What can I say about Chez Panisse? Nothing. Sometimes pictures are better than words. Most of these pictures were taken by Matt Kim. I am joined by Cheri of Seoulberry and her sister. Oh, and while Matt and I were waiting at the upstair's bar, we did happen to see Alice Waters sitting at one of the cafe tables (I was too chicken to go up and talk to her...I mean polite to interrupt her.) We started with a nice 2007 Broadley Pinot Noir: a light fluffy wine with a bit of cherry and licorice. First Course: Warm Goat Cheese Salad Chez Renee. The cheese had just the right amount of skill and heat added to it so it remained in a semi-solid, semi-liquid suspension. The best part was that Matt doesn't like cheese, so I gladly took it off his plate. The vegetables were perfect little jewels that were used to paint the plate and then were to be eaten. I adored the radishes. Pan-seared king salmon with summer squash and squash blossoms. A classic example of an Alice Water dish. I say cl...

Blue Bottle Coffee Company The Siphon Coffee System is heating up Our Barista adds the coffee grinds in a filter above the water. The siphon defies gravity (because hot water wants to rise) and the water flows up into the glass tube with the coffee. As the heat is turned off, the water flows back down to the bottom The finished coffee Am I a coffee snob? Cheri is a coffee snob in training. After a year of e-mailing and reading each other's blogs, we finally meet in person. While I was in San Francisco, I was able to meet up with Seoulberry. If you don't know who she is, you can check out her blog. Cheri was in town and I was lucky enough to spend a couple of days with her. We geeked it out on one of the days and went to electronics markets, photo stores, a radio shack, and the Apple Store (I know we just fell right into that stereotype.) And one of the food related places that we went to was the Blue Bottle Coffee Company, which is considered by many San Franciscans as having t...