[ ❂ ] Conservatory of Flowers

Several weeks ago, when the weather was unusually warm here in San Francisco, Mr. Lilacmoon and I went to Golden Gate Park and finally visited the Conservatory of Flowers. What a cute little place! Humid, too. :)

I loved the flower details on the floors...

So many different kinds of plants! If you're ever in the area, take a look! Just be sure to walk a lot because Golden Gate Park is HUGE. I never know exactly where I am at that park, or which direction I'm facing. Heh.

Week #37

Things I want to remember this week.


On Tuesday, I returned from a quick trip to San Diego. More pictures on this later. Hee.


I visited the Museum of Craft and Folk Art to see the "Wrapping Traditions: Korean Textiles Now" exhibit. Check it out if you're in San Francisco! These are some of my favorite bojagi (traditional wrapping cloths) and bojagi inspired pieces from the exhibit.


Mr. Lilacmoon's freshly laundered socks.


And his apron of choice.

Week #34

Sunday I stopped by Photobooth SF.


Monday, Mr. Lilacmoon's long-awaited Steepster Select's August teas arrived. One of the three teas are from our favorite, Red Blossom. Yay!


Tuesday's breakfast was made special with my new favorite, Kouign-Aman, from B. Patisserie.


Wednesday, I had the most awesome shioyaki I've ever tasted (ayu at Sebo).


Thurday at work, Rebecca once again proved to be very difficult to take pictures of. God, I love her.

Hope you all have a good weekend.

[ ❂ ] Mission Dolores

My long absence can only mean a huge backlog of pictures! Thanks to Mr. Lilacmoon's family who came to town for a visit, I finally went Mission Dolores. I only had his iPhone at my disposal but it came through. This place is full of amazing details and definitely deserves another visit with more time and a Polaroid camera. And how many times have I walked past it?

Recent Culinary Adventures

One of my favorite meals recently was the weekend brunch at Nopa on Divisadero St. I recommend the butter-basted farm eggs with maitake mushrooms, potatoes and crispy polenta. Check out the cool art on the wall by Brian Barneclo and this video of him painting it!



And there was Peko Peko (previously blogged) at Bar Tartine, where I had the most amazing dashimaki eggs. Too bad pop-up restaurants tend to have very slow service.


Last but not least, a trio of crème brûlée at Swell. From left to right, espresso, ginger, and miso. The winner? Miso. I kid you not. :)

At Asian Art Museum

These days, I've been busy with various things, one of which you'll see very soon. I'm cooking something up! In the meantime, I would like to share with you an exhibit I saw at Asian Art Museum here in San Francisco. Beyond Golden Clouds: Five Centuries of Japanese Screens! Unfortunately, photography was not allowed inside, so I can't show you the actual screens but I can tell you about the design of the exhibit.


I really liked all the signage.


Clear, big signs to the three rooms into which the exhibit is divided. Is that Falstaff I see?


I recommend you watch this video out in the hall before you start! It was about a restoration project headed by an expert in Japanese screens. Fascinating process.


This is a diagram by the first room that shows you how the exhibit is laid out. Something a lot of museums fail to do.

Near this diagram were big, laminated guides on how to appreciate the screens (digital versions found here). I usually skip these types of guides at museums but I'm glad I didn't at this exhibit. What was special about these guides was that they included little icons that correspond to different screen formats, materials used and subject matters to look out for. And when you walk around the exhibit, you found those icons next to each screen! Maybe this was all for kids but I thought it was really ingenious and helpful. It was like, duh! Why don't other museums do this?

In the end, I left feeling very satisfied. Usually when I go to special exhibits, I leave feeling very tired and wondering if I missed anything. But this wasn't big at all, and thanks to that diagram, I knew exactly where to go and how much more to expect next. And the icons really saved me time. I didn't have to stand there, reading every description posted next to each piece. I do that at every museum.

Long story short, it was a very well-designed, visitor-friendly, hyphen-inducing exhibit. As for the content of the exhibit, I really enjoyed it. There were some spectacular screens, one of which was only exhibited once before!

Film Shots from Klasse W

Eggs + Asparagus sandwich at Local Mission Eatery


Café au Lait and Tres Leches Cake at Tartine Bakery


Open faced deviled egg sandwich and Brussel sprouts chips at Marlowe


Various homey Japanese dishes at Kappou Gomi


Pani Puri at Dosa

I finally got around to scanning the latest 35mm rolls I shot with Fujifilm Klasse W. If you know me from Flickr, you might remember that this Klasse W is the newest member of my camera family. As you can see, I ended up taking lots of pictures of yummy foods at my favorite restaurants. ^^ After shooting 4 rolls with it, I have to say, the camera is really fun to carry around. Light, compact and sexy to boot. The wide angle came in handy while taking these pictures at local restaurants, too. I just had to make sure to use the smaller rectangular guide in the viewfinder, not the whole viewfinder, for the close-up shots. I'm no photography expert, so I can't say much about the image quality but the lens does seem to be quite contrasty. And I think the camera handled low-light situations better than I expected.

Um, I'm getting hungry. How about you?

Weekend Snaps: Sandbox Bakery

Some pics from my little weekend trip to a yummy bakery called Sandbox Bakery in Bernal Heights.




curry pan


negi-miso pan

I've never been to this neighborhood, so it was quite an adventure. Citrusboy and I took a bus there, and it took lots of turns up the hill. My sense of direction was totally gone when I got off.

We got some savory breads like curry, negi-miso and apple+bacon. Oh hohoho.. they were really good. I was reminded of all the bakeries we visited in Japan..  Why doesn't my neighborhood have a bakery like this? Oh wait, there's Tartine.. I really shouldn't complain. But I want my negi-miso pan every day!

Ok, I will stop now.

Valentine's Day Dinner

What a delicious weekend.

I did some more baking, and on Sunday, citrusboy and I went to a yummy bakery in a new neighborhood (which I'll blog about next), and then we had an awesome dinner at Frances for Valentine's Day.


Surprise!


We started with a calamari appetizer, beet salad, and parsnip soup.

My entrée of Lacinato kale and crêpe cannelloni with maitake mushrooms



Desserts were fantastic as well. Citrusboy had the "lumberjack" cake with d'anjou pears and dates, and I had the panna cotta with winter citrus and shortbread cookies (pictured above). Everything we ordered was so good.

Mm.. what can I say? He knows the sure way to my heart. ♥ ♥

Tourist for a day

After I don't know how many years of living in SF, I finally went to the Cable Car Museum. I wanted to show the city around to a friend from Japan, so I used that as an excuse to finally make the visit. It was a neat little museum! Free, too! These rows of wheels actually move all the cable cars in the city, and each row is labeled above with the name of the line it moves. The Powell St. line was the only one not moving (not pictured) because it was out of order. It was cool to see the reason why we couldn't ride the cable car all the way to the museum.

Then we saw Lombard Street and walked around the Ghirardelli Square, Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, etc.. I know, very touristy things to do but we were in the area. I'm glad we did because that is where we met this cat, at a dock. It was totally chill.

Love napping cats who don't care that you're just an inch away.

Maybe I should be a tourist in my own city more often. And take more pictures. ^^

Brenda's

On Wednesday, Citrusboy and I had the day off for Veteran's Day, so we decided to try Brenda's French Soul Food for brunch. We did try on a weekend some time ago but gave up because the line was so long. The line wasn't too bad this time but we still had to wait a good 30-40 minutes. Playing some games on the iPod Touch helped.









We ended up ordering too much food! I highly recommend the crawfish beignets, with cayenne, scallions and cheddar. They were not pictured because we devoured them. Next time, I think I'll just get the beignets and some biscuits. :) Like the Brenda's t-shirt said, I have to "eat responsibly".

Hope you are having a good week, my readers. :)
I leave you with some links you might find interesting:

• The Beatles, flowcharted
  
• Beautiful letterpress goods by simplesong designs
  
• Fun writing paper projects by Brooke Reynolds of inchmark.
  

Slow Week

Monday's rain was quite something.. It caused flooding in many streets and a subway station had to be be closed. Luckily, I was home most of the day and observed the pouring rain at the back of the house.

I've been editing some Polaroid scans for a mini shop update at the end of this month. The color matching is nearly impossible but it is a necessary step that I have to be patient with. I can easily spend hours on it.. With the strange weather and all, this week has been kinda slow, for sure.

I hope you are having a good, dry week.