Day #217 - Fast Food & Homemade Food

Our last full day on vacation, and we all chose to sleep in again. We started our day with lunch from Subway.   I had the Chicken Teriyaki sub, toasted, with lettuce, cucumber, and tomato. With Nacho Cheese Doritos.

After lunch, we all hung out at my brother's apartment for the afternoon.  I think the past week of sightseeing and hiking has worn all of us out.   It felt nice to just chill and decompress for a day.

We went over to my relatives' house for dinner again tonight.  My aunt made Chicken Kiev, which was very delicious!  She also cooked some homemade potato pancakes, which were very thin and crispy!  I don't remember having potato pancakes before, so I tried one with sour cream, and one with applesauce.   Despite my family claiming they taste best with the applesauce...I preferred the sour cream.  I guess that makes me the nontraditional one of the group.   I also had a nice salad of lettuce, mandarin oranges, pecans, croutons, and balsamic dressing.  It was a wonderful meal, and a nice change from all the fast food I've eaten this week.

We had two desserts tonight: Lemon Bars baked by my aunt, and chocolate-dipped strawberries and clementine slices made by my cousin and his girlfriend.

The lemon bars were superb, probably because the lemons came straight from the trees in their backyard.  Much better than any store-bought lemons or boxed mixes found back home in the Midwest.   The chocolate fruit was delicious too.   You can never go wrong with fresh fruit dipped in chocolate.

Day #216 - Pitas, Soup, and Pie!

Today we got a late start on vacation; the whole family chose to sleep late instead.    When we finally got up and moving, we went to Extreme Pita for lunch.   I've eaten pitas before, but never like this.  These were really large, thin pitas, stuffed with delicious ingredients and then rolled like a wrap.    I ordered one of their international-inspired pitas:  The Chicken Souvlaki - chicken, red onion, cucumber, black olives, tomatoes, romaine lettuce, feta cheese, Greek oregano dressing, and tzatziki sauce.   It was very good!

After lunch, we drove to Lands End for some trail hiking and beach observing.  I say observing, because it was a little too cold to get in the water, except for maybe our hands and feet.  Plus the waves were very strong crashing against the rocks!

My brother knew of a restaurant a short drive from Lands End, so we went there for dinner.   Duarte's Tavern, located in Pescadero, CA, is a small historic landmark restaurant, family owned since 1894.  In 2003, they were one of five restaurants in the United States to receive an honorary award as an American Classic from the James Beard Foundation.    They have also been featured in an episode of Food Network's "Diners, Drive-ins and Dives."   With credentials like that, I couldn't wait to taste their menu!

Two dishes Duarte's is known for is their Cream of Artichoke Soup and Olallieberry Pie.   I ordered a bowl of the soup as my entree, in order to save room for dessert.  The soup was hot and creamy, with a light taste of artichokes.  It didn't have as many chunks of artichoke as I was expecting.   But it was still a very good soup.  We were also served a large basket of hot, fresh, homemade Rustic country white bread.  It made an excellent dipper & scoop for my soup!

Next came dessert.  They had several varieties of pie on their menu, and I knew I wanted to try the Olallieberry.  But another flavor caught my attention: the apricot.  I've never had an apricot pie before, so I ordered a slice of that.  It worked out perfectly, because my mom and brother both ordered the Olallieberry, so I still got a sample of it.  The apricot was flavorful, a little less sweet than a peach pie.  The olallieberry was rich and berry-like, very similar to a blackberry.   And the combination of both pies together in one bite was fabulous!

P.S.  What is an olallieberry, you ask?   An olallieberry is a cross between the loganberry and the youngberry, each of which is itself a cross between blackberry and another berry (raspberry and dewberry, respectively).

Day #215 - Chipotle & Tied House

Today was the 5th day of our California vacation.  We started the morning with a walk through the Redwoods Regional Park in Oakland, California, where we worked up an appetite.  From there, we drove to Berkeley and stopped at Chipotle for lunch.

At Chipotle, I ordered a steak burrito bowl - rice, black beans, steak, lettuce, mild tomato salsa, sour cream, and shredded cheese.   I also had a few tortilla chips from the bag my family was sharing.   It was a filling lunch after all the walking in the morning, and enough food to tide me over until dinner.   After lunch, we spent a couple hours walking around the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens. 

For dinner, we drove to Mountain View to a restaurant my brother recommended:  the Tied House Brewery & Cafe.   My aunt, uncle, and cousin met up with us there.   Considering we were at a Brewery, I had to order a beer with my meal.  Their featured fruit beer was a Passionfruit Pale Ale.  It sounded intriguing, so I gave it a try.   It was light, with a typical ale taste, but had a slight tropical fruit kick at the finish.  I enjoyed it!   

For dinner, I ordered their Turkey Burger - a half-pound ground turkey patty, with arugula, fresh tomato, and red onion on a kaiser roll, served with Chipotle Tarter sauce on the side, and a large portion of fries.  The turkey burger was juicy and flavorful, and the chipotle tarter added a nice kick! 

Day #214 - San Francisco

Day #4 of my California vacation. Today my family and I spent the day in San Francisco.  We started with lunch in Chinatown, at a restaurant my aunt Carol picked out called Four Seas.

 

My aunt and brother were adventurous enough to eat Dim Sum for lunch, but I chose to order something more substantial (and familiar) from the menu - Cashew Chicken.    Large chunks of chicken, green bell pepper, white onion, celery, and baby corn, cashews, and a cashew sauce.   My mom gave me some of her pork fried rice, and I also tried one of the dim sum pork & mushroom dumplings and steamed pork buns.  It was all very good, and very filling.   A large lunch, considering we would be spending the rest of the afternoon walking around San Francisco and Pier 39.

Later in the afternoon, my uncle and cousins met up with us at Pier 39, and we all walked through Fisherman's Wharf on the way to Ghirardelli  Square.    Yes, the famous chocolately Ghirardelli's.   We ordered giant ice cream sundaes, which was our "dinner."

I know this will be shocking, but my sundae wasn't chocolate at all.   Rather that something heavy and rich, I ordered the Very Berry Sundae - strawberry cheesecake ice cream, sliced strawberries, vanilla ice cream, blueberry topping, whipped cream, chocolate-covered blueberries, and a chocolate-dipped waffle cone roll.   Delicious!!!

Day #213 - Friar Tuck's & Black Bear Diner

Day #3 on vacation.  Today we drove down to the small town of Carmel-by-the-Sea.  We walked around the streets for a bit, then stopped for lunch at a place called Friar Tuck's.  I ordered the Club Sandwich - turkey, ham, bacon, and cheese, on toasted bread, with a side of potato salad.  It was a good classic club sandwich, perfect for a light lunch.

After lunch, we stopped at the Carmel Mission and Carmel State Beach for a few photo ops, then proceeded to the 17-Mile Drive through Pebble Beach.  Unfortunately the sky was very overcast, so my photos didn't turn out as beautifully as they could have been.   After exiting the 17-Mile Drive, we drove through the city of Monterey, and stopped for dinner at the Black Bear Diner.

I ordered the Roadhouse BBQ Tri-Tip Platter - Sliced, marinated tri-tip served with onion rings and homemade cole slaw.  It also came with a small garden salad (which I had with blue cheese dressing) and a warm cornbread muffin.   The tri-tip was very juicy and flavorful and tender, and melted in my mouth.  The onion rings were crispy and perfectly fried, without being too greasy.  Overall, my entire dinner was delicious, and I couldn't finish all of it.    The family ordered two pies (Chocolate Cream and Coconut Cream), which we took back to my brother's apartment for dessert later in the evening.

Day #212 - Subway & Pizza

Today was our second full day on vacation here in California.   We started the morning by driving through San Francisco, stopping at the Golden Gate Bridge for photos and a little walk halfway across the bridge.  From there, we drove north towards Muir Woods.  We stopped at a Subway for lunch, and I had an Oven-Roasted Chicken Breast sub on the Italian Herbs & Cheese bread, with spinach, tomato, cucumber, provolone cheese, green pepper, and Honey Mustard sauce.    The family and I split some SunChips with our sandwiches, and cookies for dessert.     After lunch, we continued on the drive to Muir Beach, Bonita Point, and the Fort Baker Pier.

After a long day of riding in the car or walking in nature, we came back to my brother's apartment and ordered pizza from dinner from Premier Pizza.   We ordered two varieties: the Bacon Chicken Supreme (white garlic sauce, smoked bacon, and grilled chicken) and the Cowboy (smoky barbecue sauce, mesquite grilled chicken breast, sweet red onions and green bell peppers).  They were both very good!   

Day #211 - Google & Ravioli

While I am on vacation, I will try to include both my lunch & dinner pictures with my posts, since we will likely be eating "out" for both meals. Today is our first full day in California, and here is what I ate:

Lunch was on the Google campus here in Mountain View.   My brother works at Google, and he treated us to lunch at one of the many cafes on the campus.  We ate at Charlie's Cafe, which had several stations of cuisine - salad bar, American, Italian, Japanese, Indian, Italian, Mexican, and dessert.    My lunch consisted of a chilled green gazpacho soup (cucumbers, honeydew, and light spices); a salad of butter lettuce, mixed greens, bell peppers, fresh mozzarella balls, marinated zucchini, slivered almonds, and balsamic dressing; fresh cantaloupe, honeydew melon, and grapes; some sort of spicy chicken wrap; and a dessert called Brownie VS Cheesecake - a thick brownie crust topped with cheesecake and then decorated with large chocolate curls.

It was a very filling lunch!!  But I tried sticking with mainly healthy choices (except for the dessert).   And it all tasted excellent.   Thanks, Google!

For dinner we went to visit some relatives out here in California, and my aunt cooked dinner.  She made giant meatballs, homemade ravioli, garlic bread, and fresh vegetables.  Everything was delicious!  She also baked a peach pie for dessert, but my phone battery died before I could take that picture.  Plus I ate that piece rather quickly because it tasted so good.  Slightly warm peach pie with a scoop of slightly melting vanilla ice cream.  MMM mmm good!!