Monday, June 14, 2010

Sausalito - not just a cookie

Jamie and I were up super early on Saturday morning for our day trip to Sausalito. Located just across the Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito is just a quick 30 (ish) minute ferry ride from the Ferry Building.

We buffered in enough time to walk to the Ferry Building, grab some coffee and breakfast and managed to have a few extra minutes to chill out and enjoy the weather before boarding. Jamie was reunited with his Prather Ranch Breakfast Sammich
and I got a much needed cup of Blue Bottle Coffee *swoon*.

I snapped a few pictures before getting on the boat...couldn't ask for better weather!
We arrived in Sausalito a little after 11am and it was a beautiful day for wandering.

Lucky for us, we were wandering on a SEGWAY. Yep. You know Jamie and I love to do random touristy things as evidenced here and here. We had an 11:30am date in a parking lot with The Electric Tour Company Segway Tour. These segways were fancy...you just lean the handles to the right or to the left, and poof you're turning! Super easy and way more fun than walking. Just saying.

I had the pleasure of rolling around Sausalito for 2 hours on Candy Pants.
Yep, Candy Pants. Our tour group and guide were pretty laid back and fun to zoom around with. I'd recommend it to anyone visiting...even those who mock the segway riders. Have you played with one of these suckers before? Fun as hell. I'd like to just zoom around on this guy for transportation!

I wasn't able to take a ton of pictures on our two-hour tour, but I think these capture the gist of it.


We were pretty hungry by the time the tour was over and decided to explore the restaurants on Caladonia Street, a quaint little street tucked away from the tourist madness by the water. Arawan Thai seemed to call our names as we walked by so we popped in for a bite. They had a reasonably priced lunch special, so we sat down for a nice relaxing lunch...or so we thought.

Apparently the restaurant closes at 2:30 and we wandered in around 2:15. Oops. Whatever, they were still willing to feed us. Honestly, we picked stuff pretty quickly and forgot the details of what we ordered. I know we got some Thai Iced Teas and our meals came with some salad.
Then these arrived:

I know I got Pad Thai...I didn't know it came with a Chili and Thai Basil Calamari thinger (which was delicious, btw). Jamie knew he got chicken w/a peanut sauce and some greenery and a duck curry of some sort.

Dessert came out mid meal and was a tapioca pearl salty/sweet concoction. At first I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but after a few bites, I really liked it! I wish we had more time to savor our food, but there's always next time! Leftovers will make delicious lunches in the meantime :)

Once we got back into the city, Jamie had some World Cup catching up to do and I was so exhausted that I crashed immediately. I also learned that I had some nasty sunburn to deal with. Yeeh.

After some downtime, we set off on a mission to find dinner. Jamie read about a pizza place near the apartment so we decided to check it out. We walked over to Za Pizza on Hyde Street, a small shop with outdoor seating. It was pretty crowded so we took care of some errands first. The crowd died down a bit by the time we got back and we sat with a couple beers as we waited for a table.

We snagged a table outside and quickly ordered a medium pizza, half Pluto (spinach, sauasage, feta, mozzerella) and half Scaliano (roma tomato, spicy sausage, fresh garlic and green onion).
AMAZING. Growing up around NY/NJ pizza, I'm somewhat of a pizza snob. I like my crust thin, yet substantial. Toppings should be simple. I really don't like Chicago style pizza and do not get me started on Dominos or Papa Johns. I'll take fancy pizza, but it will always be fancy pizza to me...not real pizza. Za Pizza is legit. The Scaliano side was a little too mushy for me, but I'll chalk that up to waiting too long to try a slice...or maybe the tomatoes. The Pluto - outstanding. I loved the feta, sausage and spinach. the mozzarella just added to my slice of heaven. Oh, yes. Za also sells pizza by the slice. Hello, neighborhood pizza joint :)

Because pizza and ice cream go so well together, and because Jamie has wanted to try this place since Tuesday, we made a pitstop at Swensen's Ice Cream. There was a decent line, but it moved pretty quickly. So many flavor choices! They make everything there so I was excited to sample some flavors before committing. Unfortunately, the line didn't allow for that :( So I went with a cone of Mocha Chip (AMAZING) and Toasted Almond (not bad).
YUM (note: I asked for SMALL scoops). Jamie did a cup of Fresh Banana (bleh. no sampling for me) and French Vanilla Custard. According to Jamie, the French Vanilla was much better since it was creamier.

Living this close to Swensen's and Za could be T-R-O-U-B-L-E!!

2 comments:

MarathonVal said...

What a fun filled weekend!! I don't know what looks like more fun, the pizza, ice cream, segways, etc... I love it all!

Jamie said...

my votes are for segways and ice cream. it has been eight months since i ate ice cream. whew.