What part of the SF/Bay Area do you live in?
East Bay; however, I’m in the South Bay often too (my hometown).
What’s your favorite thing to order in a restaurant (of any type)?
If I can find out beforehand, whatever is unique to that restaurant, region, or type of cuisine.
If I can’t, I try and go with what they recommend or what I see others happily eating around me.
If that all fails - things that pop out at me on a menu are:
- any unfamiliar ingredients/preparations or
- keywords like hand-cut noodles, mushroom/citrus varietals, egg (fish or fowl), peas, almond (primarily, in relation to dessert), honey, and earl grey are a few I can think of, for now.
I enjoy wine, but can’t handle a ton so usually steal sips of my husband’s pairings when pairings are offered. I’ve also found some non-alcoholic pairings to be just as interesting (i.e., TBL3 in San Diego).
And also, black coffee.
What do you want to learn more about, food-wise?
While our boys are still young (in many ways, a good thing as they haven’t developed strong preferences yet!), we’ve been trying to bring them out to try new places, travel, and explore new destinations (and dishes/drinks while we are at it). When we do, we’re looking for local favorites and interesting dining experiences. For the most part, they are pretty well-behaved at restaurants, so we consider ourselves lucky (for now, knock on wood).
We traveled and ate out much more pre-kids. These days, thanks to the parents, in-laws, and a few trusted friends/teachers, we are fortunate enough to have the occasional, leisurely meal without them, and have a running list of restaurants to try as we eagerly anticipate the next “Parent’s Night Out” Saturday at our younger son’s daycare each month. Our last interesting experience locally was the Osamu Tomita Tsukemen lunch last Friday at Ramen Shop - the broth and dipping noodles were superb and so satisfying.
Locally, though we tend to favor Japanese or Taiwanese cuisine, I’d like to try and expand my horizons to cuisines I’m not as familiar with. I’m loving the thread for underrepresented national cuisines in the SFBA that @hyperbowler started and hope to check out a few of those spots in the near future.
I’d also be interested in learning more about how people here are able to so vividly recall and recount the restaurants/dishes/meals they’ve eaten at and plan ahead for/organize around how to visit all the ones they haven’t yet. My weapons of choice are all tied up in Google - Photos, Keep (checklists), Maps (real-time navigation - we take public transit a lot when we travel abroad with the boys, no lugging carseats!), My Maps (restaurant bookmarks), Flights (alerts), and Docs (itineraries). I haven’t found their Trips app to be useful enough yet but am rooting for it to become something more at some point.
We have a hydroponic tower garden that is sitting out unused on our deck and spring seems like a good time to get it going again, but I’m curious as to what people have grown that they don’t get tired of/general usage tips there.
Lastly, we would like to get in the habit of cooking at home more, as we eat out quite often. My husband is (by far) the stronger cook and cooking/coffee/wine-gadget geek of us two, but I’ve made a few things with some success using the Instant Pot. Let’s say I have lots to learn on this front.
Things people should ask me about?
Anything. I find that I learn more in the process of sharing and will try and help if I can!
