Thursday, March 22
Morning brew at Peet’s Coffee & Tea, 2124 Vine St., Berkeley. The Boyfriend (TB) had a soy latte, I had my usual iced Americano.
- Taste: Good (Guerilla Cafe serves Blue Bottle Coffee, still my favorite in this area)
- Portion: Standard espresso drink sizes
- Price: Average (TB paid for both drinks, I don’t know how much. We went to Peet’s again a couple of days later and spent $6.55 on my usual and TB’s medium raspberry soy mocha.)
Lunch at Ali Baba’s Cave, 799 Valencia St. (the Mission), San Francisco (415-863-3054), with our new friends Carolyn & Fred (C&F).
- I had a “mezza” plate with hummus, baba ganouj, pita bread, and tabouleh salad
- TB had falafel, something else, and tabouleh salad
- C&F each had an entree, I don’t remember what
- Taste: Good, except neither TB or I liked the tabouleh (too much parsley and not enough cracked wheat, I think)
- Portion: Just right
- Price: Inexpensive ($23, excluding tip, to feed the four of us)
Dinner at Suriya Thai Restaurant, 1432 Valencia St (the Mission), San Francisco (415-824-6655).
TB and I ordered off the specials menu. I don’t know how frequently the specials change, and I didn’t make note of the names of most of the dishes our party ordered.
- To start, the four of us shared an order of fried sweet potatoes in coconut/sesame batter, served with a sweet & spicy sauce
- C&F had warned us about Suriya’s large portion sizes, so TB and I shared an order of red curry* with coconut milk, fried bananas, red bell peppers, and firm tofu
- Carolyn had the Emerald Noodles an a Thai iced tea. Fred had … um, something. C&F are omnivores and between that and the fact that our red curry was so delicious, I didn’t pay attention to C&F’s meals.
- We shared a bowl of steamed white rice
- Taste: Excellent
- Portion: Just right to large
- Price: Moderate ($52, sans tip, for all four of us)
- Other: Good service, and Suriya’s staff were quite helpful and solicitous in response to my request for vegan food
Sorry for the deficient dining details in this post. I usually make my notes on my handheld computer (a Dell Axim, if you must know) and I forgot it today.
*I’ve decided that red curry is my new vice. I must find delicious vegan red curry when I return to Seattle. I may have to go to my favorite Emerald City restaurants and do a yellow curry and red curry side-by-side comparison.