San Fran...Day 3

 Last night or should I say very early this morning, my brother Dan and his wife Melissa flew into San Fran. The gang is all here now. One of the things Linda and Andrew wanted to do was Dim Sum in Chinatown. And it was convenient how the six of us were there so we set out to do that this morning.

Marie and Jon dropped us all off at the BART station before they left to do their stuff. The BART near their place dropped us off by Union Square in downtown San Fran. We walked about a mile and half or so, maybe even longer before we made it to the start of Chinatown. But it seemed as though the dim sum place was at the other end of Chinatown. Of course, now that we're walking through Chinatown, half our group was looking at the store front products and we ended up stopping every other shop or so. I was so hungry that I suggested that we do some shopping after we ate (which bit us in the butt later).

We finally made it to Gold Mountain and we were basically one of the first customers. Dim sum just started. Perfect timing! Good thing my brother was there because he spoke the best Chinese out of the Lai siblings. And good thing there were six of us eating because we had A LOT of food in front of us and we managed to eat it all. Ahhh, I miss dim sum and wish we had things like that around Madison.

The best part of the dim sum experience that day was Joshua imitating the Chinese words that the waiters would say when they came by our carts. Of course, by repeating what they say, it means that you want that dish. So this one certain waiter with extreme happiness came by our table and said something to which Joshua repeated loudly and the waiter got so happy that he was selling something that we were like no, we don't want it cause we already had a few of those dishes. Every time after that, the same waiter would come by and say it basically to Joshua and they both had their laughs.

After being stuffed at dim sum, we headed back toward the stores since everyone wanted to get something. This is where it bit us in the butt. We headed back the way we came from to shop around but knew that our next destination was past the dim sum place so we basically walked the same long street 3 times. We all had fun shopping in Chinatown. So many San Fran souvenirs and lots and lots of cheesy Chinese things. Melissa ended up with some t-shirts as did Andrew, Dan got a mah jongg set, Linda a couple of tea cups for my mom, I got tea leaves for my mom and a shirt for my dad (X-Mas shopping) and Joshua prolly got the best thing there. When I was getting the t-shirt for my dad, Joshua snuck into a shop and bought himself a Chinese jacket. Well, apparently Linda heard from a Chinese lady saying it was a lady's jacket. Hahahahaha! Oh well! Joshua still loved it!

Joshua in Chinatown

Joshua super excited for his jacket because...

...It's reversible!

After Chinatown, we walked towards the dim sum again and even further to get to Lombard Street, the crookedest street in the world since Andrew had never seen it. It was quite a hike but I didn't mind it because it worked off all the food we were eating. We ended up walking up two hilly blocks. It was so hilly that we took a short rest after one block before continuing on to the second one.  But we made it to the bottom part of the famous Lombard Street!

Lombard Street

Joshua

The Lai siblings

Joshua standing in one of the driveways

Love this pic of Joshua

Joshua wondering how much
one of these homes cost

View from the top...if you look closely,
Joshua's talking to the curb appeal caretaker

The guy was clipping away the flowers
and gave them to Joshua

After Lombard, we headed towards Fisherman's Wharf and encountered this gorgeous view...

View on the walk from Lombard to the Pier

We walked along the pier boardwalk and stopped by Pier 45 by the big Fisherman's Wharf sign. Even though we had eaten dim sum, we were starting to get hungry again but didn't want to eat too much because Joshua was making dinner later. So we decided to get some quick and small stuff to eat at one of the sea food stands. Joshua and I got Clam Chowder in a bread bowl and yes it was absolutely delicious. So much better in San Fran than in WI.

Attempt to get the Fisherman's Wharf sign in the back

Dan of course wanted to go to this arcade place around the area which I've never been to so we decided to head there. It was called Amusing America & Musee Mechanique (French for Mechanical Museum). Very interesting. It had many old school games from the 20s to the 90s. We had a lot of fun there. It was better than most arcades since some of the games were only a nickel but most were just a quarter with a few being $0.50.

Outside the arcade attempting to take a pic

Attempt #2...you can kinda see Alcatraz

We finally gave in to have someone else take our pic

After the pier, we took 3 different transit systems to get back to Marie and Jon's place, well to a supermarket right by their place so then Joshua could pick up groceries to make dinner. We wanted to make dinner for everyone since we'd all be there and that way Marie and Jon wouldn't have to worry about what to do for dinner for one night. 

The supermarket was interesting. For one, it was Chinese so they had a lot of Chinese vegetables and not a ton of American vegetables but we managed to find everything. We decided on fish since everyone ate that. When we got to the fish aisle, there were many many options compared to WI. However, it was whole fish so when we picked out the fish we wanted, we had to get them de-scaled and de-tailed and de-gutted and be-headed but they didn't de-bone them. It was interesting seeing the guy do all that stuff so quickly.

Joshua was Chef for the night and I was his Sous Chef :) while the other four played Mah Jongg or tried to I think. Don't worry, I didn't really make anything, I just helped cut and stuff. Joshua had a rough time de-boning the fish for some reason. They were really in there and there wasn't a lot of meat to work with so he had to be careful to not pull out all of the fish meat while de-boning them. This was where one of the wines came in handy. Joshua used it for the cream sauce for the fish and finished the rest of the bottle. Joshua made appetizers to pass the time away while we waited for the main meal. Needless to say, everything was delicious as always!

Bruschetta and Hummus

Portabella Mushrooms in Sweet Chili Sauce

Striped Bass with Spinach Garlic Mashed Potatoes