Ghirardelli at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, California

"World famous ice cream shop" is their claim. What a huge stretch.

Ordered a warm brownie sundae for $8.95 (but they give out $1 vouchers nearby). The photo of the sundae is on another camera, but all I can say is it is very generic. Seems like random ice cream, fudge and nuts bought from a random supermarket and dumped together. No comparison to a similarly priced Jean Philip in Las Vegas.

It is crap.

There is also a cookie store or something adjacent to the ice cream store, but seriously, no interest.

Sapporoya in Japantown in San Francisco

Ordered a miso ramen with chashu for $11.90.

I got the feeling it was a Chinese noodle instead. The soup was somewhat thick with a tilt to tasting like canned soup. Noodles was very Chinese-like and the chashu is like a fat piece of random pork.

Try your luck elsewhere.

Awesome dinner at Incanto in San Francisco, California

After the 2-star Michelin Restaurant last night, I am still surprised by this restaurant - Icanto, the owner of this restaurant is famous for cooking everything, from head to tail.

It's only 15-20 mins drive from downtown San Francisco, and here is the address, 1550 Church St, San Francisco.  


Environment - pretty nice, nothing special to mention about itservice - good, the waitress patiently explained different glasses of wine and the taste of different dishes, 4/5
price - very reasonablely priced with such good quality of food
Food

The dinner overall is very nice and a few things should be mentioned here.






1)Starter:
- Salumi is good, but the must try is Iberico di bellota lardo & stonefruit. It's fat ham (the whole piece is white, smooth and chewy) with peaches. They are prefect matches!!!!!!!! If you think parma ham+sweet melon are good, you can't skip this one.

- Soup, daily special clam soup cooked with varieties of fresh tomatoes.  Well, not a suprise.  You won't get upset if you miss it.  The soup is too salty itself but it's better if you eat with tomatoes and clams.

2) Main / Entrees
- the pasta is very good, way above average.  The texture is chewy and fresh, not as soaky as those you get from chain restaurants or per-packed uncooked ones in supermarket.

Pasta with capers and tomatoes

- Tuna Heart Spaghetti is worth a try.  The tuna heart alone is very salty, just try once - funny texture.  After you mix everything together (egg and sauce), it's totally different.

- Pork Belly,  not bad.  It's a bit cooked like Asian Style.  If you haven't tried Asian pork belly before, it's good to try this one.

 3) Desserts - If you like sweets, try it ;)

*They have a special dish called Leg of Beast which you have to order in advanced.  I will definitely come back if I have a chance ;)

P.S.  This is not a tourist destination, I am there because of my friend's recommendations.

First meal in San Francisco

Arrived San Francisco at around 11am and took Bart to our hostel which located in downtown in Lower Nob Hill. It only took 30 mins plus maybe another 10 min walking - pretty convenient. 
 
Had lunch at Ferry Building at the pier just next to the financial district. 

We tried 2 restaurants: Boccalone and Hog Island.  Both of them are good.

Boccalone is a small restaurant selling ham and sandwiches. I only ordered muffuletta $9.5+tax. The sandwich is pretty good as the bread is crispy with a lot of ham and a little bit of spicy flavour.  I know nothing about Italian ham and sliced meats but have a look at the photos yourself.

At Hog Island, mainly sells seafood, together we had oyster bar mix, 24 pieces, $60+tax and chowder soup $14+tax. They are not cheap but they are worth your dollars. 
There are 8 different types of oysters and they all taste very different. I can't remember where they are from but they are all very delicious. 

About the chowder, this is my first time seeing this in such a fancy presentation .  The chief stacks up a lot of clams in the soup and the creamy soup is just a perfect match eating with them. 

Overall, they are all awesome!!! I rate them 4/5 in every aspect. 

Hope that I have time to eat here again during my 4 days trip here!!

Manresa @ Los Gatos, San Jose

The 1st night here in San Francisco, I decided to go to a 2-Star Michelin Restaurant, Manresa, in Los Gatos, San Jose.   It takes more than 45-60 mins drive from the downtown San Francisco.
This restaurant suprises me, and it's the only Michelin Star Restaurant that I would actually recommend friends to go recently after trying out 5-6 in the past few weeks.
Make your booking at opentable.com; www.manresarestaurant.com
Environment - generic fine dining place where you see candles everywhere in the restaurant and people dress up for it
Service - good service, to be honest, regular services in a Michelin Restaurant but relatively good comparing to normal restaurants
Price - 5-course for US$115, so not too expensive for a restaurant like this
Food - I ordered this 5-courses one and paired with a glass of white wine US$14 ( I went with friends so basicaly all the photos are 2x5-courses, everything you can get there)
I am not going to say much here as the whole experience is very good, so I only mention the highlights and you guys can look at the photos yourself. 
- Into the vegetable garden, it's a salad without any meat.  the presentation is very creative and all the vegetables are excessively fresh!!! A friend of mine even said that he would be a vegetarian if he gets to eat this all the time.
- Hailbut and lobster muchrooms, lemon confit with lobster pudding, leeks, is another highlight.  The texture of all the ingridents are pretty interesting.  The lobster muchroom is crunchy that I don't feel like eating a mushroom.
- Desserts!! Stone frust, roasted and raw, mascarpone cream with caramelized corn, thyme ice cream is soooooo goood that I haven't eaten in any other restaurants.
**As I am traveling, I can only use the blogger app on my electronic device which I can't put the photos in the order I want and put caption under it.  Just leave me a message if you want to know more details. 
Last, we got some macarones when before we got the bill.  After eating so much great food, the macarones aren't very good - too sweet.
All the ladies got a bag of banana and pistachio cookies to bring it home.
GREAT DINNER, hope that I will have a chance to be there again!!!!!!!!
HIGHLIGHT of this round the world trip so far ~~

Hooters in Vegas, casino hotel

We randomly stayed in Vegas for US labour day - a long weekend here, so the price of the hotels are very expensive. Therefore, we picked Hooters as it is relatively cheap and convenient.
Location - on the strip, right opposite to MGM. Still takes about 5-10 mins walk to MGM without any shaded area. Acceptable.
Cost - US$77+7.5 (resort fee) +tax, so under $100 a day.
Cleanness - pretty clean, I would rate 4/5
Service -3/5, the staff there is generally not too bad but not really helpful. They didn't make up our bed onçe after we left the room at 4p and no voice message is being left about this. Oh well, what do you expect from Hooters.
Envirnoment - as a random racial observation, lots of white people there and don't see Asians basically. However, it doesn't really matter, it's a safe hotel.
Overall, it costs less than US$100 a day, I think the overall experiences are good and I will probably stay at Hooters again.
Oh, the worst thing is that Hooters doesn't provide wifi, even if you pay. However, you can find free wifi all around Vegas (eg) MGM, Aria, Cosmopolitan. You can still survive.

Lemongrass at Aria on the Vegas main strip

Modern style Thai food. Here at 11pm after watching Lion King (which is a good show, except the ridiculous air conditioning there) to scam some Asian restaurant week food for $30.11. Not bad value.
- Chicken satay as a start. Half decent, not great. Nice fresh veges on the side. But finally something not overcooked and super salty.
- Tom yum soup next. Flavour is a bit strange, perhaps just too much basics tastes (sweet and sour) and not enough real taste from the spices.
- Pad Thai as one of the mains (or entrees as they like calling it here). I vote above average. Slightly oily but I like generous eggs. Fresh ingredients a plus.
- Chicken curry - weird. Excessively full of coconut juice and tastes suspiciously like lots of curry powder from Walmart. At least it isn't overcooked.
- The dessert is this coconut with random shit. I don't know, there's a strange smell and after taste to this. I get it, it's Thai and you add coconut and some mochi type things in it, but what's with the goat cheese after taste?
Overall, it's OK, but none of the real natural nuances of flavour really built out from the cookery.
All the commentary is globally relative, that is, it could be the best Thai food in US but I don't really care as food is just generally crap here.