Savoring San Francisco


I kicked off my fall tour up the West Coast last week with a stop in San Francisco, where my sister and brother-in-law treated me to a belated birthday dinner at Open Door, the casual eatery run by the folks of the esteemed Vietnamese establishment called Slanted Door. For what is essentially a food court restaurant in Westfield's shopping center on Market Street, Open Door beats Panda Express hands down. Though Open Door's plating pales in comparison to its higher-end sibling Slanted Door located in the renovated Ferry Building, I tried my hand in sprucing up some quick eats like the fresh spring rolls stuffed with shrimp and pork. The polka dots of sauce that I plopped onto the plate were intended to evoke Yayoi Kusama.

For dessert, we walked across the food court to Beard Papa for some vanilla cream puffs.

You know it's a good place to eat when the lighting apparatus mimics the shape of the food.

My sister's sock puppy business is on a roll. But it's not easy for her to make these little critters by scratch, especially when she also has a demanding day job. Sometimes, the sock puppies lie around without a head, tail or legs for days.

Here's the latest addition to the sock puppy litter, a camouflage-printed pooch. I wiggled the little tyke around my sister's two sheep dogs. The real doggies wagged their tails in glee and sniffed at the fake puppy's tail. I'm such a bad human auntie.

To warm myself up on a chilly afternoon, I dropped by Citizen Cake for some hot cocoa and a chocolate cookie. The fog in San Francisco often makes me sad. But the cool mist also does wonders for my skin. That's quite the opposite of living in warm, dry, sunny Los Angeles. So I asked myself: Is it better to be sweaty and happy or to be not-so-sweaty and sad?

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