Meet me in San Francisco

The view from Cathay House restaurant is remarkable. Chinatown beckons!

The egg rolls were delicious.

An apple bacon donut from Dynamo Donuts.

A pretty cappuccino from same. Almost too much like art to drink.

The Warfield, where Manu Chao sang on October 15.

I hoping to meet Manu Chao in San Francisco. Alas, this did not happen, but I did see him in concert on Friday night at The Warfield on Market Street. What a great venue. I would compare it to our Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix (see picture). It's not a big stadium type venue but more intimate and I had a great view from the balcony of Manu Chao and his band.

What an amazing show! He went on and on, the sound was super and the crowd really participated. I was quite tired at the end from all of the clapping and dancing.

I highly recommend a visit to San Francisco when you can make it happen. Check in advance and maybe a band you like will be playing at The Warfield.

While in San Fran, I visited Dynamo Donuts on Portero Street. The apple bacon donut was quite good, a nice combination of sweet and savory. I also had a cappuccino which as you can see, the barrista is quite an artist. What a neat pattern, I envy her creative talent!

The other place I enjoyed in San Fran was Cathay House restaurant in Chinatown. I went there twice. On day 1 I had lunch which was chow fun noodles with beef. The rice noodles were wide and perfectly cooked. The beef was quite tender and delicious. I attempted to order egg rolls on the same day and my server told me I should come back another day and have them since it would have been too much food. It was a good thing because as it happened the chow fun was so great a portion I was able to take some back later for a snack at the hotel.
On day 2 I came back and had the egg rolls: 2 humongous egg rolls that had pork, shrimp and veggies inside (see picture). Oh, so delicious.

Chinatown is a great place to shop for food, too. There are grocery stores where you can get salted plums (got some), ginger candy (got some of that too) and dried herbs/fish/produce (didn't get any) and tea (got some). I love the idea of learning about how others eat and how the product is cooked. Since my Chinese is rusty, and by rusty I mean non-existent, I had a difficult time communicating with some of the shopkeepers in terms of how do you cook something. I would like to do an exchange program in San Fran with a Chinese family. I wonder if such a thing exists?