La Jolla, CA

I promised pictures. Here they are. It’s incredibly beautiful here in the morning. I’m told the mornings are always foggy like this and later in the day it’s sunny, which is true. But I think I like the mysterious fog in the morning more than the obvious sunlight. This post is entirely un-food related. It’s good to shake things up once in a while.

Spice & Rice – La Jolla, CA

I woke up this morning thinking, “Wow. I never thought I’d be turning 27 and be in La Jolla, CA, by myself for some metaphysical science conference.” But you know what? Since I watched the plane land in San Diego last night at sunset, through the misty layer of fog hovering over the mountains, I have felt right at home. Knowing that I am in the right place right now.

So here I am. In La Jolla. Never been here. Ok, so my first thought when I got to my hotel was, of course, “What am I going to do about dinner?”

Lo and behold, I have wireless in my room. Hallelujah! (Thank you, internet for making my life so easy.)  So I ho onto Google maps to check out some restaurants in my area – there are quite a few. But then I head over to chowhound.com and find that there is a delicious Thai restaurant 2 blocks from where I’m staying.

I instantly felt in the mood for Thai. But then again, just like I can always eat, I can always eat Thai.

So I read about Spice & Rice.  Check out their menu online. Confirm that this is the place I will be having dinner from tonight. I ordered takeout. Fried tofu with vegetables and red curry sauce and an order of spring rolls.

I thought the fried tofu sounded good but not too out there. Wow, was I wrong. I haven’t tasted anything quite like this before. The tofu was battered in a light, crispy batter and fried. Oh – it was good. Fried food? Bring it on. Then the sauce was…amazingly light for a coconut cream curry. They had to have used coconut cream and not coconut milk. The sauce was thick yet light, sweet yet tangy. And the best part? It had a hint of lemongrass and kaffir lime. Oh do I love kaffir lime.

It was goooood. The spring rolls were also good, but nothing to really write home about. I think I need to stop ordering spring rolls. The last few times I’ve had them I’ve been somewhat disappointed. Well, not necessarily disappointed more than underwhelmed. Sort of…beige.

Well, I’m off to explore the beaches of La Jolla this morning. I’m sure I’ll come back with some pictures.

What to do when 12 cases of wine show up at your office

I suppose quickly get it into your car and out of your boss’s sight is the best answer.

I recently started working for a new company and neglected to change any shipping addresses to anything but my old office. Woops.

Monday morning I hear from my best friend who still works there: “12 cases of wine showed up with your name on it today.” hee hee. What a way to leave a job!

It was more than just hilarious since the UPS guy, Alan, says to her, “Was Courtney expecting a palate of wine today?” while laughing hysterically.

In any case, the wine wasn’t ALL for me. It was a collection of wine from my California trip in July with my 3 girlfriends – it was so GD hot here and there that we had to wait until October to ship it – and my wine club shipments (which I’m really excited about from Preston and Stryker).

We distributed the wine…and all I have to say is that I shouldn’t have to worry about wine for awhile. (haha) And I have some nice ones to put away for several years (although I have absolutely no idea where I’m going to store it).

Review: Sushi Groove, San Francisco

This place was a last minute switch-up and I am soooo glad we changed plans. Sushi Groove, located on Union St at Hyde in Russian Hill, was excellent – some of the best sushi I’ve had.

We also had an excellent server- Robin. Ask for him if you go. I think he was a little surprised how much food we ordered, but he did want to sit down with us and eat…we must have good taste.

We ordered a hella sushi. It might’ve had something to do with our lack of eating for a cool 6 or 7 hours. Jamba Juice doesn’t cut it, but it does get you through.

We started with Yaegaki Junmai “Black Bottle” sake – it was dry, smooth, light, delicate and a little floral. It was excellent. I will definitely be looking for this again. Also tried an unfiltered sake which was also good. As Robin put it, “it’s like sake from a cow.” Ew…

As for sushi, we had quite the array, as you can see:

The hamachi was outstanding. I feel better about the quality of hamachi on this trip versus the one last year. Sushi Groove also had an excellent selection of specials, including Hawaiian butterfish – Walu. It was soooo good. This is why I feel like sushi is like a drug – whenever I have it, I have to have more. It is addicting to eat something as good as that walu. It was melt in your mouth delicious.

Also, the ivory salmon was outstanding. We had it nigiri style and I sure felt the burn on that one- the surprise of extra wasabi was quite unexpected but welcome. We also had the aji sashimi (that would be the fish in the picture). It was pretty good with the mashed ginger they served with it.

We tried a few rolls and they were pretty good too- dynamite (which they put dollops of Sri Racha on – LOVED it), eric’s maki (scallops with tobiko and avocado I think), gari saba (ginger and mackerel), and kamikaze (yellowtail, avocado and tobiko). Yummo.

Overall, it was a lot of fun and we enjoyed all of the sushi.

Sushi Groove
1916 Hyde Street
San Francisco, CA
415-440-1905

They are also on open table for reservations.

Wine Country – Part 2

Tonight I leave for California with 3 of my girlfriends. We’re flying into San Francisco late tonight (2 am our time) and we’ll be driving up to Healdsburg in Sonoma on Monday afternoon.

Last year my trip was pretty amazing and I’m hoping this year will be nothing less. It should be fun since 2 of the girls coming have never been. Oh…they are in for a treat!

One of them asked us the other day, “Aren’t you worried about tasting all that wine and then driving?” Umm…we sort of figured that one out last year. Ha ha. The trick is to just taste the wine…not always drink it.

I’ll be blogging while I’m out there and I promise to include some great photos.

Here’s a favorite of mine from last year:

The vines were just starting to produce fruit when we were there last year – the first weekend in June. So we should see quite a difference this time. I can’t wait!

A few places that we will most likely get to: Iron Horse Vineyards, Russian Hill, Arista, Preston, Stryker, Culinary Institute (I think we’re going to have lunch there), Ravenous, and who knows where else!

California Wine Country – Sonoma County

Even though I visited Healdsburg, CA, almost 3 months ago, I’m still very inspired from that trip. It was one of the best trips I’ve been on.

The pictures are always hilarious after several wine tastings. I’m pretty sure this was what was happening as we raced to Stryker at 4:58pm. Thankfully I wasn’t driving. And we did make it; which was great because I discovered that I actually love syrah. I think that wine was one of the best ones we had the whole week.

Either way, this picture pretty much sums up the experience of wine tasting on River Road in Russian River Valley:

Creative Wine Storage

I recently took a trip to Sonoma County in California with a friend of mine. We stayed with relatives who live in Healdsburg. They happen to have a pretty slick wine storage system:

These cabinets pull out from underneath the stairs. As you can see, you can fit quite a few bottles of wine in one “drawer.” The inside is made of plastic tubes just big enough to hold a bottle of wine snug.

One drawback to this wine storage unit is that you can’t control the storage conditions. No temperature or humidity gauges. That would be the next step up for this storage unit. Living in wine country definitely requires some sort of mass wine storage. Unless you can afford a cellar, this is a great space saving option. Just be careful when you get a lot of wine bottles in one of the drawers. It gets really heavy and can potentially scratch your floors. So keep it light: drink wine often.