The Chapter in Your Life Entitled San Francisco
(Nighttime at The Golden Gate Bridge)
Sometimes you need an escape and sometimes that escape involves driving six hours after making a restaurant reservation on a whim. If you haven’t watched Chef’s Table and you like food, you should probably do so immediately.
Normally the restaurants are insanely expensive and super far away, but we discovered that Domonique Crenn (who has multiple Michelin stars) had a second restaurant that was much more affordable. So, we made a reservation at Petite Crenn and decided we would just figure out all the other details later. Luckily, I have a friend who lives in Oakland who very kindly let us stay with him for the weekend.
We jumped in my hybrid (shameless plug for the amazing Hyundai Ioniq) and headed to San Francisco. The first night everyone humored me as we trekked to Marshall Beach and grabbed some shots of the Golden Gate Bridge and then grabbed dinner and drinks before heading to Lombard for some more photos.
On Saturday we woke up early(ish) and headed to Tartine where we got a croque monsieur (that I am still dreaming about) and then amazing chocolate/hazelnut and lemon tarts. The lemon tart was the clear winner among the tarts. Because the restaurant was packed we walked to the local park (Dolores Park) and just sat, surrounded by people doing the exact same thing. LA can be an isolating city because everything is so far away from each other so it’s nice to experience a city where you see people at every turn. SF is really quite small so everyone tends to co-mingle a little more, which is lovely. In the afternoon we just drove around and checked out the Japanese Tea Garden and Golden Gate Park. That night we trekked to Petite Crenn and had a truly fantastic meal served by an amazing staff. We left stuffed and happy and met up with some friends at Martuni’s before passing out from exhaustion after our day of adventure.
We were enjoying exploring so much that we went back into the city on Sunday morning to get croissants from the incredible Arsicault. I have no photos of these because we inhaled them. If you go, which you should, get the ham and cheese and the almond. They are perfect. You may have to wait in line. It’s worth it.
We took the slow way home and took in the views from the 1 freeway, crossing the Bixby Bridge and feeling very much like we were in Big Little Lies. We grabbed some food in Carmel and then very tiredly pushed on back to LA. Is it too soon to go back?