Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Travel With Crabs: San Francisco

Sorry it's been a while since I posted, but my husband and I just got back from a whirlwind adventure in California to celebrate our friends Katie and Kyle's wedding! I've known Katie for 14 years, and Kyle was the officiant at our wedding, so you can imagine how happy we were to step away from Alaska for a bit to party with these two. While I was down in San Francisco I just couldn't help myself to devour any crab dish I found. So here you go: a gastronomic version of


When I think of crabs and San Francisco I think of... Cancer crabs! (That's not what you were expecting right? Get your heads out of the gutter, people!)

crab molt at the Crissy Field beach

Remember this little girl's adventure of trying to video crabs with her dad by the Golden Gate Bridge? It inspired me to try as many crab dishes as possible while visiting the City by the Bay.

 gotta love that SF fog, amirite?

We first stopped at one of our friends' favorite breakfast spots, Stacks on Hayes and Octavia. There were a ton of tasty crab choices, but the one that really struck my fancy was a crab fritatta with tomato, onions, avocado (which was exciting since those suckers are expensive up here in AK), and topped with hollandaise sauce. It came with country potatoes on the side and a whole bagel, which actually stretched this meal into two, and boy was it delicious!

the hollandaise sauce comes on the side,
but I was not about to waste ANY of it!

For dinner one night we went to Boudin Bakery at Fisherman's Wharf. If you're having trouble finding it, just follow the smell of fresh-baked sourdough in the air. I really wanted to eat one of these guys:

Boudin's sourdough crab

but opted for real crab instead of the doughy kind. My other friend Katie and I shared a crab cake sandwich on sourdough bread with avocado slices as well as crab and corn bisque in a sourdough bread bowl. Both were great, but if I were to go back again I would've stuck just with the chowder - it was SO creamy and delicious!

you can see the bread bowls here, as well as
a different crab friend and some tasty turtles

Finally, we were really craving sushi one night and found Ryoko's on Taylor Street (it had some pretty stellar reviews on yelp), and we were not disappointed. We went in looking for a light dinner and left happy and full after inhaling 6 different rolls and some mackeral (saba) sashimi. As far as crab went, we avoided the California Roll but still went with some fancy, not-so-authentic rolls: the Dragon Roll (crab and cucumber with flying fish roe and BBQ eel on top) and the Checkerboard Roll (crab and avocado with tuna and yellowtail on top). I didn't take any pictures because I was too busy eating, but you can take my word for it that they looked pretty and tasted amazing!

another molt at Crissy Field

All in all, it was a happy trip celebrating a lovely couple and eating a lot of good food!

No comments:

Post a Comment