We got a good deal on a nice motel this time around in Portland. It was clean and comfortable and green. Recycled products and water saving everything. They give you a cup of colored chalk to write on the head board with and the room comes with everything you could need, even 2 sets of ear plugs. It was still an old cheaply made motel but it was decorated crazy with blue lights and mirrors. In the morning at the 11:00 check out time they play loud music along the outside walkway by everyones rooms to get people moving. The restaurant attached was kinda cool too, good for breakfast. The Jupiter was right across from Le Pigeon so we just stumbled there after our dinner the night before. There was a band playing in the lounge after we checked in and a communal fire pit outside attached to the lounge. In the morning after breakfast we went vintage shopping because there were a lot of vintage stores all around the motel. After that we kept driving to Vancouver.

In Portland Kyle and I went to Le Pigeon finally. It was great. Small kitchen, cool cooks, really good food, lots of foie. For dessert we had foie profiteroles, filled with foie ice cream, with foie caramel, and powdered foie. They were super good. It’s hard to write posts on the road.

Coi is in the stripper district, there are strip clubs lining the streets. In the alleys between the strip clubs you can find some of the best cocktails in the city as well as the funniest old dive bars. I found Jake from www.cherriesandclay.com and we went out for cocktails. Some of our favorite places to drink that we have discovered in San Fran:

1. 15 Romolo

Great cocktails, good music, just a room with tables. When I was there on a Saturday night the place was packed and people were dancing. When I was there on a Sunday night it was not to busy and some guys had set up a poker table on one side and were gambling pretty hard. Lots of industry people hang out here.

2. Bourbon and Branch

Speakeasy where you need a nightly password to enter. No cameras allowed.

3. Specs

Located in a nook that you could easily walk right by if you weren’t carful. Has been open for 42 years and looks like it has been open for 42 years. Dark, full of junk, old man behind the bar, giant wheel of fontina cheese sitting on the bar. “You want some cheese?” the old barman asks.
“Yes please sir.” we reply.
He cuts us off a wedge, and passes us a large stack of saltines to eat it with. Great place to drink Anchor Steam and whiskey.

4. Bamboo Hut

$2 Pabst, florescent lights, good music, tiki decorations.

5. Le po

In China town, lots of red lights and trashed up chinese lanterns. Live punk rock in the basement.

This was a beautiful garden, all the ground surrounding the area was so rich, moist and fertile. There were wild mushrooms everywhere. The chickens were so beautiful and healthy looking, their eggs are used at the restaurant and they are the most amazing shades, blue, green, tan, warm brown, grey brown, speckled. In the green house there are lots of micros and sprouts that always change, I liked the pale spindly buckwheat sprouts they taste sweet. They have a board hanging in the barn that lists the needs of the restaurant. I loved spending time there.

I left Coi a week early so I could stage at Ubuntu in Napa. While I was at Ubuntu Kyle was at Redd. I had a gut feeling that I couldn’t leave California without seeing something else. It was really risky telling Coi I wanted to leave early. I wasn’t sure if they were going to blackball me from the industry for not staying true to my word of a full month stage. It is a very small scene out here and I didn’t know what to say to them. I told them I spent all the money I have in this world to get to Cali and that financially it doesn’t make sense for me to work for free for the entire month and that I’m going to have to leave early. I said, “I’m not and extern living off student loans, I’m a poor cook trying to find my place in Cali before I run out of money.”

They did not seem happy and I felt like such a bag of shit. I didn’t know what else to say or do. I didn’t want to just stay there if I wasn’t sure I wanted to work there. I only have limited time and money and I needed to find a place that I was thrilled about. Coi was so cool and I learned a lot and I want to be true to my word, but I had eaten at Ubuntu and my heart told me to go there.

The chef at Ubuntu came into Coi to eat and he got the regular menu and at the end he came back to the kitchen and shook every cooks hand and thanked them. That made an impression on me, so on my day off Kyle and I went to Ubuntu to eat and the chef recognized me as the stage from Coi and sent us four extra courses. It was so good, he gave me his number and email and told me to call him for a job if I move back. I emailed him soon after asking for a stage.

It was a very tough choice, but I had to do what I had to do. There were some other things that also pushed me to go. One of the cooks mentioned that when he had time off from Coi that he wanted to stage at Ubuntu, and that made me so jealous. I thought if I want to go there that bad I should just go, not stay here and be jealous of someone else for going. Also another cook was leaving Coi because his visa had run out and he found a place that would sponsor him. That means that they don’t help with visas. Blah blah blah, I was unsure about my decision and was depressed for a couple of days, thought I was blackballed from further stages and then the chef at Ubuntu called me. I had a good last week.

Kyle and I found some taffy by the market this morning before work. He has been staging around different places, he did Yoshi’s and Quince after One Market. We’re both thinking about going to Napa for a bit. Yoshi’s is where Travis the old sous of Boneta worked when he was in San Fran. Kyle hasn’t done A16 yet and I want to before we leave but I’m not sure if I’ll have time. It would also be cool to stage at Chez Panise and some other places that have been recommended to us like Aziza, and Gary Danko. Ever since I ate at Ubuntu I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I want to go there.

Mushrooms are very cool and beautiful. I have never worked with the lions mane ones, or the pioppini or the nameko. Black trumpets are my favorite mushroom because they smell deeply earthy, and the color is amazing, but I also love the canary oyster because of their delicacy and crazy yellow.

We walk around a new area of SF everyday and today we walked around the Mission. We chilled out on the grass of Delores park with the other slackers. Then we did some shopping in the Castro district and had some beer at a German beer house. Then we wanted wood fire pizza so we took the bus to Flour and Water. It was crazy busy, we drank some nice wine while we waited and described what we tasted and smelled in the wine to each other. Flour and Water must make so much money. They sell so much wine and their main ingredients are flour and water.