Nick's Celebration

This past Sunday my mom and I decided to drive up the Berkeley to celebrate my brother's birthday. Since we stayed in the Bay for a total of 24 hours, it was a quick trip.

After arriving, we headed to SF for some shopping before dinner at Aqua. The BART decided to brake down when we arrived at the Embarcadero stop, thankfully we made it across the bay before it broke down. After several minutes of hopeful announcements, they finally said electrical problem couldn't be fixed. So with my navigational skills we walked our butts to Powell, good thing all we had to do is walk down Market. Before meeting up with my brother for dinner, two hours of shopping ensued.

My first impression of Aqua was, why the heck is a two star Michelin restaurant in the middle of the financial district, everything around the restaurant was dead. We arrived early to our reservation, so a lot of waiting was to be done. And of course I pasted the time with taking pictures with the unipod (see below).

Aqua serves a three course meal, so everyone picked different things so we could try. Our appetizers were all kind of blandish tasting, nothing too impressive. But I enjoyed the foie gras because I love the texture and taste of liver. When it came to the entrees we all loved the Black Cod because it melted in your mouth. And lastly for the desserts, they were alright except for the delicious espresso millefuette (million layer puff pastry). Overall, most of the food was over seasoned and salty and not everything on the menu was good, definitely overrated.

The next day for lunch we had reservations at the Chez Panisse Cafe. I have never eaten at the upstairs Cafe, so I wanted to see how it compared to downstairs at the restaurant. Boy was it amazing, I was more impressed with the Cafe than I was with Aqua, which doesn't even have a star. Everything we ordered was amazing. At the end of the meal everyone's favorite dish was the Soul Food Farms chicken, it was just beautifully cooked. YUM YUM! My mom was so happy about the meal she said that we have to eat there every time we visit Berkeley.

The trip was based around eating delicious food with my brother for his birthday, I think we succeeded. It was fun to be back in the Bay even for a little while to enjoy the weather and surroundings. It reminded me of the good old days. Another great thing about the trip was not having to pay for parking because one it was Sunday and two Indigenous Peoples Day (Columbus Day).



In addition to celebrating with my brother, I got to stop by to see the beautiful Hannah Suh. I miss that girl!