When I walked in the door, Hawk seemed super excited that I was there and bustled me into the family room, whereupon I was greeted by Naan, still clad in flannel penguin pajamas and glasses, brandishing a gift bag, and declaring, "Happy birthday, yo!" Turns out Shweetie had flown Naan in from San Diego for the weekend as a surprise for me. We had a delicious sushi and sashimi lunch at Amakara, then spent a long time at Jo-Ann Fabrics, picking out materials for our shirts for the upcoming Relay for Life.
That night (after my usual Friday evening workout - duh), Shweetie and I had dinner with my family at the Hawks’. There was a ton of yummy food – steamed chicken, catfish, duck, and Chinese broccoli. Afterward, we had a delicious strawberry and custard cake from City of D’Lights and I opened my present from the Hawks: two workout outfits!
The next morning, I went to Group Kick as usual. It was insanely crowded, which surprised me, because I thought people might be out of town for the long weekend. What was even more shocking, though, was that at 8:00, Gicky was nowhere to be seen, and he always starts his class right on the dot. However, I knew he was there, since I’d seen him at the fitness desk when I walked in. While waiting for class to start, I saw Gicky run past the studio, on his way out the door. A few minutes later, I saw him sprint past again as he ran back in. At 8:15, Gicky finally came in and announced in defeat that he could not find his Group Kick CDs. Someone suggested he borrow another instructor’s music, since she was teaching in the studio next door. After another five minutes of Gicky running around and finally getting the borrowed iPod to work with the sound system, class was underway. As much as I make fun of Gicky for his inability to remember the routines, I felt bad for him, since I can imagine how stressed out he must have felt, knowing that there were about 50+ people waiting for him to start class. After that, class went fine, and the only thing we ended up having to skip was the cooldown song.
After my workout, Shweetie and I headed to San Francisco, since we had tickets for the 2:00 pm showing of Spamalot at the Golden Gate Theatre. We’d decided to have breakfast at Dottie’s True Blue Café beforehand, since it was within walking distance of the theatre and has always gotten excellent reviews. The place is tiny, has little ambience, had a 45-minute wait, and is in the ghetto, but none of that would have bothered me if the food had been as out-of-this-world as everyone says it is. For the record, it’s not. Shweetie had been there once before and had been unimpressed, but wanted to give it another shot, since he’d ordered off the regular menu before, and he’d since read that it’s the specials that are really good. We both ordered specials, and neither of us was particularly bowled over. In fact, I found my cornmeal blueberry pancakes so dense and tart that I only ate one of the three. The only good thing about this place was they got us out really quickly, so even though we didn’t sit down until 1:20 pm, we got to the theatre at exactly 2:00 pm.
Spamalot has been on my list of must-see shows ever since I saw one of the songs performed at the Tony Awards. We got tickets through my aunt’s friend, who had bought a large block of tickets through group sales. My aunt, uncle, and cousin were also attending, so we opted to go see it with them. We had great seats in the second row of mezzanine, but I was shocked at how empty the theatre was. None of the side mezzanine was occupied, and the balcony was only marginally filled out. We had a good time, but, not being a real Monty Python fan, I know I never need to see this show again. There were some hilarious parts, but for the most part, the show was pure silliness and the music was not very memorable, especially because none of the music really furthered the plot, and instead pertained to whatever the character had just said. (It sort of reminded me of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, when Ryan, Colin, and Wayne would have to break into song, using the last thing they just said, when Drew would hit the buzzer...but I digress.)
After the show, we wandered around a little bit to kill time, then rushed over to dinner. All the while, I still had no idea where we were going, until we passed by a small establishment with the words "Bar Crudo" etched onto the glass.
Bar Crudo is this seafood place I’ve been wanting to try since Mango mentioned it a few years ago. They had apparently just moved to this new space recently, and only reopened a couple of days beforehand, and I was so excited that we were eating here, since I don’t think I’d ever mentioned to Shweetie that I’d wanted to try it out. As we walked up to the glass doors, the first thing I thought upon looking through the window was, "Wow, that girl looks like Cousin Traveller." Then we walked in, and I realized that it was her. Shweetie had arranged for Naan and cousins Traveller and Mooga to meet us for dinner! We had a fabulous meal of seafood, and I opened my awesome presents from the cousins: a giraffe-print Melinda Mae handbag, a photo frame with pictures of me and the cousins through the years, and a party-in-a-box of four mini cupcakes (which I later ate all by myself – they were delish!).
Cousins and Naan!
The Shweeties!
Oysters on the Half Shell
(Clockwise from bottom): Kona Kampachi, Butterfish, Arctic Char, Massachusetts Dayboat Scallops
Lobster Salad
Monkfish Spread
Soft Shell Crab
Seafood Chowder
Since Bar Crudo doesn’t serve desserts, we walked to a place called Candy Bar after our refreshing meal. We each ordered a dessert, and some of them were pretty good, while the one I ordered for Shweetie was just downright strange. Traveller’s boyfriend joined us, too, since he and Traveller only live a few blocks away. The six of us had fun just hanging out and talking.
Blackberry Chocolate Cake
Chocolate Fudgesicle
Sorbet
Beet Mascarpone Mousse
Chocolate Cremeux Cake
When we finally called it a night, Naan came back to our place with us to spend the night. The next morning we took her to breakfast at one of our regular go-to places, Chester’s. Then we went back home and Shweetie started cooking for the dinner party we were having the next day, while Naan and I hung out. One of the subjects that had come up during the day was what Shweetie and I should do to celebrate Father’s Day and Hawk’s birthday. I suggested doing a joint celebration and just taking them out (Shweetie has cooked for them for the last four big events), since June is always so crazy. So while Shweetie was cooking, I called the Hawks up and Ba answered. Shweetie had told me that he and I were going out for dinner that night, and that one or both of the Hawks were coming by around 4:30 to pick up Naan. So after talking to Ba about dates that worked for them for the Father’s Day/Hawk’s birthday dinner, I asked, "So who’s picking up Naan? Just you or both of you?" Naan was sitting at the table with me, just looking innocently back at me, but I caught a glimpse of Shweetie’s face, who looked accusing. Ba answered, "No, it’ll be both of us," but, based on the look on Shweetie’s face, I knew I had asked a taboo question. I found out later that Naan was worried she had given the surprise away, because she looked up when I asked that question; she didn’t know if Ba knew that them going with us to dinner that night was supposed to be a surprise. I was able to tell her, in all honesty, that it was Shweetie who completely gave it away.
When the Hawks arrived at our house, we all piled into my car, and started driving east on Highway 80. I realized we must be heading up to Napa, which Shweetie confirmed. However, he wouldn’t tell me where we were going exactly, and I realized that no one else knew either. My first guess was that we were going to Terra, but when Shweetie neither confirmed nor denied, I started making other guesses. Finally I started passing out, and didn’t really wake up again fully until we were pulling into a parking space in front of a lovely building whose façade was covered in stone. There was no exterior sign on the building, so I didn’t realize we were walking into Terra, until Shweetie opened the door to the restaurant.
Dinner was fantastic. I’ll post a more detailed restaurant review of Terra in another entry, but I just wanted to say that we had a great time here and the food was really good. We’d heard many mixed reviews of this place, and we didn’t care much for its sister restaurant, Ame, in San Francisco, so I was a little bit worried, but we ended up having a fabulous meal.
Monday I woke up late and spent the day cleaning the house, in preparation for our friends coming over for dinner. This was one of the few events this weekend that I actually knew about ahead of time. Dinner was served as soon as everyone had arrived, and Shweetie really outdid himself. He made corn soup, braised short ribs, mashed potatoes, crème caramel, and panna cotta with mixed berries. Shweetie was upset earlier in the day because he’s been searching for a good braised short ribs recipe, and he realized that morning that his French Laundry cookbook, which he’s had for ages, actually has a recipe. He was kicking himself because if he’d discovered this the day before, he would have used that recipe. Instead we had to "settle" for the non-French Laundry recipe, but it was still really good. The corn soup and mashed potatoes were also delicious, but the whole meal was completely overshadowed by the desserts, especially the panna cotta. Shweetie made enough of each dessert so that everyone could have both, but for some reason, he assumed that people would be full and only take one dessert. Instead, every single person had both. By the end of the meal, people were groaning about how full they were, but every last bite of dessert was eaten, then people retreated to the living room to sprawl about and relish in their food comas. I also opened a very generous gift certificate from CJ and Hammer, to a store in Danville that sells workout clothing!
Chef Shweetie
Smirking Ho
Pointing Sunshine
Smiling CJ
Caught off-guard Hammer
The savory stuff
Berry panna cotta, coffee, and riesling brought by Sunshine
Crème caramel
Jamu and his food coma (you know it's serious when the glasses come off)
I had a fabulous weekend, and it was so hard to get up and go to work on Tuesday. And...guess who hit the gym hard and furious on Tuesday evening?
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