It’s camille, coming to you after a many month hiatus with an excuse I can’t even make up. My hubby and I are now in San Fran for the first time, and boy is it hilly. We are staying at the beautiful and historic Fairmont hotel (mason & grant st). We decided to stay there after a recommendation from mikes mother and also based on the fact that Anthony Bourdain loves the place and the tiki bar (tonga room) located underneath the hotel.
Upon arrival at the airport, we opted on taking a taxi to the hotel (~45$), based on overnight parking fees (some over 200$ a night) and overall issue with finding parking around the city. We arrived at the hotel and were
Blown away by its grandeur and rich history, with the huge marble pillars and historic pictures displayed in the long hallways. We were lucky enough to snag an upgraded room with a jaw dropping view of the city.
After a quick nap (considering we had just flown in after spending 5 days in vegas) we decided to head out to Chinatown! Yelp has always been my best friend when it comes to finding the best spots in town. On our trek down these ridiculous hills we finally landed upon Chinatown. Of course it’s filled with cheap, touristy little shops but my favorite part were the lights, the little old men playing music and all the store clerks yelling at each other. Yelp helped us find this place called Hunan Home’s and as soon as we walked in we knew we had made a good choice. The place was packed and of course the owners were yelling at each other from across the room, setting the perfect tone. They lead us to the back room, which is another thing that has amazed me about these shops in San Fran, the size of these storefronts from the outside is deceiving. There is always a backroom, every place has a basement which is well utilized as the kitchen, bathroom, or of course storage.
We were greeted by an older Asian man that was super nice, we ordered our drinks and decided on the Xiao Long Bao dumplings as recommended on yelp. Soo holyyyyyy shizzz, these things were amazing, these are soup dumplings, that are actually filled with broth and pork and all held together inside the steamed bun. For the entrees were ordered the prawn with honey walnuts and mu shu pork (mikes mother favorite). Both dishes were excellent and the waiter actually made put together the pork and the pancakes for us. We left fully satisfied and happy. Mike was able to find a bar just a bit away that we planned on hitting up after we spent some time walking though Little Italy and trying to walk off our full stomachs. Anthony Bourdain recommended this City Lights Bookstore (as seen on The Layover) so we spent time in there Looking through thousands of books that I will never read. After a bit of walking, we headed over to Comstock Saloon, this super trendy bar where you would prob find hipster with fancy beards and mustaches, which didn’t take long to find. We sat at the bar, drinking a fancy cocktail and witnessed a lot of shot taking by our bartender haha, but the ambience of the place was great. We decided to call it a night and started up to our hotel. After forgetting that we had completely gone downhill to get to Chinatown, the walk back up was horrible. Thank goodness we weren’t drunk or we would have left our vomit as a gift to the streets for being a b*^tch. Can’t wait to share the rest of the trip with all!
My Love for Food Expressed 