Gnaw! Gnaw!
Feb. 3rd, 2012 12:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vampyrichamsterHugging a cat and keeping it warm is one of my great pleasures in life. As I write, the two beloveds are arrayed around my laptop, the fluffy one by my side, the long one tucked neatly just beyond my screen. For all that they are trouble, I sometimes think that embracing me is one of their great pastimes as well.
Today, I was introduced by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
morbidloren to Taste, a quiet, peaceful teahouse in Hayes Valley. The ambience was gentle and secluded. It was a double treat for me, the first to see someone I had not met up with for a long time, the second to sample delicious Chinese tea and wee Chinese snacks. I love tea, but I am almost entirely more of a teatime snack fiend. One of those, "I'll have that small thing and that small thing and that small thing covered in sesame seeds too." I blame this on a long-running and plump predisposition in my family to sort of gnaw their way through the landscape. But I digress. Taste is lovely place for conversation and unintrusive tea service. For me, I experienced first-hand some elements of gongfu tea-making. I'm a bit too nervous with my hands to tilt the lid on a gaiwan and hold the cup while pouring with just one hand (I have to use both hands), but it is definitely adds something to the process for me, and always has, when you serve yourself the tea at the table. It gives an element of meditation and actually thinking about what you're doing. In conversation, it helps dispel the natural nervousness of finding something to do with your hands, takes away the tension of having to constantly sit up straight and behave. I genuinely liked it there and would love to go back.
After we parted, I took a little time to wander around the area as I made my way towards City Hall. I have a phenomenally bad sense of direction, so I tried my best to follow recognisable landmarks in the area, or pick up new ones for later reference. Along the way, I literally bypassed the Boxing Room, a restaurant I vaguely remember reading about many years ago known for its Southern menu. Now me, I don't really mind this Southern-style food fad that's apparently hit San Francisco. My brief stay in New Orleans as a kid means that at least the basic flavours of that city have imprinted themselves on my food vocabulary -- unconsciously or otherwise. I know that I was not the only person in my family with this experience, as my mother, when she last visited the US and specifically SF, was always unsciously ordering foods with distinctly NOLA or Tex Mex flavours. Not surprising, since apart from New Orleans, we stayed in Houston for a bit as well. I'm actually hinting (nudge, nudge) that me and the spouse could perhaps take advantage of their intriguing advertised Valentine's Day menu, since I could probably enjoy sweetbreads deep fried in lots of cornmeal and will almost certainly be delighted by duck and chocolate mousse.
Note to self: Must eventually find way to St. Louis to see cemeteries and eat fried chicken and chicken-fried steak with friendmokie
I would also like to take this opportunity to point out that I am no romantic. More of a fatalist, maybe. We don't particularly celebrate Valentine's Day, but we don't mind that reminder that there's someone special in our lives either. Also, I am not one to pass on an opportunity to eat new things tasty and delicious. It makes love blossom, and creates warm fuzzy feelings.
Today, I was introduced by
morbidloren to Taste, a quiet, peaceful teahouse in Hayes Valley. The ambience was gentle and secluded. It was a double treat for me, the first to see someone I had not met up with for a long time, the second to sample delicious Chinese tea and wee Chinese snacks. I love tea, but I am almost entirely more of a teatime snack fiend. One of those, "I'll have that small thing and that small thing and that small thing covered in sesame seeds too." I blame this on a long-running and plump predisposition in my family to sort of gnaw their way through the landscape. But I digress. Taste is lovely place for conversation and unintrusive tea service. For me, I experienced first-hand some elements of gongfu tea-making. I'm a bit too nervous with my hands to tilt the lid on a gaiwan and hold the cup while pouring with just one hand (I have to use both hands), but it is definitely adds something to the process for me, and always has, when you serve yourself the tea at the table. It gives an element of meditation and actually thinking about what you're doing. In conversation, it helps dispel the natural nervousness of finding something to do with your hands, takes away the tension of having to constantly sit up straight and behave. I genuinely liked it there and would love to go back.After we parted, I took a little time to wander around the area as I made my way towards City Hall. I have a phenomenally bad sense of direction, so I tried my best to follow recognisable landmarks in the area, or pick up new ones for later reference. Along the way, I literally bypassed the Boxing Room, a restaurant I vaguely remember reading about many years ago known for its Southern menu. Now me, I don't really mind this Southern-style food fad that's apparently hit San Francisco. My brief stay in New Orleans as a kid means that at least the basic flavours of that city have imprinted themselves on my food vocabulary -- unconsciously or otherwise. I know that I was not the only person in my family with this experience, as my mother, when she last visited the US and specifically SF, was always unsciously ordering foods with distinctly NOLA or Tex Mex flavours. Not surprising, since apart from New Orleans, we stayed in Houston for a bit as well. I'm actually hinting (nudge, nudge) that me and the spouse could perhaps take advantage of their intriguing advertised Valentine's Day menu, since I could probably enjoy sweetbreads deep fried in lots of cornmeal and will almost certainly be delighted by duck and chocolate mousse.
Note to self: Must eventually find way to St. Louis to see cemeteries and eat fried chicken and chicken-fried steak with friend
mokieI would also like to take this opportunity to point out that I am no romantic. More of a fatalist, maybe. We don't particularly celebrate Valentine's Day, but we don't mind that reminder that there's someone special in our lives either. Also, I am not one to pass on an opportunity to eat new things tasty and delicious. It makes love blossom, and creates warm fuzzy feelings.
