I Left My Heart in San Francisco!

So, one of our goals before Cody leaves Monterey was to take a trip to San Francisco...so we did just that! We took a day trip yesterday and really enjoyed ourselves...we did just enough but didn't feel like our day was too jam-packed.

First off, we had lunch reservations at this amazing restaurant called The Stinkin' Rose!

My friend Joel introduced me to this place when I was at a conference in SF about a year and a half ago. It is a restaurant whose slogan is "We season our garlic with food!" So, as you can imagine...everything on the menu is garlic, garlic, garlic! But delicious!


We ordered the famous appetizer "Bagna Calda" which translates as "hot bath" in Italian and is described on the menu as "garlic soaking in a hot tub!" Hahah (there's even a little picture of little cloves of garlic soaking in a little hot tub in the moonlight with glasses of wine). How cute?!

I ordered the ravioli stuffed with potato and cheese smothered in garlic basil Alfredo sauce...

And Cody ordered the pork chop (topped with garlic), garlic mashed potatoes, and caramelized apples (no garlic in these I don't think)! I just couldn't resist taking pictures of our food...it was all so yummy and we were so full by the time we were done.

We decided to walk off our meal through Chinatown which was close by:

We even stopped into one of the local Chinatown bars and had my favorite...

Tsingtao

Then, we headed back to Pier 33 where we boarded a ferry for the final portion of our trip. A night tour of Alcatraz!! This was probably the highlight of our day...and definitely worth the trip. The ferry took us all around the island, included a 45-minute audio tour which featured commentary by actual correctional officers and prisoners of Alcatraz, and allowed us to walk around Alcatraz at night (which, yes, definitely added to the spookiness)!

Listening to our audio tour in the cell-house

I look pretty happy for being jailed up :)

View of beautiful San Francisco all lit up! Successful trip indeed!