes and then they did a $20 for 20 deal. NOT HAPPY. I tried to buy both and planned to feign ignorance but then I missed the better one by an hour. FOR SHAAAME.

    Anyways. Clearly I have a problem.

    Most of my daily-deals purchases have been $10-20, but recently, one came into my inbox that I couldn’t ignore.

    Groupon4

    BOOT CAMP!

    See, there’s a TON of fitness deals that come through these companies, and there are soooooo many cool studios I would love to try out, from boxing to pilates to weird combinations you’ve never heard of before. But most of them, frankly, are too out of the way for me to get to. In principle I’d love to buy all these coupons, but some are still quite expensive and the realities are different—I don’t have time to cook, much less go miles out of the way to exercise. There’ve been some boot camp deals, and I’ve wanted to sign up, but then I realize that buses don’t run often at 5am to get me to the other side of town and I’d rather sleep in anyways.

    But this bootcamp, by ALaVie Fitness, is in Golden Gate Park, less than a 15 minute walk from me. So somehow, $80 later, I’m enrolled in a Monday-Friday (I go 4 days) 6am-7am boot camp. I really have absolutely no idea what I am getting into. But I know I’m going to try my darndest to make it out and get my money’s worth. I hope there’s a nice group of women that will motivate and encourage me. And I really hope I don’t sleep in.

    6am every day? Scratch that… 5am wakeup call every day? What was I thinking?? Maybe I wasn’t. But I’m still excited.

    Speaking of 5am wakeup calls… goodnight everybody!

    Do you ever buy daily deals? Ever gotten a fitness-related one?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: fitness, Musings Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

    Birthday Week: Tourist Day!

    June 18, 2011 By 10 Comments
    DSC09685_480x360

    This is my last Birthday Week post, I promise. I just wanted to document all the fun stuff I did to celebrate! If you missed anything, the other posts:

    This will also be the last “look what I did!” post for a while. I have much more interesting stuff coming up next week I promise. : )

    Sunday of Birthday Week was a bit mellow at first. I woke up and celebrated by going and spending a lot of money at Trader Joe’s. TJ’s has absolutely been a GODSEND when trying to readapt to living and eating healthy (and affordably) in the big city. That’s another post, though.Today ended up being a Tourist Day, which fit because I was with someone who didn’t live in SF and someone who’s lived there almost all his life. I LOVE tourist days. I think that sometimes when you live in places that are very touristed (like SF, now, and Los Angeles, before I moved) you instinctively avoid tourist destinations since “you live there”… but most touristy destinations are that way for a reason: because they’re cool. Today ended up being a pretty awesome Tourist Day in SF.

    First, Jeremy and Alex came over and we checked out the Haight Street Fair.

    Background: the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood is where the hippie movement and Summer of Love that people so frequently associate with San Francisco, originated. It’s now a bit calmer, partly gentrified and partly run down, populated by families with kids and homeless teenagers with backpacks alike. It’s one of the most touristed streets in the city and is great fun on the weekends as people pour out from all over to hang out on Haight and in Golden Gate Park that borders it. It also happens to be where I live. #winning

    Sunday was the annual Haight Street Fair, when the street closes down from Stanyan to Masonic and gets filled up with booths and vendors selling everything imaginable. We wandered around and had a good time. I bought a piece of African art to go in my apartment (pictures to come when I get it hung up!) and a bag of kettle korn for lunch. I really HAVE to stop eating bags of kettle korn for meals… but I just can’t help it!

    This made me a bit nostalgic for Africa. Despite the whole vegetarian thing, I REALLY miss buying meat on sticks on the side of the road! Flashback.

    I LOVE fair food. Love love love. Too bad that they were pretty much all meat at this place… in hippie veg/vegan central! What were they thinking?? I really thought about buying a funnel cake for lunch.

    \

    After we wore out the fair’s entertainment value, we headed down to San Francisco’s trendy/hipster Mission neighborhood to go to Dolores Park. Dolores Park is probably… okay, deifnitely the coolest park in the city to sit around and people watch. It’s basically a big square of grass covered with people drinking, smoking (or eating) weed, throwing balls to their dogs, or playing with their children. It’s a great cross-section of SF life. And it has pretty awesome views of the city from the top corner.

    One of the best things about Dolores Park is that right on the corner is Bi-Rite Creamery, probably the best ice cream in San Francisco. The line is always long even at 10pm when it’s 45 degrees and the freezing wind is blowing you over.

    They have a ton of really interesting flavors and are probably most famous for their Salted Caramel. Which I think is pretty good, but it’s actually not my favorite. Neither is the honey lavender. It tastes like a perfume (but still manages to be delicious).

    I went with the brown sugar with ginger caramel swirl (my personal favorite… until now) and ricanelas (my new favorite–cinnamon ice cream with pieces of snickerdoodle cookies in it) with their homemade graham crackers on top.

    DIE.

    Next stop: we traversed the city all the way to the Ocean (despite being the City by the Bay, sometimes I forget that we’re on the ocean until I like, run by it!)

    We were at the Sutro Baths, a very cool (modern) ruin. See that big pool? This actually was a bath house 100 or so years ago. So crazy! And man is our ocean windy and cold. But it’s beautiful.

    Light at the end of the tunnel, anybody? :)

    Overall it was an awesome day and a superb end to Birthday Week. I have a lot of blog projects/goals over the next two weeks and one of them is making a list of things in SF I’m excited to do–even if they’re touristy. :)

    I just dropped off an 18 mile run after 1 mile due to injury… that’s another post. But hey, I got to update the blog! Have a super Saturday, everybody!

    What touristy things exist where YOU live? Do you enjoy them?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Pancakes (Food), Postcards (Travel) Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

    Birthday Week: Dinner on an Island!

    June 13, 2011 By 9 Comments
    DSC09554_480x360

    Badblogger badblogger badblogger.

    Well, Birthday Week is OVER! Which explains the lack of blogging, because I spent the last four days celebrating the year of my birth. Pretty standard stuff. Before I tell you how I spent my birthday, I want to announce some GIVEAWAY WINNERS!

    First giveaway… Sun Chlorella and Ghiradelli chocolate! The winner is (drumroll please…)

    Katie of Legally Fit! Katie, send me your address and I’ll get you some natural energizers and some chocolate : )

    Aaaaaand the CEREAL PRIZE PACK GIVEAWAY! The winner is…

    Cait from Beyond Bananas! Cait, get me your info and you’ll get your prize pack in the mail shortly!

    Moving on. Back to my birthday. I had the day (Thursday ) OFF. Shout out to my awesome company here. They very recently announced some new additions to Company Culture, including your birthday off and a meal on the company. Which I took gladly. THANKS. Birthday pancake! With no fruit or anything fun since I was out of ingredients.

    Sad panda pancake.

    Having a Thursday off, and having just gotten back from Boston (where birthday week began), was a little disorienting! I started off with a six mile run through Golden Gate Park. I’d like to tell you it was epic, but actually it was foggy and kind of misting on me. Anyways.

    I decided the next best thing to do on your birthday is go to spend money you don’t have, which I promptly did. I went to Express and bought two dresses, and birthday presents for my sister.

    I had to eat, which resulted in what I call Price/Calorie Shock-Induced Indecision. Basically, when confronted with tons of food choices, I want everything, but then half the stuff turns me off because it’s expensive (all the healthy, trendy eateries) and the other half is cheap but turns me off because it’s unhealthy (i.e. the several minutes I spent contemplating if I should eat Mrs. Field’s cookies for lunch). So I end up wandering around for hours trying to find a happy medium. Then I realized all I wanted was a Wetzel’s Pretzel. Imagine my pain when I realized it was closed! I was gonna chalk it up to a birthday fail but then realized there was an Auntie Anne’s upstairs. LUNCH SUCCESS! Plus Jamba Juice. For the fruit. And protein. : )

    How perfect is that quote??

    Next I headed back in time for a haircut. Girl’s gotta look fly on her b-day! On the way out, I found KITCHEN SHELVES on the street corner! You probably don’t know I’ve been “cooking” with a microwave and a toaster oven, both on the floor of the kitchen. Shelves = BEST BDAY PRESENT EVER! Pic to come when my kitchen is clean…

    Apres-haircut, I headed downtown with my lovely sister Caitlin. We boarded the streetcar to Fisherman’s Wharf, tourist capital of SF. But tourist places are usually touristy for a reason, and upon arriving I wondered why I hadn’t been there in years (besides running by it often and weaving through the tourists and nearly knocking over their ice cream cones).

    We went to a place called Forbes Island. This kitchy restaurant is an “island” (aka boat that’s been built up) floating off the pier. The “captain” has to come pick you up in a shuttle boat to get out there!

    I expected it to be touristy, but also special. They gave us a “romantic” table (wooo!) and the wait staff was amazing.

    The restaurant was participating in Dine About Town so I got a green salad, salmon with pesto rice, and chocolate mousse for $34.95. The food was good! It’s expensive and not the best food you’ll ever have (our bill was $120 including the $30 bottle of wine) but you pay for the experience and it DEFINITELY feels like a special occasion. This is a place to propose!

    My sister got the mushroom risotto and potatoes au gratin (GOOD!) and we split a bottle of wine.

    Only bad thing about this place: poor lighting for food pictures.


    Can we talk about how cute this is?


    After our lovely dinner, we climbed the 50-something steps (he said this like it was intimidating and I’m pretty sure I giggled) of the lighthouse to check out the view. Yes, there was a lighthouse. And yes, there was a view.

    After the captain dropped us back off we made our way to the pier for my next destination: an ice cream cone. See, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is my favorite thing, but I never ever get it. Not out of guilt so much as cold. But it was my birthday and all I wanted was that darn cone!

    Success.

    To keep ourselves from getting too cold, we ate our frozen treats while wandering through a variety of tourist shops. Can we talk about these magnets???

    I had a great day. The best thing was that it was only a precursor to the weekend’s celebrations. That’ll be the next post. : )

    My mom believes in taking your birthday off every year. Now, I most definitely do too.

    Rest of birthday week posts to come. Until then… have a great night!

    What are your birthday traditions?

  • SIMILAR POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE . . .

    Share
    • Filed Under: Pancakes (Food), Postcards (Travel) Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
    « Previous Page
    Next Page »