safe and sound in San Fran

---

hello from San Fran - arrived here this morning at about 8.30am - earlier than when I left (that date line and all) - left SYD at 2.30pm on Australia Day - as the hostie on QF said on arrival - don't expect any Australia Day wishes here!

I will be very brief as it is already past 1a.m. and I aint doing this too much on my first day! I managed a pretty good sleep on the 13 hr flight over - how come you say? - well getting an entire centre row of 4 seats all to myself about 3 rows from the back - I unrolled myself into that and wrapped myself in a blanket and headed off for blanket bay as soon as the plane was airborne - no useless QF meals for me! (mind you I had not slept the night before, which helps I find...)

The Hotel Messer is only a short walk from Union Square and also the BART runs (under) Market St so handy for BART trips. So headed over to the Mission area - and my blog followers will know I blogged twice about consecutive meals at Garcon! - a French resto on 22nd/Valencia in the MIssion area - so as there was a musical event over there just up the road hopped on the BART to get there.

Dinner - the "usual" prix fixe for $35 fro 3 courses. I had to sit at the bar as there is some sort of Good Food month equiv. here for a month from mid Jan-Feb - no doubt mostly to coax out some post-Xmas spending. This gave me the opportunity to watch the very slick barman mix cocktails - including my "lychee upgrade" of gin, vodka, some lychee juice and also some French alcohol made form elderflowers (or something). For starter a lobster bisque - where they pour the hot soup form a jug into a plate with the creme fraiche and chopped mushrooms. Then a somewhat rustic risotto - with some very earthy mushrooms - one they call a hedgehog! - did not see a whole one but apparently like a chanterelle. The dessert was a semolina cake - which was, er, somewhat, semolina-y - i.e. a bit podgy.

The music was up Valencia - a small simple bar called Amnesia (moi, after a cocktail and 2 glasses of wine + jetlag??) - and the band was Gaucho - a sort of Hot Club de France Django type band - 3 geetars, bass, drums. It was free so not great impost to listen - they have played there for 8 years or so they said. It was a pleasant interlude.

Mission is a fairly Hispanic area, but also some interesting restaurants - and has a certain amount of somewhat deranged people wandering declaiming to no-one in particular about the state of the world! Good night - indeed.

---