long weekend in January

And how did the past long weekend go otherwise, Peter?

Not too bad!

Friday night was at Maestro with Van.  I took just the one photo (queso fundido)

before deciding I wanted to simply eat my dinner.  We came back to the condo after that to watch some Drag Race.  A nice easy evening.

Saturday morning I got up for a walk, and the early light was tinting the buildings with pinks. 

Lovely.  Conrad eventually joined me, and we ended up at Amara (shocking, I know).  Nice start to the weekend. 

We actually got some things done at home in terms of sorting and discarding papers.  The mail had a nice little surprise from Courtney and Robert's recent trip to the UK. 

That was a delight to find in the mail.

Sunday!  Online drinks on Sunday, and really, there isn't much more to report.  After we finished the drinks we had a dinner of pasta and salad, and that's that!

Yesterday (because yesterday was the holiday), I set out in the morning for a short walk,

feeling a little lazy.  Most of the day I enjoyed doing some reading, but we went over to Maestro for a little while in the evening to pay our respects to a recently-passed staff member there before popping into Mama M for a very fast meal at the sushi bar,

chatting with Chef Jack about travel plans to Thailand later this year.  It was a quick dinner because we were expecting our friend and former neighbour Violet

and her two sisters

to come by for desserts and drinks.  They showed up shortly after 8, and we got caught up over Last Words and lovely little cakes. 

Violet's sister Nancy was celebrating her birthday, so we celebrated that as well.

Really terrific to see them.

A bit of a late night because of our visitors, but that's ok.  I'll go to bed earlier tonight if I can!

And now on with the week ahead, which should be relatively quiet again. 

a weekend south of us

We're home.  Big sigh of relief there.  We left Wednesday for Boise, got back to California at lunchtime on Friday, spent an hour unpacking and repacking, then hit the road south.  Destination:  San Diego County.  Late this afternoon (it's still Sunday as I write), we got back to the condo.  Hooray for a few days before I leave again.  But also, hooray for seeing friends this past weekend.

Friday night we spent with Chuck and Violet at their home in Carlsbad.  Former neighbours in our building, and still dearly missed.  They made us dinner, we enjoyed a goodly amount of wine.  We all got caught up.  Such an enjoyable evening.  On Saturday, we had a very lazy morning, eventually making our way to the Original Pancake House in Encinitas for breakfast.  Violet ordered the German pancake, and we all helped out a little with that one. 

Wow, quite the big pancake!

After breakfast, Conrad consulted with them on their wifi system, and then we got our stuff in the car and hit the road.  Onward south to pick up Courtney and Robert at San Diego Airport and then get to the hotel.

Yes, Courtney and Robert again, and we'll get to see them in July, too.  It's always a treat.  And not our first time in San Diego together, either.  We checked in at the Intercontinental, unpacked and such, and then converged on the bar for a couple of drinks before dinner.

Mmmm... dinner.  Our original plan fell through (a message two days beforehand or so that the entire restaurant was booked for a private event - weird), but Conrad had the quick thinking to direct us to another place, Kingfisher. 

Van (not our Van, and not pronounced the same way) who used to work at Maestro and whom we and everyone else adored had moved to San Diego and was working there.  We had a booking for an outside table.  Not long before we were going to head out, the restaurant messaged to say that because of the chance of rain (and it did rain a little after all), they were offering to move us inside to the bar.  When we got to the restaurant, they had a table for us, but we wanted to sit around the one corner of the bar

so that we could enjoy engaging with Van.

Would I go back?  Oh yes, big time.  First off, how awesome to see Van again,

but on top of that, what generous and terrific hospitality he provided, guiding us through the menu so well.  The cocktails?  Top notch.  I had the Endless Prosperity to begin with

and the Sesame Soiree to end. 

In between, we got advice from the sommelier on a wine to enjoy, and we shared two bottles of the French grenache she recommended.  As for the food, superb.  Every dish - we shared eight of them - was fantastic.  That whole fish was so beautifully cooked,

and yes, I was the one who suggested the mushroom congee. 

It had morels.  I like morels!  Van surprised us with a gift of a vanilla flan to end the evening as well. 

Just such a wonderful meal together.

This morning I was awake before 7, though I promise I had a good sleep.  I lazed around a little while, then it was out on foot along the waterfront for a couple of miles. 

Look at that cool little ray I saw swimming in the harbour! 

I eventually met up with Courtney and Robert on the return, then headed for the room to get ready to check out and head to brunch.

Brunch, funnily enough, was at the place that had cancelled on us the night before.  It had tables free and a decent location, and the menu looked good.  I think I liked the menu more than the actual breakfast - great eggs, tough sausage, toast that I wasn't given butter or preserves for. 

The pastry basket was nice, but some greater variety would have been good.  Still, I'd also go back to Provisional Kitchen at the Pendry (and maybe stay at that hotel if I could) to try some of the other items and the drinks.

After brunch, sadly, it was time to say goodbye for now to our friends.  The drive home wasn't terrible - no more than 2.5 hours, but we did hit some rain.

And now it's winding down.  I have a busy week that will have me in Chicago from Wednesday to Sunday for meetings.  We've watched some television, and I made us a pasta with caramelized cabbage.  I should close up here and head to bed.