It’s always been a great place to take pictures, and yesterday was no exception. No doom-and-gloom moody cemetery shots this year; it was a bright, clear day, the sun strong so that the marble structures seem to glow. I was struck more by the shapes and color rather than individual details and that’s what most of the photos below depict. The light was so bright coming off the marble the camera has to “squint,” the sky is underexposed and dark so that the marble isn’t completely washed out.

While the big Voodoo fest (not so much the Afro-Caribbean religion, but music) was going on in City Park, someone started a staged a voodoo ceremony at Marie Laveau’s alleged tomb as I was getting ready to leave. It’s the last picture in the set. I was told it was being filmed as a promo for groups offering destination weddings for goth types: “Vampire Weddings” and “Voodoo Weddings.” I thought the Haunted History tours were enough of all that. Oy. Isn’t New Orleans interesting enough without having to make stuff up? But, as the Yat Pundit said, “I‘m always amazed at the things that make a buck in this town.” So it’s a good thing, right?

The thing is, last year (which, admittedly, was my first) at times, it felt crowded and congested and hectic, whereas this year things flowed much, much better. So here we also have to give some kudos to the Hotel Monteleone and its staff, who got all the right products and glassware and ice and water to the right rooms at the right times for the 40-some odd tastings that took place, and for all of the seminars held at the hotel. All this while handling every other detail it takes to run a luxury hotel that’s 100% occupied.

Of course, I’ve got to thank everyone, from the hundreds of sponsors, media, bartenders, apprentices and enthusiasts who came from all over the globe to Tales. I met quite a few of you (and a bunch of new locals who showed up for Tweetups and tasting rooms), and hope everyone had a good taste of New Orleans.

Literary greats have haunted its halls for decades. Tennessee Williams was a frequent guest, Truman Capote often quipped that he was born in the Monteleone (his mother was living there at the time, the hotel staff got her to Touro Infirmary where he was actually born). Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Winston Groom, Richard Ford and Rebecca Wells have all been guests as well. Hemingway, Williams and Capote were known to do their share of writing while sitting in the Carousel Bar.

An Old Fashioned going for a spin at the Carousel Bar.

There once was a cocktail called the Monteleone, its recipe lost in time. To celebrate the bar’s 60th anniversary, the hotel held a contest for folks to come up with a recipe for a new version. The winning contestant would receive a free 4-night stay for Tales of the Cocktail.

Final judging was held May 22. The top 5 cocktails were judged by four of the chefs from season five of the Bravo network’s  Top Chef reality TV show. Mr. and Mrs. Cocktail (Paul and Ann Tuennerman) MC’d as show winner Hosea Rosenberg and chefs Jamie Lauren, Leah Cohen and Jeff McInnis tasted the entries.

Mr. & Mrs. Cocktail with Top Chef winner Hosea.

Top Chefs Jamie, Leah, Hosea & Jeff give each other a toast as the judging begins.

It was a great time, with champagne served to all the visitors, who got to sample the entries as well. Nolanotes dropped by, as did Blackened Out, a NOLA foodie blogger who had submitted his own cocktail to the contest, which, alas, was not a finalist. After the judging, we retired to the Carousel Bar ourselves to do a little judging of our own of a couple of rounds of Ramos Gin Fizzes. Then to the Greek Fest later that evening, but that’s another post (from last year).

Brian Robinson of Arlington, Virgina’s concoction was the winner. Here is the winning recipe (courtesy the Hotel Monteleone):

Monteleone Cocktail

2 oz Rye Wiskey
1 ½ oz St. Germain Elderflower Liqueur
½ oz Domaine De Canton Ginger Liqueur
2 dashes Fee Brothers Orange Bitters
Splash Ginger Ale

Shake ingredients and strain into a julep cup or cocktail glass with crushed ice. Garnish with orange slice.

Tom would have say whether all of that still stands today, since although Antoine’s is going strong, Maylie’s has been closed for years now (the also-defunct Smith & Wollensky last occupied Maylie’s site) and the Bud’s Broiler on City Park Avenue has been closed since Katrina.

The original location of the Bud’s Broiler chain, the City Park restaurant first opened in 1952. I’m not a great repository for the rest of Bud’s history, but they do have a website, www.budsbroiler.com, that has the history and menu, etc.

It re-opened yesterday, April 20, to much fanfare and long lines. The new owners have been working hard on getting the location up and running for a few months now. All their work paid off, it’s clean, freshly painted and cranking out burgers cooked over real charcoal as fast as people can order them.

Well-wishers included the old-line New Orleans white-tablecloth restaurant Tujaque’s, who sent these flowers:

I got a No. 4 with some cheese fries. (Sorry, I always forget to take pictures until I’ve already started eating).

I’m guessing these were the original bathroom doors, they crack me up.

What’s your menu item number? Do you have any Bud’s trivia to add? Did you go opening day? What are your memories of Bud’s on City Park?

I’ll have more details for everyone later on, but right now you need to start making plans to attend, Wednesday-Sunday, July 8-12. While there are seminars geared more toward food and beverage industry pros, there are  plenty of events for the enthusiast to take part in. Some will be held at other venues all over the city, but most will be at the Monteleone Hotel on Royal, a.k.a. Tales Central.  Tickets are available for all of the lunches, dinners, drink contests and happy hours. Free tastings go on all day long.

Last year absinthe made the biggest splash. This year, I think the handcrafted (and legal) moonshines are running neck-and-neck with cachaça (Brazil’s national spirit, and main ingredient in its national drink, the caipirinha) as Tales 2009’s most buzz-worthy boozes. Only time (and your imbibition) will tell. What are your picks?

That reminded me of a glaring omission in my life. I’ve yet to have a roast beef poboy (or any other) from Parkway Bakery & Tavern, a poboy institution that’s on everyone’s short list for best poboys in town. So, while out and about hunting streetcars with Nolanotes, CS and Sun last Sunday, we decided to go there for lunch.

It’s in the heart of Mid City at the corner of Hagan and Toulouse streets, on the Uptown river side of Bayou St. John a block or two from Orleans Avenue.

So here’s the sandwich. Let’s get it out of the way, because it’s not necessarily the only reason one would want to visit Parkway. Good, super-sloppy roast beef that’s edged its way into the top 5 pantheon of roast beef poboys.  Very similar to Parran’s, in case you’re wondering.

No, there are other reasons to visit Parkway. It’s got what appears to be a pretty decent bar area, and there’s lots of seating, covered and open, outside. But the main, must-see character of Parkway lies in the gobs of New Orleans memorabilia (NewOrleaniana, to coin a term?)

Here’s the order window. To the right (not in the picture) are a Pontchartrain Beach poster and copies of the New Orleans Item (a defunct daily newspaper), one announcing the start of World War II and another its end; WAR and PEACE proclaimed in 10-inch tall headlines side-by-side).

There’s a little touch of Elvis there at the window and there’s more Elvis to come. Although there’s nothing specifically connecting Elvis and New Orleans; when you think about it, NOLA is a most Elvis kind of town, though.

A close up by the window shows some cool NOLA stuff—signs from the original Zephyr roller coaster and a promotional placard for Morgus the Magnificent. An old K&B bag (that’s Katz and Besthoff, to you, buddy) and an old Schwegmann’s bag, the kind we used to cover our books with, flank the Woolworth’s Luncheonette sign, once a landmark of Canal Street, known to ‘da yats as “‘da Woolswoits.”

More Elvis, this TP front page announcing Dead Elvis (as opposed to Comeback Elvis).

This is kind of obscure, a campaign poster for Hale Boggs, the U.S. House of Representatives Majority Leader (and member of the Warren Commission) from New Orleans. Boggs was presumed dead when his plane went missing in Alaska in October of 1972. Although missing, he was not yet declared dead and was re-elected in November of 1972. I can’t tell if that was the election year this poster was created for, but that’s some interesting trivia. (More trivia—Alaska congressman Nick Begich was also on the plane with Boggs, his son, Mark, was just elected senator from Alaska, de-throning Mr. Intertubez felon Ted Stevens.)

There’s also a concert poster from the Rolling Stones May, 1981 appearance at the Louisiana Superdome. I was there, by the way; George Thorogood and the Destroyers opened up, if I remember correctly.

Here’s the best piece of NewOrleaniana in the whole joint—a genuine Aints bag from the dismal 1980 season, when the Saints were 1-15-0. It’s customized for wearing over one’s head, rather than risk being identified as a Saints fan at the Dome, in case you don’t remember those days.

Update: I stand fully corrected. As reader Brad points out: “Nothing connecting Elvis and New Orleans??? What about King Creole? My neighbor when I was a kid used to tell stories about how her mother worked on the production and got to have an audience with the King.”

Maybe the correct statement would have been “nothing my dumb, non-Elvis fan ass would know about.”

TALES OF THE COCKTAIL OPENING RECEPTION TO BE HELD AT THE NEWLY RESTORED ROOSEVELT HOTEL
TOAST OF THE EVENING TO OCCUR AT THE ORIGINAL SAZERAC BAR

NEW ORLEANS, LA—December 1, 2008 – Tales of the Cocktail, a cocktail and culinary festival celebrating the history and culture of dining and the cocktail in New Orleans, has chosen The Roosevelt New Orleans as the site of the July 8, 2009, opening-night reception for its seventh anniversary event.

Tales of the Cocktail runs through July 12, 2009.

The historic downtown New Orleans property, a Waldorf=Astoria Collection property shuttered since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, opened in 1893 as the Grunewald. In 1923, it was rebranded The Roosevelt in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt and retained its distinctive moniker until the hotel changed hands in 1965 and was renamed The Fairmont. The grand hotel will reopen in late spring 2009, reborn as a Waldorf=Astoria Collection® hotel.

The summer’s most spirited event, Tales of the Cocktail explores the history and contemporary life of the cocktail at various locations in the New Orleans French Quarter. The event welcomes celebrities, mixologists, chefs, authors and cocktail experts as presenters and special guests from around the globe for seminars, dinners and galas.  Top spirits names such as Dale DeGroff, Tony Abou-Ganim, Robert Hess and Kevin Brauch once again will take part in educating industry and consumers alike about the cocktail.

In more than a century of operation, The Roosevelt served as the backdrop for many historic events and often made history in its own right. Key among plans to restore the property to its previous grandeur and appeal will be the reopening of the hotel’s famed Blue Room and legendary Sazerac Bar. In the golden era of supper clubs from the 1930s to the 1960s, the Blue Room played host to some of the best-known names in entertainment and big bands – including Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong and Sonny and Cher – as well as to elaborate floor shows. The Sazerac Bar, a Roosevelt landmark for decades, again will serve its signature Sazerac cocktail and Ramos Gin Fizz – both invented in New Orleans and made popular worldwide by The Roosevelt – among other delights.

“Hosting our opening night in conjunction with the newly restored Roosevelt is an honor,” said Tales of the Cocktail founder Ann Tuennerman. “Tales of the Cocktail celebrates the history of the cocktail, and what better way to introduce visitors to our city than with the city’s official cocktail, The Sazerac, at the original Sazerac Bar,”

The New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds to benefit hospitality industry members, produces Tales of the Cocktail annually. Its mission is to preserve the rich history of the restaurants and bars of New Orleans and the unique culture of dining and drinking famous to the city, while educating locals, visitors and the hospitality industry about this culinary heritage.

Tales of the Cocktail, a culinary and cocktail festival, allows the connoisseur or amateur to fully experience (taste, see and learn about) cocktail culture in New Orleans and around the world. The event’s annual components are Spirited Dinners, a Seminar Series, Cocktail Hour, Cocktail Luncheons, walking tours of the French Quarter, and classic and contemporary cocktail parties — all presented by the country’s hottest chefs, authors, bartenders and cocktail experts.

For more information on Tales of the Cocktail, visit the Web site at www.TalesoftheCocktail.com and register to receive email updates, or call 504-948-0511.

The Twitter is all a-twitter; even a reporter from the Chicago Tribune who came down to cover the storm used Twitter to quickly connect with NOLA area sources. He’s written a story (featuring our own NolaNotes) about the use of Twitter by people keeping up with everyone’s preparations; whether they’re staying or evacuating; where they’re going, what they’re taking; and, the status of traffic along the various evacuation routes.

It’s a great topic. I was convinced for a year after I first signed up for Twitter that it was absolutely useless. I’ve seen the light since then, and I’m glad the national media is recognizing how useful the service is in emergency situations. Twitter was put to good use during the recent San Diego wildfires and Los Angeles earthquake, too.

Twitter also lets people vent. Following regular updaters, and their 140-character tweets, since Gustav formed up reveals all the stages of hurricane angst. Tweets have gone from interested concern, while it was south of Haiti, to growing concern as it strengthened past Jamaica, then terror as it exploded to a category four as it approached Cuba.

But along with the concern was a spirit of defiance. We remembered (and tweeted about) a time when approaching storms weren’t that big of a deal. Neighbors and families boarded houses together. There were block parties with cookouts featuring all that meat that was fixing to go bad when the power went out. We made sure each of us had enough candles and flashlights and radios and batteries. But we were not leaving. When the winds passed, we got together and fixed what needed fixing in the neighborhood and kept our collective bravado together.

When Gustav approached, the NOLA bloggers and tweeters talked about not leaving. About getting generators, supplies, making arrangements for friends in flood-prone areas. We wanted to keep up the family/neighborhood traditions. But Category 4 status and forecast models pointing it right to NOLA got the best of us. On Friday, Gov. Jindal gave a very nervous press conference. On Saturday, Nagin did one of his patented freak-outs with his “Mother of all storms” quote. Aaron Broussard, seemingly again on the verge of tears, mandatorily evacuated the west bank; then later the entire east bank of Jefferson Parish.

Everyone was tough on looters. In Jefferson Parish, if you were out after curfew you would be considered a “suspicious person.” In Orleans, where 1500 National Guard troops have doubled the size of the NOPD, Nagin promised looters would “be taken straight to Angola…,”put in general population at the big house.

What happened? Rather than see what the hurricane would actually do, everyone left. By most accounts, getting out of the city wasn’t too bad. But bottlenecks at the I-55, I-12 and I-55 interchanges created parking lots. As of 10pm Sunday, there are reports of slow-moving, jammed-up traffic even as the first squall lines of Gustav’s outer bands approach.

Twitter is full of angry tweets. Angry because people feel forced out on an unplanned road trip, including pets, and forced to do so in many cases without too much spare cash. Now, they are angry because the pets and the kids are squalling because THEY’RE angry they’ve been stuck in a slow-moving car for 10 hours and aren’t any closer to their destination than they were 5 hours ago.

On a positive note, what these angry tweets can add up to are the tweets we never hope to read-the desperate tweets. “I’m on my roof, come get me!” tweets. Or, “I’m in my house, and the water is two feet now and keeps coming!” tweets. Or, “My parents are trapped. Can someone check on them?” tweets. A week after Katrina, I saved the HTML file of the nola.com forums that contained hundreds of such postings. I still have it, and read it when I feel able.

We don’t know what the future is going to hold. Is it, as NolaNotes asks, global warming? Is this going to keep happening every couple of years? Can we handle it if it does? If the city floods again, is it “game over”? Who knows. I just hope we don’t have a future with desperate tweets.

Will Smith’s streetcar is located at the Prytania Theatre. It features Stella and Stanley from Streetcar Named Desire. He added sponsors John and Gayle Gish to it as well. Will was at Tales selling his Mardi Gras krewe giclees. He also had a new line of burlesque girl paintings on hand for sale.

Also posted at StreetcarArt.com.

So we basically played Mario Kart for the Wii all day. His grandparents bought him a telescope, and last night we went out to try to find the moon. The moon, alas, was not to rise until after midnight, so we looked at random stars.

The highlight of the trip was this giant frog painted on the I-10 overpass at Rayne, home of the Frog Festival, where we stopped for lunch on the way home.

You see, there was also a public art project in San Francisco, called Hearts in San Francisco. It’s been over since 2005, when most of the hearts were removed from around town and placed with their owners. There are a couple left, like the one above in Union Square. It was just today, going through the pictures, that I actually read the plaque.

Yep, that’s Tony Bennett’s, Mr. “I Left My Heart in San Francisco,”‘ heart that he painted and presented to the city to kick off the project.

There’s more on “A Streetcar Named Inspire” at StreetcarArt.com. The first streetcars are being placed, including Dennis Procopio’s “Hands Across the Water” at 909 Poydras.

This one sums it all up…10:20 a.m. bubbly.

The winery from the road:

Ready, set, taste!

There were these tiny women trying to climb on a chair on the highway across the entrance to Gloria Ferrer.

Then off to Sebastiani, or as one of our crew called it, the “Disney Land” of wineries. It was huge, very well kept, had an enormous gift shop/tasting room and was full of tourists. Good photo ops, thought. A private tasting room with stained glass, a 60,000 gallon wooden tank and some of the winery’s original pressing equipment.

The most educational tasting was had at Ravenswood just outside of the town of Sonoma. Ravenswood specializes in Zinfandel. Our host there was Peter, who took us into their barrel room for a tasting of some of their private reserve stock.

Then off to lunch in Sonoma, a quick stop at the Whole Foods store in town and first full-on exposure to California douchebagery in the form of a happy cashier, or HC, who had those big hoop earrings stretching out his lobes and a raggy beard.

There’s an older lady in from of me. HC says, “Wow, how’s your day so far? I’ve seen you here before.” Lady says, “I live around the corner I’m here all the time.” HC, ‘That’s great. I’ll be seeing you.” He turns to the kid bagging the lady’s groceries. “Thanks, Ryan, that was a great job.”

I know what’s coming next. He looks at me and says, “How is your day going so far?” I tell him it’s pretty good, just riding around enjoying the sights. “Wow, fantastic. Where are you from?” I tell him New Orleans. “Well, how are things going in New Orleeenzzz?” They’re great. We just had a couple of hundred thousand in town for a festival, and another half million or so for Jazz Fest next week. “Wow, amazing!”

I took my amazing lunch at a windy picnic table—something called the Petaluma Express was keeping wind speeds at a constant 40 mph. This was at a winery called Gundlach Bundshu.

This was a really beautiful place. I was done with tasting by then and interested only in getting some good shots while the gang drank. The late afternoon sun gave a real Van Gogh-in-Arles (with trolls) look to the landscape that was hell to capture. But I tried.

More scenes from Cline Cellars and Viansa winery, a Tuscan villa set in the hills above Sonoma.

Viansa…

Stunning views all the way around. My theory is that living in this area ruins a man, thus the number of douchebags wandering around with their heads up their asses. Alright, I’m jealous. It’s too gorgeous out there not to be.

Our last stop on the way back into San Francisco was the Marin Headlands. These bluffs overlook the Golden Gate and San Francisco Bay beyond. Very windy and a tough climb to get up, but dude, it was worth it.

I think that’s going to be it for San Francisco postings. I may have another one in me, but it may be a while coming.

All in all, it was a great trip. I’m very envious of San Francisco. I was of the opinion the New Orleans had more character in her little toe than most every other city in world contains in its entirety. San Francisco is, without a doubt, the exception. Miles and miles of neighborhoods that give the aura of the French Quarter and Canal Street all rolled into one. Thousands of tourists from all over the world roaming the streets there, not because a convention brought them, but because they want their families to experience it.

It’s not a perfect place. Perambulation is almost impossible, even the locals say they’ll walk three blocks out the way to avoid going up one block on a hill. It is very expensive, I’d say tack on 35% to everything you’d expect to spend. Panhandlers abound and they can be very aggressive.

I’d have to say though, that given a $200 million Powerball victory, after buying a few buildings in the Quarter, I’d make my next purchase in San Francisco.

Perambulating through San Francisco can be a bit of a challenge for swamp-dwelling yahoos such as myself. Chinatown wasn’t too bad, relatively flat and only a few blocks long and wide.

First sight was a Chinese bakery.

I’m glad I noticed this doorway. I remembered the Trask family’s servant, Lee, in Steinbeck’s East of Eden, who gave a little speech about the Lee family in San Francisco, and how it was a branch of the largest family in the world, how they banded together and took care of each other. The Wiki says it’s a name more common in the world than Smith. I’m sure Harry Lee’s family is part of it. They even have their own credit union.

I turned the corner. There was a truck unloading at a little grocery store, with these boxes of tofu on the sidewalk waiting to be brought in.

By far the most visually interesting sights in Chinatown are the herb shops full of traditional Chinese medicinal items. Bulk containers of ginseng root, jars of dried deer antlers and dried sea cucumbers line the walls along with super-high end food items like swallows nests for bird’s nest soup and dried shark’s fins for, you guessed it, shark’s fin soup. The bird’s nests were a bargain. They varied in price, I guess according to quality, from about $1200 to $3800 per pound. The smells in these places are really indescribable and fantastic, with the same effect on one’s memory of the place as the smell walking into Nor Joe’s.

But where are the pictures, you ask? It ends up the medicine stores are off-limits to photo-taking swamp-dwelling yahoos. Most of the stores had signs posted–”No Pictures or Video.” The ones that did not, I asked, and they said, “No photo, no photo!” They must be worried about animal rights activists or customs; some of the items looked like I would not want to guess what parts of what creatures they came from. I could have stolen some shots from outside a couple of doorways but I wasn’t ready for my own version of Big Trouble in Little China.

I had a tip about lunch at the Oriental Pearl. After I told my co-workers about lunch at Yank Sing in the financial district, how awesome it was and its $70 price tag, Jane says, “Oh. We had dim sum in Chinatown at this Oriental Pearl place for $8.00 for the both of us.”

Nonetheless, I was on a quest for the Black Oriental Pearl for Monday’s lunch. I did find it, but wasn’t quite ready yet. Also there was a poster in the window–Rachel Ray recommended the place, so I kept walking, it can’t need me that bad. A few blocks later I ran across the Golden Flower, a Vietnamese bowl noodle joint whose menu posted in the window looked like a winner, lots of Pho. I settled on a No. 40 with rice noodles and pork. A winner at $6.49, including the tea. Real fish sauce with chile and ginger spiced it up just nicely.

Around the corner from the Golden Flower was a sign for a restaurant that appeared to be for the Chinese equivalent of the New Orleans pork-palace, Cochon.

After lunch I headed down to the Embarcadero. The road that follows the bay shore is home to some great sights. The plaza in front of the Embarcadero Center. It’s where there are a lot of public sculptures like this big concrete fountain and these two heads titled “Yin and Yang.”

On to Fisherman’s Wharf, where things got really touristy real fast. But there were sea lions and this really cool crab made of flowers and steel.

This last one is a Alcatraz, “The Rock,” taken from the end of Pier 39. We did a full tour of it on Sunday which I’ll cover in a separate post.

My last stop before heading back up to the hotel to meet up with the group for dinner and then the ride to the airport to catch the 12:30 a.m. flight home was the cable car museum. It also houses the machinery that winds the cable and distributes it through the city.

Walking back to the car stop I saw a “For Rent” sign on one of the countless Victorian town homes that are in the North Beach area. Did I mention things are pricey in San Francisco?

So, after a trip to Lombard Street (see picture of famous crooked street), we took the cable car all the way to back to Market Street, and caught a bus in the general direction of where the restaurant appeared to be located.

We were kind of lost, but I having just looked at the guidebook I knew Yank Sing had a Stevenson Street address but could not find it on the map. When we got off the bus at the end of the line, I looked up and there was Stevenson. A one-half block stroll down got us to our destination.

We walked in, got a table and the first cart by was this Peking Duck.

Dim sum is served here by waitresses rolling carts of food, usually contained in steaming bamboo containers, around the restaurant and explaining to the guests what the delights contained therein. Several carts came by with a variety of items–spicy chicken chunks swimming in a sea of dried chiles. Chicken in foil, which the waitress explained was like barbecued chicken. Crab claws, and shrimp with stir-fried walnuts.

The house soup dumplings were the first offering, the technique for eating them was demonstrated by the waitress. First she put a small dish of a red, I believe, plum-based sauce with slivers of ginger on the table, and filled up a Chinese soup spoon from the dish. The soup dumpling went into this soup spoon pool and then into waiting hungry mouth.

The chicken in foil was messy, yet tasty. I put a few drops of chile oil on everything except the spicy chicken, which just seemed like overkill.

A great meal overall, and the kind of experience I was hoping to find in San Francisco. Thanks, Nola!

Our office has taken a trip to San Francisco as a reward for meeting its sales goals last year. Wrangling ten gals (account executives, a publisher, office manager and editor) and two guys (art director and writer/editor/photographer (me)) for a 7am departure from MSY was not the easiest thing, but proved to be the least difficult part of getting to San Francisco.

Delays leaving New Orleans caused us to miss our 9am flight from Houston to San Francisco. Three of us (me included) made an 11:15 flight; I was the last one on the plane when the standby magician waved the final wand before departure.

I’ll skip the rest–packed tight for 4 hours, the back of the plane where I was sitting smelling strongly of puke, and the oriental dude (really, he spoke Chinese to his friends) across the aisle trying in vain for an hour to complete one Sudoku puzzle–because once on the ground in Cali-freakin’-fornia, all of that was wiped away in a flood of good vibrations brought on by perfect weather, marvelous scenery and cocktails had in opulent surroundings.

Our hotel is the Stanford Court. Pretty posh, and on the top of Nob Hill. Which means to go anywhere, you have to walk up and down a completely foreign and very steep incline. Tomorrow we buy cable car passes. They traverse the hills nicely, but at $5.00 a pop it makes the $18.00, 3-day pass pretty attractive.

We had time in the evening for a hike down Powell Street towards Market. Powell Street is amazing; Canal and Bourbon rolled into one with inclines and weird and expensive streetcars.

Photos: first, the opulent surroundings where cocktail #2 (a cosmo, yep, I’m man enough to drink a cosmo–wanna fight about it?) was consumed, the lobby bar of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel.

And a little local IPA after the cosmo.

The Drake is right by Union Square. There were some artists displaying there. The central statue is a monument honoring Admiral Dewey taking Manila harbor during the Spanish-American war.

Union Square is home to a slew of high-end stores. Macy’s, Victoria’s Secret, Saks and Williams Sonoma call it home, as does Tiffany’s, which was the setting for this odd scene of valets all lined up like ducks.

Speaking of weird, expensive streetcars, here’s a couple as they go up and down Powell Street.

It’s a good thing they run until midnight–we thought parking was expensive in NOLA.

Tomorrow, wine country and Kokkari.