Skip to main content

2015 San Francisco - Day 1 - Evening

(Link to all 2015-April San Francisco / Berkeley trip blog posts)

Back to the Inn and my old friend now living in Berkeley, CA swung by with her two young kids. We parked near Trader Joe's in El Cerrito, then walked to Off The Grid at San Pablo Avenue and Fairmount -- a food cart fest featuring a rotation of 10 food trucks. We started with garlic and feta fries from Gyro Stop Kebab while we figured out what we wanted. We ended up trying Drewski's Hot Rod Kitchen, and finished with dessert from The Creme Brûlée Cart.

There were just a so-so amount of fries with an okay amount of feta in Gyro Stop Kebab's garlic and feta fries for $5 -- and that is taking into consideration that food carts typically charge a bit more than comparable restaurant menu items but with the consumer advantage of not having to tip. Lots of chopped garlic, which is helpful because a lot of it will fall off the fries. Fries are OK but this item could be much more convenient to eat and more worth $5 if they were perfectly done and if the garlic could somehow be more securely pasted on the fries, maybe with a bit of sauce of some kind.

After the light dinner at Off The Grid, my friend bought a dinner to go for her husband, we dropped off the kids at her place, then headed grocery shopping. Back to Trader Joe's, and then Target to have a peek at what a proper Target looks like since all of the Target stores in Canada were closing.

I think my best move ever on the trip was to buy a big bag of Josie's Seedless Mandarin oranges from Trader Joe's. 5 lbs for $5.99. Thirsty? Peckish? Just eat a few. And you want the seedless ones to have minimal fuss.
In search for "strange drinks", I also bought some bottled drinks to chill in the fridge. Nothing too special here except a 4-pack of non-alcoholic ginger beer with good bite to it. I'm pretty sure it was Reed's Extra Ginger Beer.

For some reason I was disappointed by Trader Joe's. Maybe I was expecting more unique products. Or maybe the whole concept of it being so interesting to Canadians that Pirate Joe's sprang up on West 4th gave it an unwarranted mystique.

As for Target, it looked like Target in Canada. Hmm.

After having had a really early start to my first day I slept early, waking up pretty cold several times in the night but at that point not having spotted the thermostat yet (hidden behind the TV in the Inn room!). I set my rented cellphone (a primitive Motorola Razr) alarm app for an early start.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 3

A picture from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. I can't remember why I had this couple in the picture, but I do vaguely remember this to be in London, on the first official day of the tour group getting together. Their insistence on my helping them take a picture caused the three of us to be late getting back to the bus. The local tour guide had a "rule" about lateness, that we had to buy chocolate to share with everyone. As it turned out, later in the trip, on at least two occasions, we were stuck on the highway on either a long commute or a traffic jam, and I had chocolate and chocolate-covered marzipan to share. About the chocolate-covered marzipan -- Apparently we were in Austria just as they were celebrating Mozart's birthday with special marzipans wrapped in foil with the famous composer's picture. I'm pretty sure it was Mirabell Mozartkugeln . Anyway, there were enough to go around the en

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 10

The last of my pictures (at least the ones that survived the cheesy disposable cameras) from my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. Below is the obligatory group photo. Not sure everyone's in it, actually. I'm pretty sure this one was taken by the tour director, Mike Scrimshire as I'm in the back row, on the right side.

Trafalgar's European Explorer 2006 memoirs part 9

More assorted couples on my 2006 trip, a Trafalgar 's bus tour, on an itinerary called the European Explorer. An American couple who joked about being from "the land of the giants" -- and with good reason, because both of them were really tall! A cute Jewish mother-daughter pair who ducked out part-way to divert to Israel. I vaguely remember the issue of the daughter being an orthodox Jew was highlighted in France when, to make things easy, she just declared herself vegetarian for the wait staff. I also remember there was some logistics error in France because our party size was way underestimated or simply relayed incorrectly, and there was a shortage of food at dinner. Dessert came as an unopened can of yogurt. It did not seem like they tried to make it up to us later, either. Plus there was smoking every which way in France, and I had a helluva time with that. We were also in a hotel that seemed tucked away in the burbs, and not walking distance from anythin