Cycle 15 - Item 173 26 (Wed) June 2024 Sauteed Pea Sprouts with Garlic 4.0 at Harborview Restaurant & Bar -Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea- with the Family Summer Holiday in the San Francisco Bay Area (Day 1 of 11) …
-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-
with the Family
Summer Holiday in the San Francisco Bay Area (Day 1 of 11)
Day 1 (15.173 Sauteed Pea Sprouts with Garlic)
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
In San Francisco. With the Family. Their first time ever in Northern California. The immediate objective is to escort DJ and three of his friends to compete in the finals of a global logic competition at Stanford University, while taking advantage of the opportunity to show the family my hometown, including San Francisco and Berkeley, and visit my best friend Hahn, who lives in Los Gatos, maybe even drop by my childhood home in Saratoga. The itinerary is packed, nearly every hour scheduled with activities. Stay tuned.
When DJ's team was notified just 2 weeks ago that they'd qualified for the finals, we had to scramble to book air tickets. The only airline that had available seats in both business (W and I) and economy (DJ and IZ) was United Airlines, which I can't recall ever having flown before. Though skeptical of the service quality on American carriers, we had no choice.
Our coupled seats (don't know why the photo is so grainy, as if taken with an early model iPhone).
Fortunately, the service in business class was fine. But back in coach, the boys were provided only a single beverage as part of the meal service, then nothing, so I smuggled snacks to them throughout the flight, as I'd done when we went to UAE (see generally 10.295 Tofu & Mushroom Spring Roll with Hoi Sin Sauce).
Turbot Filet (2.0): generously cut fillet could've been nice, but the inadequate sauce ("English pea coulis") left it and the supporting vegetables woefully dry.
LUNCH
Arriving in the city a little after 1pm, we had a couple hours to kill before our hotel check-in at 3pm, so we walked a few blocks north in search of lunch and found a restaurant on the southern edge of Chinatown.
Located at 648 Kearny Street, about 800 m from the hotel.
Hon's Wun-Tun House is a Chinese restaurant. Specializes in Cantonese dumplings (wonton) and noodles. Established in 1972.
Signature Wuntun Noodle Soup (3.5): worth the hype.
The food was awesome.
Chinese Broccoli (3.5)
Sichuan Dumplings (3.5)
We were, however, taken aback by the cost of the meal, which came out to $100 after tax and tip.
Indeed, I was warned by HS, whose company is based in San Francisco, that food is shockingly expensive in the city, even for simple things. When I told him that my projected meal budget is $20 per person for lunch and $50 per person for dinner, he laughed. Already $20 in the hole after a single meal.
To make it worse, the current exchange rate as of today is USD 1 : KRW 1,392, the highest in recent memory, the highest thus far in 2024 (the lowest rate this year was USD 1 : KRW 1,280 in January).
HOTEL
For the first three nights, we're staying at the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Downtown SOMA.
Located at 50 3rd Street, just south of Market Street ("SOMA = SO-uth of MA-rket").
Plenty of elbow room, even with 2 queen beds.
Spectacular views of the city from the 26th floor: this angle facing southwest and overlooking Jessie Square and St Patrick Church - shoulda taken a shot of the southeast angle showing SFMOMA and Oracle Park.
The hotel is very nicely situated to give us quick access to many of the destinations on the itinerary, including Chinatown, Union Square, SFMOMA, and Oracle Park.
Located at 4 Embarcadero Center, about 1.1 km from the hotel.
When planning out meals for the trip, starting with our inaugural dinner in town, I was most excited to find a venue for Cantonese seafood - my favorite cuisine of all time. Second only to Hong Kong (maybe Singapore) (maybe Bangkok), San Francisco boasts the best Cantonese in the world, arguably. But rather than venturing deep into Chinatown, where the truly authentic joints would be, I wanted to play it safe at a place that was fancy, famous, mainstream - a place that would appeal to affluent white people (and tourists). Harborview fit the bill perfectly.
Kitschy decor designed to reassure white people (and tourists) that the restaurant is legit, even though no authentic establishment would look like this.
Regrettably, in my excitement, I never bothered to take a look at the actual harbor view on outside.
As anticipated, the food was excellent. Dishes included ingredients of the highest quality and freshness, expertly prepared, beautifully plated.
The pea sprouts, unanimously our favorite dish, started off the meal with a bang. Perfectly cooked, perfectly seasoned. Sublimely bittersweet. Exquisitely charred garlic cloves, with strong accents of wokhei. Perhaps not so coincidentally, the first post of our trip to Los Angeles had also featured pea shoots (see generally 9.349 Pea Shoots with Garlic). Uncertain whether pea "shoots" vs "sprouts" are the same thing, as they look different (one has thin white stems; the other has thick green stems), and taste different (one is sweet; the other is more bitter), though very similar in essence - so maybe one is a younger version of the other. While I am very familiar with shoots - previously described as "my all-time favorite Chinese vegetable dish: delicate yet chewy in texture, sweetish with a touch of bitter," delicious even at the hands of Panda Express - this was my first experience with sprouts. Based on this initial encounter, I'll give a slight edge to shoots.
$70 (lobster) + $22 (noodles)
$65 (crab)
However, having ordered both a crab and a lobster, the meal kinda dragged in the end. Two were a bit too much. Furthermore, the methods of preparation and sauces were somewhat similar, so they kinda blended into each other. And finally, the shells made them difficult and messy to eat, especially the crab, so we were exhausted by the physicality of getting at the meat - should've resisted one of them (the crab) and instead ordered something entirely different, like steamed fish or roast duck or prawn stir-fry, just to get more diversity on the table, like that epic meal on my birthday in Malaysia several years back, which had also featured lobster and noodles (see generally 8.357 Lobster with Mushrooms and Noodles in Truffle Sauce).
Maine Lobster in Supreme Sauce with (E-Fu) Noodles (2.5): went with e-fu noodles upon the server's recommendation, though I was reminded upon tasting it that I'm not a huge fan of the texture - shoulda gone with chow mein; overall, it didn't quite live up to anticipation as the meal's piece de resistance.
Supreme/Superior Soy Sauce is a Chinese sauce. Among infinite variations, the essential elements include light soy sauce + dark soy sauce + oyster sauce + shaoxing wine + sugar, maybe fish sauce - pretty much all the basics of any Chinese stir-fry. The name derives from the Chinese "豉油 (siyu) (bean oil) + 王 (wang) (king/supreme/superior)." The sauce was once featured but not described in a prior post (see generally 6.001 Braised Superior Whole Abalone).
Here, the supreme sauce was much lighter than expected, frankly somewhat bland.
Dungeness Crab with Ginger & Scallions (3.0): tasty but what a major pain in the ass.
Hargow (3.5)
Golden Supreme Fried Rice (3.0)
With tax and tip, the meal came out to $273.35, not as bad as it could've been, given the lobster and crab, but still $73.35 over budget.
ENTERTAINMENT
Afterwards, we went to The Escape Game - a chain of 3 locations across the Bay Area - to engage in a breakout room. We did Special Ops. Compared to prior experiences many years ago at rinky dink joints in Manila and Seoul, the production values at this place were impressive (even so, the 5.0 rating with 6.4K votes is highly suspicious).
With unlimited requests for clues, breaking out is all-but guaranteed.
The game cost $179.96 for the 4 of us, an entirely unanticipated expense (IZ had spotted it on our way to lunch).
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