Supperclub SF Dinner

We brought a Groupon last year for dinner for 2 at Supperclub in San Francisco. I had heard about this restaurant before and was intrigued by the concept of eating on a bed. The deal was about to expire, so we booked our dinner this weekend. We did not really know quite what to expect, and boy, we had a pretty interesting experience. :)

Seating was between 7 and 7:30PM. We arrived shortly before 7 and found plenty of street parking. (yay for free, easy street parking in SF!) The area around the restaurant was a little sketchy. The first thing we saw were these hanging gold shoes outside of the restaurant. Hmm...if this was an indication of how the night would go, we were definitely in for a unique experience. There was already a line formed outside of the restaurant--apparently they were not letting people in yet. We only waited for a couple minutes and then the host let us in. As soon as we entered, there were hanging gold shoes and a bathtub filled with records and random gold stuff. Interesting...

Hanging shoes and bathtub?

The host then greeted us and assigned our seat. There did not seem to be a method on how he/she assigned seats. The host was an over the top, overly outgoing transvestite. "She" was very loud but friendly and yelled, "Love you!" to everyone who came in. :p

Check in area

After checking in with her, we were assigned our "bed". We were directed to the bar area where they served drinks with very interesting names such as One night stand, Morning breath, Tuck me in, etc. I got the "Lullaby" which had some pomegranate juice and blueberry. Dan got a normal glass of Chardonnay wine.

Bar

Our pre-dinner drinks

After hanging out in the bar area for about 30 minutes, we then proceeded to the dining room, which was a 2 story room with huge wraparound beds. We were both kind of excited to be eating on a big bed! Ours was on the first floor, bed #27, on the left side, behind the DJ table. Our seating was ok but there were a couple times where we were not able to see the performers since our view was blocked by the speakers and/or DJ. There was a couple who got assigned probably the worst seat in the house, which was the back corner seat, behind the stairs. They probably couldn't see much at all. :(

Our "bed" where we had dinner

Dinner area

There was popcorn with spicy tabasco sauce waiting for us on our mini table. The popcorn was pretty good (Dan didn't like it as much since it was soggy, but I enjoyed it quite a bit). The waiter went around to get more drink orders; we decided to stick with water. The 2nd floor customers got served food first. We patiently waited for our first course which was a fava bean soup with creme fraiche and corn bread muffin with honey butter. We really enjoyed the corn bread muffin. It was very moist and tasty! The fava bean soup was creamy and a little heavy, and had a slight curry hint which was surprising.

Fava bean soup and corn bread muffin

In between meals there were different performers. The first performer was a singer, and we both thought she was really good. Our favorite performance was probably the trapeze artist who was very flexible and strong! :)

The 2nd course was shrimp & sausage grits served in a doggie bowl. I almost lost her appetite... ha ha. It was fun eating out of the doggie bowl. We thought that this was the main course, but then it turned out the 3rd course was BBQ chicken with potatoes. By this time we were already full. During this time we saw a middle eastern type dancer and a trapeze act (she was really good!).

"Interesting" doggie plate

BBQ chicken

Dessert was butterscotch pudding (excellent) while we watched our host stripped down...sorry, no picture here! This was probably the most "interesting" performance of all...ha ha.

Yummy butterscotch pudding

Overall, the food was ok, but we had a great time and were glad we went. However, we would not recommend this place for children, anyone under 21, or "conservative" people since there were some pretty risque stuff here.

Lake Tahoe Weekend Getaway

We wanted to take a trip somewhere in the summer and decided on Tahoe after I saw a discounted rate for a 2 night stay at the Plumpjack Squaw Valley hotel from Vacationist.com. I have never been to Tahoe in the summer--Dan hadn't been in a while either--so we thought it would be a nice weekend getaway.

Our hotel was located in Olympic Valley, which was interesting because the name of the hotel was Plumpjack Squaw Valley. :p Olympic Valley was actually the site of Winter Olympics. The Lake Tahoe area is actually pretty big. Olympic Valley was on the northwest side of the Lake.

Lake Tahoe

Day 1

We arrived on Friday night. The hotel was actually an older one that was recently taken over by Gavin Newsom's company. They redecorated the inside and re-branded the hotel. The lobby was nice and modern. We booked a standard king bed room on the first floor. As soon as we entered our room, there was a little bit of a smell. We were not bothered enough to change rooms though. It appeared that dogs were allowed in the hotel, so it's probably some leftover dog smell :( ...after a while we got used to it. :p

Plumpjack's Lobby

Industrial looking bedroom

Shower area

Another thing about this hotel was that there's no air conditioning. Thankfully the weather at night was nice enough where having no AC was not a big deal. We rested for a little bit and then head over to Tahoe City for dinner. Tahoe City was a quick 10 minute drive, and we had dinner at Evergreen cafe. We got seated at a nice outdoor table overlooking the lake. Dan ordered the pork chop with grilled polenta, and I had the BBQ quail with macaroni and cheese. Food was ok....not bad but not that great either. After dinner we went back to our hotel and rested.

Day 2

We woke up a little later than usual (around 8:30 AM), probably too tired from the drive. Breakfast was included in the room rate which was great. Breakfast was simple but pretty good. They had french toast, eggs, bacon, potatoes, various breads, cereals, granola, yogurt, and fruit, along with milk, juice, tea, and coffee.

Yummy breakfast!

The other great thing about this hotel was that they provide free bike rentals. We had to fill out a form and then off we went with our free bikes. :) The trail was supposed to be pretty easy, around 8 miles one way from our hotel to Tahoe City (which was where we had dinner the previous night). The bikes were pretty old school though, pedal brake and only 3 speeds. But hey, it's free! I chose the bike with the basket on the front, it looked so cute!

Cute bike (and they were free!)

Ready to bike

 The trail was nicely paved and was actually pretty easy. There were some uphill areas but for the most part it's a pretty easy ride. It took us around 1.5 hours to finally reach Tahoe City. We took breaks along the way to take pictures and enjoy the beautiful scenery. The ride was really nice; we biked alongside the Truckee river (I think) and saw views of the mountains and trees.

Beautiful trail

Truckee River

Once we got to Tahoe City, we had a picnic at the beach park instead of eating at a restaurant. We got some bread, cheese, potato salad, milano cookies, and vitamin water from the supermarket in town. The beach (Commons Beach) was packed. Everyone else came ready with mats, umbrellas, swimsuits, coolers, etc. We only had our stuff from the market and nothing else. :p We sat at a bench and ate our lunch. It was nice, relaxing, and cheap. :) After resting for a while, we rode back to our hotel.

We got back to our hotel at around 3 PM and were really tired. We then went to the pool to chill and relax. We found sunbeds in a shaded area, which was perfect. I ordered a cold ginger ale-martinelli drink from the bar which was a perfectly refreshing poolside drink. We rested, swam, and rested some more. It was nice!

Nice pool area

We had dinner reservations at the PlumpJack restaurant at 6 PM. We didn't realize there was actually a bar area (by the restaurant) where they offered a bar menu which was considerably cheaper than the restaurant. However, we went ahead with our original dinner plans. Dan said that I had expensive taste sometimes...hehe. I had the soft shell crab appetizer which was served with sliced cucumber and avocado relish. It was actually a good portion size and the soft shell crab was perfectly cooked and the cucumber was refreshing. Dan had the rib eye steak which was pretty good too. We shared the strawberry shortcake for dessert which was pretty awesome. We compared it to Bakesale Betty in Berkeley.

Dinner area

Soft shell crab

Rib Eye Steak

Strawberry shortcake

After dinner we walked around the Squaw Valley Village area which was really empty because it was summer. Most of the restaurants were less than half occupied. We can imagine though that it must get really packed in the winter.

Squaw Valley Village in the Summer

Day 3

We had breakfast at the hotel again (love free breakfast!), and then checked out of the hotel. We stopped by the town of Truckee. It's a really really small town; we walked through the main street in 15 minutes.

Town of Truckee

For lunch we went up to Manzanita restaurant at the Ritz Carlton in Tahoe. The hotel was absolutely beautiful, and looked pretty new. The grounds were beautiful and the staff was very friendly. We didn't know this but parking was valet only, but they waived the fee because we were only there for lunch. The chef of the restaurant, Traci des Jardins, was in Top Chef Master. I tried the specialty item in which she won Top Chef Master, the warm bread salad. It was pretty good. Arugula with warm bread and gooey cheese :)

Manzanita Restaurant

Excellent warm bread salad

After lunch we drove back to Sacramento to meet up with Dan's friends to have dinner. We had a great time in Tahoe and it was interesting to see it in the summer.

Some tips & recommendations:

• There are definitely some pretty good deals to be found in Tahoe during summer, since summer is considered low season.
• Find out what "free" stuff your hotel/resort offers. Our hotel offered free bike rental which we took full advantage of.
• We wish we could recommend our hotel, but we probably wouldn't go back and stay there. The hotel was a little older and the dog smell was pretty obvious. On the other hand, if you prefer a dog friendly hotel, then this hotel is definitely a possibility.

Angel Island Biking

Since we had such a great biking trip across the Golden Gate Bridge, we booked another biking trip. This time to Angel Island. I have never been to Angel Island, and Dan hadn't been in a long time. So we thought it would be cool to check it out. We went on Sunday of the 4th of July weekend. We picked up our bikes from Blazing Saddles in San Francisco, and then took the earliest ferry from Pier 41 at 9:45 AM.
 

Angel Island

Someone told us that the Angel Island biking trail was supposed to be easy, so we were expecting a leisurely ride. We're not sure who said it was easy, but it definitely was not! We thought it was actually a lot harder than the Golden Gate biking trip. To add to it, the weather was really sunny and hot that day. The first half of the trail was mostly uphill, with little shade, so it was hard and hot. :( We somehow managed to bike halfway and took a lunch break. Our friend packed sandwiches for lunch which was really good.

Such a hot day!

During our ride, we noticed a lot of abandoned buildings, which was a little bit eerie. We read some of the board explanations, and it looked like many were old concentration camps for Japanese/German prisoners of wars and/or prisons. Angel Island was also the first point of entry for immigrants coming to the United States from the Pacific side. While we were biking, we saw some segway and tram tours that looked much more fun (or at least easier :p). The last half of the trail was actually pretty easy because it was mostly downhill.

The ferry back to San Francisco did not leave until 3 PM, so we had a lot of time to kill. We waited at the only restaurant in Angel Island until it was time for the ferry ride back. We decided that this was definitely not an easy trip, and we probably won't be biking for a while. :)

A couple tips if you are going to Angel Island:

• We actually would not recommend biking at Angel Island. The trail was hard (at least for us). It would have been more fun to just do hiking, or the segway tour looked pretty interesting (and much easier than biking).
• Do not go when it's hot. The day we went was pretty warm, and there weren't a lot of shady spots on the bike trail. We'd probably recommend going during spring or fall.
• There was only one restaurant on the island. So we recommend packing your lunch.

Dan's Birthday Dinner - Alexanders Steakhouse

We celebrated Dan's birthday at Alexander's steakhouse in Cupertino. Dan loves steak and always chooses a steakhouse for his birthday (whereas I prefers fine dining for her birthday dinners). Neither of us had been here before but had heard great things. Alexander's recently received 1 Michelin star rating, and their Yelp rating is a solid 4.5 stars! The restaurant was packed on a Tuesday evening, so they must be doing something right.

Lobster bisque amuse bouche

The lobster bisque was complimentary and a nice touch. It was a bit salty, but hey, it was included. :)

The famous "Hamachi Shots" and "Mixed Fry"

For appetizers, we ordered the famous hamachi shots and mixed fry. The hamachi shots were made of fresh hamachi with avocado, truffled ponzu, chilli, ginger, and wasabi greens. We found them to be really salty.

The mixed fry consisted of jumbo lump crab and mixed vegetable, served with aioli sauce. The crab lumps were actually pretty big and the serving was very generous.

Caesar Salad with 65 Degrees Egg

We shared the caesar salad served with 65 degrees egg. The egg was cooked perfectly. In fact, it was probably our favorite part of the meal so far. :)

Lemon sorbet

 They served us complimentary sorbet as a palate cleanser. It was nice and refreshing.

2+ Lbs Bone-in Ribeye

By the time our ribeye came, we were nearly full already. The ribeye was HUGE. We barely finished half and took the rest home.

Mac and Cheese with White Truffle Oil

We ordered a side of the Mac and Cheese with white truffle oil, which was very decadent and rich. We could only take a couple bites since it was so heavy but really good.

Southern Belle dessert

 We ordered the "Southern Belle" dessert, which was peaches with smoked ice cream and sponge cake. The smoked ice cream tasted very interesting. It reminded me of smoked salmon..ha ha.

The birthday boy :)

They also gave us a complimentary small cake for Dan's birthday. A nice gesture.

Apple cotton candy

The complimentary apple cotton candy was a really nice touch and definitely a great end to this evening.

Overall, the dinner was really nice.  The food was pretty good, but we left a little disappointed.  Perhaps our expectations were too high, but we were still glad to try this place.

Safari in Sonoma County

We went with our friends to a safari in Santa Rosa called Safari West. We were not quite sure what to expect but decided to give it a try. On our way to Santa Rosa, we stopped by one of our most favorite places to eat, Sol Food, in San Rafael. We ordered the famous Pollo al Horno, Veggie Deluxe Sandwich, and the Mango Ice Tea. We also ordered for the first time the Lasagna, which was also excellent. We're always so satisfied everytime we eat here. Our friends also really enjoyed the food.

We got to the safari about 30 minutes before our scheduled 4 PM safari. Who knew that there was a place like this in the North Bay? The first part of our safari was a walking tour around the enclosed area of the park. We got to see some really cool animals: cheetahs, different kinds birds, monkeys, etc. The guide did a really good job explaining interesting stories about the animals. This walking tour lasted around 45 minutes. We then continued on to the safari ride.

Cheetah

Look at the long, white hair

We got a new guide for the safari ride, her name was Erika and she was really cool and knowledgeable too. The first part of the drive was around the compound where the giraffes are. One giraffe came really close to our jeep and tried to chew some of the jeep top :p

Beautiful giraffe!

There were actually cabins also around the park, and some people actually stay overnight. It looked pretty cool to actually stay in one of those cabins. But this time, we only came for the ride. The safari ride lasted around 2 hours. The ride was a little bit bumpy, but it was enjoyable. You can choose to sit up top, or sit on the regular bottom seats. We all chose to sit on the regular seats. If you are more adventurous, or prefer a bumpier ride, or wants a kiss from the giraffe, then maybe choose to sit up top :p

During our ride, we learned some very interesting facts about the animals. Here are some of them that we still remember:

• The majority of the dessert antelopes are white in color, which is advantageous in their case since it keeps them cooler.
• Most antelopes have markers which help their brood to identify with them
• Zebras are actually not a very nice animal, and would sacrifice one of the younger/weaker zebras in their compound if there are predators around
• You can't actually ride zebras since their spines are not strong enough
• Buffaloes are very loyal to each other. Our guide told us about the battle of kruger. You can find it on Youtube. It's quite interesting.

In front of our ride

Our safari ended around 7 PM, and we drove down to Napa for our vegetarian dinner at Ubuntu. I had always wanted to try this place, since this was the only vegetarian restaurant in the Bay Area that earned 1 Michelin star. 

Our reservation was at 8:30 PM and when we came, the restaurant was full! They were not able to seat us earlier so we went to the bar and grabbed some drinks. We saw some of the portions and they looked tiny! The guys were worried that they wouldn't get full from the meal. We were seated late, but they comped us with free appetizers. Yay! The meal started out great. The appetizers were all wonderful: 

• marinated ‘castelvetrano’ olives, tossed in FENNEL frond pesto 
• local ‘marcona’ almonds,  homemade vadouvan spice, sweet HERBS
• chickpea in some kind of curry sauce

Our waiter suggested we try the 5 course tasting menu (including 1 dessert), which is served family style, and has bigger portions. We decided to give it a try since we were not quite sure what to order anyway.

So this was our meal: 

slow roasted ‘chioggia’  BEETS and BROCCOLI with YUZU koshð   spiced almond, ‘sheep’ SORREL, pickled BEETS

roast and raw asparagus;  cool burrata coated with s & p potato chip crumbs  potato skin puree, pine nut /currant soffrito, ‘surrey’ ARUGULA

today’s fresh extruded ‘seville’ orange fregola, a sardinian toasted pearl pasta ‘hakurei’ and ‘scarlet damsel’ TURNIPS, GREEN GARLIC, parmesan broth

warm focaccia with truffled pecorino from florence and apricot/almond agrodolce ‘ping pong’ RADISH, CRUDITÉ, FAVA LEAVES, ‘golden’ PEA SHOOTS

organic arbuckle grits cooked with goat’s milk whey, blistered FAVA BEANS english peas confit in allium oil, pistachio, assorted MINTS, LEMON BALM

sesame and smooth chocolate millefeuille chai ice cream, kumquats, citrus crumble

Our dinner was a very interesting experience. Ubuntu is not the typical vegetarian restaurant with brown rice, tofu, salad, etc. It's really a high end restaurant for people who are more on the adventurous side. Almost all the dishes were complex, contained a lot of ingredients, and were presented beautifully. Even though we love fine dining, Ubuntu was a little bit different from what we're used to, and we're not quite sure what to make of it. Some dishes were better than others, but overall, we were left a little confused.

By the time we were finished with dinner, it was around 10:30 and we were definitely ready to go. It had been a fun, tiring day filled with new adventures and good and interesting food :p

Here are some tips from our experience:

• If you are driving from the south heading up to Santa Rosa, definitely make a stop at Sol Food for some good old Puerto Rican food. The lines are usually long but they move pretty fast.
• You need to call in to book the safari in advance. They have the drive at 10 AM, 2 PM, and 4 PM. We did the 4 PM drive, but if you are going with kids, the 4 PM ride is probably a little too late. 
• We wouldn't recommend kids under the age of 3. The ride was a little bumpy and we think kids over the age of 3 probably would appreciate the ride more.
• If you want to sit up top during the safari ride, be ready for a bumpier ride, and the possibility of being licked by a giraffe :) It should be fun though.