Monday, December 23, 2019
Breakfast at home with Patrick: two eggs over easy, hash brown with ketchup, biscuit with butter. Walked and rode Muni to UCSF Laurel Heights. HTML email build: new year greeting all day. Sprint standup. Categorized and renamed D8 tasks with James H. Walked and rode Muni to Golden Gate Park. Met Patrick at the Conservatory of Flowers for Night Bloom. We arrived early for our timed entry and so had drinks in HYBYCOZO Hall: hot toddy for Patrick, Irish coffee for me: $20 after a $2 cash tip. We watched people play giant chess and enjoyed the fantastic art by HYBYCOZO. We chose not to do the Bloom Lounge because $46 per person for a flight of alcohol and grilled cheese sandwich bites seemed like a very poor value. I was surprised that they let us take our hot, alcoholic beverages inside. After a quick bag check and ticket confirmation, we were inside. The conservatory is almost entirely cordoned to encourage a counter-clockwise path. Lights of color, laser lights, fog created by maybe dry ice, and loudspeakers with nature sounds project an ambiance and experience that isn't available anywhere else I know in the Bay Area and probably beyond, tho it did remind me of Sensorio in Paso Robles in that it was a unique, light-focused event at night. Outside it was very cold, and inside it was perfectly comfortable with jackets. We sipped our drinks and continued our tour, seeing orchids and many other kinds of plants, the giant lilypads and giant philodondrens, koi fish, and much, much more. We walked to dinner at Nopalito (415-233-9966, 1224 9th Avenue). In retrospect, we should probably have ridden Uber or Lyft instead. The night was cold, the walk was 17 minutes on almost entirely flat ground, and the paths were not always well-lit. Margarita for Patrick. Tacos dorados (crispy rolled tortillas, sweet potato, onions, garlic, queso fresco, crema, salsa de chipotle y tomatillo) to start. Tacos arabe estilo puebla for Patrick (housemade flour tortillas, marinated pork, fresh oregano and parsley, lime juice, spices, onions, cilantro, salsa morita), carne asada for me (marinated bavette steak, fingerling potatoes, Oaxacan chorizo, onions, nopalitos, smashed black beans, queso fresco, salsa de tomate y tomatillo). For dessert, we shared an order of flan with orange slice and pomegranate seeds. The tacos dorados seemed to us to be taquitos. The tacos arabe puebla seemed to us to be a burrito. We had difficulty, as I had expected, in finding dishes for me that weren't spicy. The tacos dorados mistakenly arrived with the salsa on top rather than on the side, but the error was detected and resolved quickly with multiple sincere apologies, which I think is rare in San Francisco restaurants and which was much appreciated. Service by Dylan B was very good to excellent. The $12 margarita seemed a larger size than one would typically receive in a San Francisco restaurant (or bar for that matter) for the same price, and it represents a good value. $76.61 before a $14 tip. Rode UberX home.