San Francisco and Italian citizenship
Sun finally breaks through. The PRC consulate is the 3 story white building across Geary. The Cathedral is that white object to the left.
Well, the time had finally come. After 2 years of waiting, and delaying my surgery for a month, our appointment at the Italian Consulate came to fruition. Rachel and I submitted our documents when meeting with Emanuela, the consular official that handles citizenship and nothing else, in SF. Despite our fears of something, anything, going wrong, it went smoothly. Emanuela said that she saw nothing that would impede our application from being approved other than the 2 month pile that we would end up on. She also took Cathy's application for citizenship. We thought that there would be a lot of hoops we had to go through but she told us that our marriage was within a fairly small window where all we had to do was submit her birth certificate and the documents from her first marriage and subsequent divorce to show the progression from Reeff to Engrissei, along with the cashier's check for her approval. What was better is that she could do this all via mail. Woo Hoo! So, today we shipped all that off to Emanuela.
Outside the Italian Consulate after our successful appointment
This trip we took 3 days to get to SF, overnighting in Eugene and Redding. In Eugene we stayed at the Comfort Inn and Suites across the river south of the university that Nike built. It's a good place to stay. Off the freeway and quiet. We took to the web for dinner and found a great place, Beppe's and Gianni's. It's just off the campus, near the track stadium, in an old house. Excellent food and a great wine list. They had 7 Planeta wines on the menu and another on the blackboard that we didn't notice on the way in. That's more than any we've seen in one place outside of the winery in Ulmo. When we told the bartender that on our way out this fact a young woman at the bar spoke to us. Come to find out that she's one of the owners and is Sicilian too. She's been to Ulmo several times when she goes back and visit's family. We complimented her on the restaurant and shared some stories of our time at the winery. If we're ever going that way again we'll stay in Nike-ville and eat at Beppe's and Gianni's. If your ever find yourself in Eugene looking for a place to eat check this out. 5 Bozos good!!
Never expected to find Planeta in Eugene, and our first Etna Rosso
Our next stop was in Redding, at the La Quinta. We didn't find any restaurants that really interested us so we ate at the Cattleman's located next to the motel. We were pleasantly surprised at the quality. The place reminded us of the Hamley Steakhouse and Saloon in Pendleton, OR, where we stop on our way to AZ as we go through eastern Washington to get wine from our favorite vintners. This is a good choice if you're caught overnight there.
In San Francisco we spent the ducats to stay at the Hotel Kabuki. Its located in Japantown and is only about 10 blocks from the consulate, but it's all uphill so it was Uber time to get there. No need to go far to find good sushi, Kippu sushi on the Buchanan pedestrian mall was our first stop, for lunch. A good place to catch a light meal. That evening we met Rachel after work down in North Beach at the Comstock Saloon, a vestige of old San Francisco. Neat side bar and restaurant, but we weren't eating there. We walked the few blocks to the House of Nanking, old school Chinese and a stalwart for years. Quick and great eats. A trip to SF is incomplete if Rae doesn't eat there. We tried to go to the Tonga Room in the Fairmont, a Tiki bar supreme, but it's closed on Tuesdays so we ended up across the street at the Top of the Mark. Naturally it was so foggy all you could see was some lights from adjacent building and a wall of gray. Nope, no discount for loss of view and that was no surprise, but I had to ask.
For lunch on Wednesday we found Brenda's French Soul Food, a pleasant 1/2 mile walk from the hotel. Good thing. The meal needed some walking off afterward. We stumbled on it via the web and later Rachel told us we made an excellent choice. She'd eaten there several times when she was working for the University of San Francisco. I had the chicken etouffee and we had beignets for desert. We preferred their beignets to the Cafe Monde ones in New Orleans. Brenda's are larger and have less powdered sugar. Another place to check out if you are in the area near City Hall. It's about three block from there. Another 5 Bozos place.
The next night we went to another old-school location. This time Rachel's friend Caitlin met us for dinner and we ate at Sodini's Green Valley restaurant, again in North Beach. Old style Italian-American food. Rich, good and ample servings. We got the booth at the back. We felt like we were in the finale of the Sopranos. At least my Sicilian proclivity for being able to watch the front door was well-met. After dinner we went next door to Gino's and Carlo's. This is a true old-time fisherman's bar in North Beach. A far different feeling than the Comstock, a few blocks away. This is an old man's bar. Dark, brown walls from years of cigarette and cigar smoke, pool tables and simple, no foo foo cocktails. We've been there a few times, when we went to SF to visit Rachel when she was working and living there.
To celebrate our gaining Italian citizenship Rachel had made reservations at one of the top Italian restaurants in SF. SPQR on Fillmore is a Michelin star place about 4 blocks from our hotel. Our daughter’s friend recommend we eat here, knowing our penchant for GOOD food, especially Italian.
At first we thought our seats, at the far end of the kitchen counter next to the waiters station seemed sketchy, but came to love them. If you do go try to get those seats. It gives you a chance to watch a great chef in action. Matthew Accarrino teaches his staff as they all work together in a small space and we had the opportunity to interact with them.
As he saved his sous chef’s “bacon” by reconstituting a cream sauce for their biscotti donut our daughter’s obvious distrust of creme fresche caught his attention and he had my wife grab some spoons sereptitiously from the wait station and gave us a taste. Our daughter thought it was going to be sour and was surprised at the sweetness.
Our only complaint comes from the server. Our wine did not show until after our first appetizer arrived and we had to ask for it. Our second appetizer did not show up until we inquired about it when the entrees were there.
To his credit, Matthew saw that the appetizer was out of order and immediately started working with his staff about the error. You could tell he was really upset. As we would expect. After we finished our shared dessert we told him that this was the best meal we had since eating at Da Vittoria, in Porto Palo, Sicily on Christmas Eve, 2016. As we were clearing our bill Chef Accarrino reached into the freezer under the counter and pulled out a pint-sized container. He grabbed three spoons and filled them each with his Black Truffle gelato. OMG! We all fell in love with it. (No photos, sorry. We were too busy enjoying the meal to even think about taking any.)
We headed back to Seattle on Friday. We had plans for Mother's Day dinner at La Fontana with our great nephew and his fiance who were in Seattle for her birthday. This was Charlie and Brittany's first trip to Seattle and we wanted them to try one of our favourite restaurants.
We stayed in Ashland, OR on the way back. This was our second time there. This time we stayed in the Stratford Inn, about a 10 minute walk south of the center, and just north of the Southern Oregon U campus. Having stopped in Dunsmuir, CA for a late lunch we didn't want a heavy, full meal so we chose to try Ostras! Tapas and Bottle Shop off the center plaza.
A good choice. Well prepared and tasty small plates. Their sauces are delicious. You'll want extra bread to clean them up completely. They have a large wine selection, mostly Spanish, but since we had been eating and drinking for 3 full days in SF we passed on vino. 4 Bozos.
We stopped in Oregon City to see a dear friend. We try to see her every time we hit Portland for an evening. She got us reservations at the Stone Cliff Inn, located on the bluff above the Clackamas river. We'll be back, I'm sure. It's decor is like a log house, and the theme is carried throughout. The food's worth the prices so don't be afraid to go there.
We arrived back in Seattle with enough time to unpack before meeting Rae, Charlie and Brittany at Bathtub Gin, a "speakeasy" off the alley behind La Fontana. It's a quiet, dark place and has some excellent special cocktails. After a drink, or two, we headed around the corner to La Fontana and were able to sit in the courtyard by the fountain. The weather was gorgeous, for Seattle in May. Temperatures in the 80's. Charlie and Brittany have no idea how lucky they were. There's a weed store across the street so every once in a while you get a strong whiff when the wind's in your direction.
This may be it for a while. I'm going into surgery next week and will be out of action for a few days. There may be a trip between that and our planned trip to Key West, via Montana, Wisconsin, St. Louis, Findlay, Ohio, Philadelphia, North Carolina, Atlanta, Orlando, Key West, New Orleans, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Rodeo, LA and Utah from July into September.
Either way, Ciao for now.