Too Much Eating Out!

By Monday of last week, Sumie and I had to put a moratorium on eating out.  Even Mimi agreed.  She wanted to make sure she could still fit into her new Beatles shirt (it's her favorite).

We've been pretty good since arriving in San Francisco.  Back in NYC, we'd eat out or order-in at least 2-3 times a week, but here in SF we decided to cut back (the selection of restaurants in the Richmond district made this a bit easier).  This past week, however, we completely fell of the wagon.  Well, more like fell off the wagon and down a cliff.  Was it worth it?  Take a look.

About 10 days ago we hit Oyaji with my friend John and his girlfriend Jen.  They were down from Washington and we wanted to share a good meal with them.  We also wanted to eat at Oyaji's (it's rather amazing just how easily we find excuses for eating there).  We don't have any pictures because we were so transfixed by the food.

That wasn't the end of our Japanese food adventures, though.  On Saturday, Michelle, another friend of mine, this time from college, came down from Sacramento with her husband Paul, her son Owen, and Rin, a Japanese exchange student visiting the US for two weeks.  We decided to try a new ramen shop on Geary.  All ramen was half price, so why not?

I'm afraid I can't quite remember the name of the place (it's on Geary between 16th and 17th avenues).  It was their first day and the food was a bit hit or miss.  The ramen, while quite tasty, wasn't really traditional.  I didn't mind so much but Sumie pronounced, "Too much garlic!"  I definitely want to go back, though.  There's some real promise there and a few weeks may make a big difference.

The best part of the day, though, was catching up with an old friend and getting to know her family.  Rin, who is a freshman in highschool, was particularly outgoing for a Japanese boy and fell in well with both the kids and the adults.  Mimi and Owen hit is off almost instantly.

I don't know what it is about my little girl, but she loves playing with older kids, and, for some odd reason, older kids don't seem to mind her following about.  It's really cute now, but I worry what this is going to mean when she gets into high school.  Hmm.  Maybe it means she'll be going to an all-girls school. 

Here's the full group, sans Sumie and Michelle, who were busily taking pictures.  

Having had our fill of Japanese food, but not of eating out, we decided to go for brunch on Sunday morning.  We left the house early (for San Francisco) and arrived at Ella's shortly before 10:00.  It was already pretty packed, but we secured a seat within about 15 minutes.

We'd been trying to work our way into Ella's for the past month or two and it was definitely worth the wait.  Safe to say it was the best breakfast I've had in San Francisco so far.  The ambiance, noise, food, and price (unfortunately) reminded me of the nicer diners we'd frequent back in NYC.  As we finished off our massive plates of chicken-hash and omelets, savoring a meal in which Mimi was sufficiently distracted by all the commotion for us to eat, San Francisco began to feel just a bit more like home.  

We were fit to burst, we figured out eating out days were over, but then we received a call Monday night from Kae and family.  Could we meet them for Chinese in the Sunset district?  Sure, go ahead, twist our arm.  We were there even before Kae, Ed, and the rest of the family.  

We met at an old favorite of Ed's family's: Ming's Diner.  It was fantastic.  And reasonable!  If only they delivered.  The thinly sliced pork chops were, quite simply, a revelation.

But the best part of the dinner was the spontaneous train Nana, Lilly, and Mimi decided to make halfway through the meal.

It was a rather gluttonous long weekend, I have to admit.  Sumie, as a result, has been on a bit of a vegetable kick this week.  We're learning that this city, once you really start digging into it, can be a pretty dangerous place when it comes to food.  One thing is for sure: Mimi loves eating out.  She'll eat twice as much in a restaurant than she does at home.  I'm not sure if that's an indication of how much fun it is to eat out, or just how bad our cooking is.  I'm hoping it's the former. 

Adventures for the Small

One's view of the world makes all the difference.  I'm not speaking metaphorically here.  As Mimi and I palled around yesterday I couldn't help but wonder what I'd make of the world were I in her shoes.

First off, everything is huge.  In the Mimi-scaled world we all drive monster trucks, wear impossibly gigantic shoes, and store things - rather inconveniently, Mimi feels - on shelves 30 feet up.  Life must be a bit mystifying from such a perspective.

At less than three feet tall, Mimi can really stretch her food dollar.  A 59 cent roll that I'd devour in a few bites will last Mimi through the aisles of Safeway,

the entire car ride home,

and through lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next day.  That's thrifty.

At the playground, crossing the sandpit is a massive undertaking.  It's about 30 feet across, tops, but to Mimi, its the Sahara.  So I can only imagine what she thinks of the beach.

It's not exactly Laurence of Arabia, but the scale is right.  Mimi was just a spec on the horizon.  But that didn't stop her.  There was sand to play with...

and feet to clean.

Eventually, we left the soft sand and headed for firmer ground near the water.  Mimi, despite her size, is not phased by the ocean.  She loves the water and no combination of temperature, danger, or daddy disapproval will keep her from it.  Soon both our feet were freezing, but we were having a great time.  Mimi's size meant I was constantly lifting her up out of the waves as they crashed in.  Great fun for Mimi, but a bit cold for me.

Wishing we could've taken some pictures in the water (watching a toddler playing in the waves is work enough without lining up camera shots), we packed up and headed back to the car.  The walk was only 100 yards or so, but between the slippery sand and my body laden with bags, balls, towels, and toddlers, it looked well over a mile.  For Mimi, who was sitting in the crook of my right arm, it was no distance at all.  Funny, that.

We took a few extra minutes to watch the sunset, me behind the wheel and Mimi cuddled up in her car seat with a towel.  It was the first sunset I remember watching deliberately - actually taking the time just to watch the sun go down - since I was on the sea of Japan, well over five years ago.

As the sun slipped behind the sea, size became irrelevant.  We both became very, very small.  And it was great.