Friday run and yum; Weekend eats.

It took awhile for me to get motivated, but I eventually got myself out the door for a run Friday evening. It was too nice out not to get moving! Selin suggested a fairly flat 3 mile route, which I cut a smidge short.

My run took me up a slight hill and past the mothership before spitting me out onto the pier at Aquatic Park.

I ran out and back on the pier, snapped some views of Ghirardelli Square and Fisherman's Wharf.

Oh, and some of the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz in the distance. Thank you iPhone for giving me music AND memories haha.

It was a great way to see some sights while also avoiding the tourist-filled streets of Fisherman's Wharf and the Embarcadero. I actually didn't mind the slight hill in the beginning, especially since I had a nice downhill to the pier :) I think I like living next to so much open water...sorry, Potomac River.

I fueled up post-run with a not so successful brown rice bowl:

I threw in some greens, corn, black beans, tomato, avocado, mango pineapple salsa, feta and regular salsa over some Trader Joe's Frozen Brown Rice. I'll start with the good: frozen brown rice packs = brilliant! Super easy and the texture was perfect...not too mushy or under cooked! The bad: mango pineapple salsa does not belong in a brown rice bowl. Nono. Sad. I might need to bring back my Brown Rice Taco Bowl.

Saturday was a pretty productive day...Selin and I set off on a 2 hour walk through Nob Hill and Russian Hill to soak up the gorgeous weather and let me get an idea of some other neighborhoods. We hoofed up some steep hills and stairs, but totally worth it for the views:

I took down some info for an apartment building near Grace Cathedral

And stopped to smell/photograph the flowers

Yeah, I think I'm still in my flower phase when it comes to taking pictures....before that it was buildings. What do you like taking pictures of (aside from food ;p)?

On the way back, I snapped a picture of some tourists on a cable car

Um, not sure I want to cram into one of those.

And we wandered into a really cute courtyard at the San Francisco Art Institute before hopping in the car to get some grub!

I told you we plan around food. We worked up an appetite during our walk and drove a good 30 minutes to the other side of town for some soup dumplings. SOUUUPP DUMPLINGS!! :)

This food adventure brought us to the Outer Richmond to a little place called Shanghai House.

Selin had raved about the Dry Sauteed String Beans and the Xiao Long Bao (aka soup dumplings, aka party in my mouth) - I couldn't wait for this feast!

We were STARVING from our long walk so we ordered the soup dumplings (duh)

I think these come a close third to the ones we had at Yank Sing a few weeks ago, which come second to the AMAZING pan-fried ones I had at a night market in Shanghai. Not really a fair competition since, hi, street market in Shanghai, but whatever. That's how I'd rank them!

Those nuggets of hot, meaty, salty, doughy goodness were exactly what I wanted after a long afternoon of walking. Dear soup dumpling, I love you.

We also got an order of the string beans

These totally lived up to the hype. The beans were nice and crisp (nothing worse than a limp bean) and smothered with a great sauce that tasted oyster saucy/garlicky/sherry-y. It got a little salty after my, oh I don't know, 5th spoonful?? I think that would be easily fixed with a bowl full of rice. Or noodles. Or a scallion pancake.

Speaking of...

Some Green Onion Pancakes found their way to our table. Selin and I both agreed that these do not compare to the ones at A&J in Rockville. In fact, I don't think I've come across any scallion pancakes that beat the ones at A&J. *sigh*

These were a little greasy and somewhat boring. Why am I being a scallion pancake snob? Because the ones at A&J totally spoiled me. They were always perfectly pan-fried and arrived with very little grease. Plus, the texture was perfect - crisp on the outside with chewy, doughy layers in the inside. AHHHH so good! ANYWAY.

I was intrigued by the Chinese Donut on the menu so we got an order and by the time it arrived, I realized I've had it before.

Served with some warm, slightly sweetened soy milk, these are sort of like really light and crispy churros (minus the sugar coating). Check out how airy these sticks are:

These were, again, a little to oily for my taste - I totally blotted a piece with my napkin. My favorite method of eating is taking an end piece and letting it soak in the sweet soy milk for a minute so the donut soaks up all the milky goodness. Once it's all saturated, you pop the whole thing in your mouth and it's an explosion of sweet that ends with a slight crunch from the end piece. WOO :) Yeah, I like to play with my food.

After all that, I HAD to bring some ruffage into my life for dinner. A late-ish dinner. I brought back the fishcakes in salad topping form:

Quickly reheated the fishcakes and threw them on some greens with the mango pineapple salsa as my dressing. Fruits and veggies all in a light dish! My fortune cookie told me to...

I'm off to check out some apartments and attempt a late afternoon run/walk. More later :)