Bahasa Music in the City - Decorate by YUNA

I wish I understood Bahasa. For the past weeks, I've been enjoying listening to YUNA's cd album called Decorate on my iPhone. Yuna is a Malaysian singer-song writer who sings in English and Bahasa. Her album Decorate is a delightful collection of acoustic Indie folk music.

Ballet in the City - Onegin

The San Francisco Ballet's Program 1 for 2012 is Onegin. Onegin, in my regular guy un-ballet jargon, is a story of a small town girl who is enamored with big city boy but big city boy thinks little of small town girl which ended up breaking her heart. Then big city boy started flirting with his best friend's girlfriend which angered his best friend. Best friend and big city boy started fighting over the girlfriend, which turned into a duel, eventually killing the best friend. This made big city boy regrets everything and leave town. When he returns from his long absence, he discovers small town girl is now married to a Prince. Big city boy realizes he is truly and madly in love with small town girl but it is all too late for big city boy. Too late. The ballet is based on Alexander Pushkin's poem Eugene Onegin and the music was composed by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Dessert Crawl in the City - The January List

The binge eating that started in December didn't stop on New Year's eve and continued on to January. For this blog entry, I am not going to bore you with all the dinners, fabulous or not, that I've had in restaurants in the city. What I will do though, is tell you all about the desserts I've sampled for the entire month. I think that is more interesting.

When I say dessert, it is something sweet and eaten after a meal. More often than not, dessert, more than the main meal, is something I totally look forward to when dining out.

Everyday Wine in the City - 6Y (sexy) Red table wine

This week, we are tasting a red wine blend called 6Y by Topel Winery. I was at our friendly neighborhood Canyon Market and this beautifully labelled bottle of wine caught my attention. The label has this painting of a sexy sophisticated woman with a red lipstick. Later, I learned that 6Y is read as, you guessed it right, sexy (or more like sixy?). A small voice was telling me, come on, be open minded and try this one just because it is a blend. I've had red wine blends of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah before and I truly loved them so why not give this blend of four red wines a try, I thought to myself. I paired this wine with spaghetti with meat balls from Monterey Pizza.

Classical Chinese dance in the City - Shen Yun

We finally saw Shen Yun at the War Memorial Opera House and it was good in a classical kind of way. It was a little over noon when Mijo and I finished running errands around the house on a crisp Saturday morning. Our home, including the backyard, was sparkling clean in just three hours! As a reward to ourselves, I bought two tickets to Shen Yun since we didn't have anything planned that night and it would be good to see something different. After a good lunch and a good nap, we got ready for the show. We had dinner at Arlequin Cafe which is our default restaurant in the Hayes Valley area of the city whenever we go to see an opera or ballet at the Opera house.

Everyday Coffee: Barako Blend

For this week, we are trying a coffee that I bought in the Philippines during my trip there over the holidays. I brought several coffee which were either bought or given to me as gifts. I found this one at a local coffee chain called Figaro Coffee Company.

Happy New Year!

I've been away in Asia for a month and I miss the city and I miss sharing anything that is San Francisco. For now let me share you this photo of the dessert Mijo and I had for New Year's Eve in Pied Piper. It is a duet of flourless chocolate cake, raspberry linzertorte, and vanilla bean creme Anglaise. It was muy buy bueno and a great taste to welcome the new year! Pied Piper is located inside the Palace Hotel on New Montgomery St.


~rl