White Carrot Food and Travel Blogging Community

For about a week, my buddy Chris and I planned an epic dinner on Labor Day that would exceed all imagination. An homemade 8 course (count ‘em, EIGHT) tasting menu served between 8 friends at LeOnion’s place. We’re not talking about tastings of ordinary food either. Each course was going to be extravagant and to do that we had to unleash the good stuff. It was a team effort and everyone helped with the preparation. Yes, I know what you’re thinking, eight people in one kitchen is way too nuts for words to describe.

But wait, there’s more. Three more to be exact. Even after assigning groups to cook (Chris and I were going to do three dishes each and assigned two more dishes to others), we had some more dishes brought to the party that were all magnificent. So let’s summarize that up: an 11 course (count ‘em ELEVEN!) tasting menu served between 8 friends. Now that is mind bottling.

And now, the starting lineup (with some nice pics):

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I’m at a loss of words here…certainly interesting and somewhat entertaining. Look Ma! I’m eating off a toilet! Woot! Special thanks to my cousin Mish for taking this pic. I’m mooching it off you!

After making our way back from Powell & Market, we rushed to the Stinking Rose over at Columbus Avenue because we had 8pm reservations. Despite the fact that we had a reservation, we still had to wait 10-15 minutes to be seated. It was a busy Friday night and the fact that there were 8 in our party didn’t exactly help. In retrospect, 10-15 minutes wasn’t all that bad because it gave me some time to snap a few shots of the place.

(left) general dining area (right) the bar

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There was just recently an article about Yelp’s “extortion” of restaurants.  Apparently, in order to get help on some negative reviews, retaurants have to pay $350 a month for a business account.  This may not be a big deal for food chains, but for a small mom/pop restaurant, it’s downright unaffordable.  Here’s the article:

SeriousEats Link

Now, I’m not saying Yelp isn’t a good tool, but you should take it with a grain of salt and supplement your research with smaller sites like WhiteCarrot.com (shameless plug).

Cable car going from Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf

After enjoying a tasty Root Beer Float at Ghirardelli Square, we made our way to the cable car ticket booth to buy some tickets. If you ever decide to ride cable cars in San Francisco, make sure you understand a few things about the way they work. They offer round-trip tickets (basically, you get to hop on the cable car twice) and also an all-day pass. We paid $10 for our round-trip tickets even thought it was only $1 more to get the all-day pass. There is a reason why getting the round-trip tickets make sense. You see, the cable car we took goes from Ghirardelli Square goes to Powell & Market, a little past Union Square, with a some stops in between.  The cable cars are usually PACKED because most people don’t get off in between. This means that if you decide to get the all-day pass and stop buy Lombard St, Chinatown, etc…you might have a wait for a cable car that actually has room for you. If you go in a large group, that can become problematic since you could end up spending some time waiting for a cable car with enough room for your group.  I recommend just getting the round-trip pass and taking it all the way to the end.  Make sure you hang on the outside of the cable car, it’s fun!
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After our lunch over at the Berkeley Thai House, we made our way into “The City” to taste the foods and see the sights. I’ve done this quite a few times, but I have yet to grow tired of it. As usual, parking was horrendous. It seems tourists visit San Francisco on any given day,  packing all the major tourist spots. Since parking was rather difficult to find over at Pier 39, we decided to park somewhere between the pier and Ghirardelli Square. We had a few chocolate lovers in our group, so it made sense to start there.
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On the 3rd weekend of July, the family and I made our way to the Bay Area to visit one of White Carrot’s fellow food bloggers, Mr WutDaPho, who also happens to be my cousin. Being the gracious host he is, he took us to the “Berkeley Thai House” for lunch.  I have been there once before, before my blogging days and enjoyed it, so I was eagerly anticipating it.
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After five plus years of marriage, Mrs G-lato decided to bake me a batch of cookies (for the first time EVER). To commemorate this wonderous event, she decided to bake me any kind of cookie I wanted. I have always liked Oatmeal cookies, but I hated the roach-shaped raisins most oatmeal cookies are baked with, so the logical choice was to combine the two and go with chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.
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