So there is this place called Spinners right by my apartment here in the city. And Spinners makes cinnamon rolls, muffins, and Java City Coffee. All of which are fantastic. As if the quality wasn’t reason to go back again and again, this little gem of a place charges me $1.00 to refill my coffee mug in the morning and after 10 refills I get one free. That works out to $0.90 a refill. Plus if I buy a muffin or cinnamon roll AND a cup of coffee ($2.95 for the muffin combo and $2.50 for the cinnamon roll combo), I get TWO stamps.

One dollar refills. The only other place where I can get things for a dollar is the Dollar Store. This is a serious bargain to me folks!

The only disadvantage to this place is that I am pretty cofident (based on the deliciousness factor of their baked goods) that this is a high fat/ high calorie breakfast. Which is why I stick to the coffee most mornings.

I am off to another martini tasting this evening with the Big A. It gives me an opportunity to spend time with the Big A, to drink delicious martinis and eat delicious food, but most importantly, it gives me an excuse to get my super cute shoes out of the closet and parade around in them!

Hope you are ready for another review of Ink’s event!

When we went to the cabin a little over two weeks ago, we took a picnic lunch to Hog Island Oyster Co. It is a little place in Tomales Bay on Route 1 where you can buy raw oysters and have yourself a time! When we showed up, one of the guys asked us if we had reservations and we totally didn’t. But I think this is one of the times that we should thank our lucky stars that we are all cute females because he managed to get us a picnic table outside.

We paid a reduced entrance fee (maybe because we showed up kind of late in the afternoon and the guy didn’t think it was fair to charge us the normal $8/person fee, or maybe we are really so cute as a foursome that the men at Hog Island were spellbound into treating us well – I guess it is an oyster company… and you know that oysters are an aphrodesiac… hmmmm). Regardless, we ended up getting 2 dozen oysters for the 4 of us to share; 12 small oysters and 12 atlantic oysters (as a suggestion of the guy who said they ran out of kumomoto and extra small ones) and a bunch of lemons).

We packed up a bottle of wine from the cabin, all of our cheeses, a loaf of bread, and all of the fixins’ for a minuet sauce. We settled in at the only free picnic table and started shucking our little hearts out. A couple of the atlantic oysters were creamy inside. So I went an asked one of the oyster guys if they were safe to eat. He proceeded to tell me that it was their reproductive juice and that it was completely safe to eat. Needless to say, I stuck to the non-creamy ones from that point out, but I didn’t tell the rest of the girls, for fear that it would deter them. The oyster guy came over to our table and told them that it was fine to eat and said that he preferred them creamy. Then he ate one of our oysters.

Really, this place only provided the oysters, a picnic table, and there were some BBQs around if you didn’t want your oysters raw. They recommend making reservations at least two weeks in advance (but apparently if you are cute and female, there is a small chance of getting around that rule). You are allowed dogs on leashes, although I think everyone who had a dog let it off-leash. The picnic tables sit along the banks of the bay and it is a beautiful view. There was no shade, but it wasn’t a particularly hot day. I don’t remember getting sunburn.

They also have retail locations and a restaurant at the pier in SF. But I had a great time at the farm! Something tells me the employees there know first hand about oyster farming and shucking and everything else.

Here is the contact info and some information from the website:

To enjoy our facility, please keep the following in mind:

One week advance reservation only
Call 415-663-9218 ext. 208
Leave the folling information clearly: first/last name, phone number, date, total people
Reservations confirmed by return phone call, Advance reservations are $8 per person, Walk-ins are welcome if we have space at $10 per person, No walk-ins after 4pm, We close promptly at 5pm, No groups larger than 20 people, BBQ pits provided, but bring your own charcoal, No personal cooking devices, No portable music devices. We have a great selection of music, Bring your own beverages and containers, Dress warmly as the afternoon wind and fog can be a little chilly, Please car pool as parking is very limited

Travel time from San Francisco is 1.5 hours.

Our physical location is 20215 Coast Hwy One, Marshall, CA 94940

We are located 10.2 miles north of Pt. Reyes Station on Hwy One. Look for us on the left-hand side.

HAVE FUN AND EAT LOTS OF OYSTERS!

I haven’t had much experience with Indian food. To be honest, I have only eaten at one indian restaurant, for a lunch buffet. And I didn’t like it. On several other occasions, I have had homemade indian food. (In fact, I make a mean lamb curry…) And the homemade stuff was generally pretty good, so I wasn’t going into this dinner with a biased view.

The Big A and I started off with some chicken samosas (deep fried pastries filled with mildly spiced chicken). These were awesome, and next to the naan, were the best things I ate there. The pastry was EXACTLY like the pastry they use to make natchitoches meat pies (New Orleans treat, pronounced : nachadish). The garnish sauce with these little fried pockets of deliciousness was also yummy.

For our main course, we ordered both the nawabi murg kabobs (boneless chicken breast pieces marinated in sour cream, yogurt, ginger, garlic, and spices, grilled in tandoor oven and served in sizzling platter from Delhi) and the chicken tikka masala (marinated boneless chicken breast pieces simmer in a thick, spicy sauce made with onions, tomatoes, ginger, garlic and spices). We asked for medium spice and I found it to be a little more spicy than I could handle without having to take a drink after every bite. However, the flavor was really good. The Big A, who really likes indian food, thought dinner was awesome. (Maybe he should have wrote this review?) I thought the food was delicious and I would go back and try it again (with mild spice…). The naan was awesome. The plain was much better than the naan with roasted garlic. And the saag? I hated it. But I am not a big fan of cooked spinach.

I had a glass of Chenin Blanc from India with our dinner and it was very good. It had a nice tart fruit flavor that help off set the spicy food.

The service at this restaurant was impeccable. Never an empty water glass. Never a dirty plate. The only confusion was when someone other than our waiter brought out our entree and the people sitting next to us (who ordered after us) had ordered the same thing. But he figured out who ordered first and everything was fine.

The interior of the restaurant was beautiful. They had magnificent paper lanterns covering their ceiling. I spent most of dinner contemplating how to make them. The art was rich and colorful. Apparently they have (or had) erotic art, but it must have been behind the curtain that separated the bathrooms and kitchen from the rest of the restaurant.

All in all, I would totally go back and try it again!

The address of the restaurant is:
1888 Solano Ave.
Berkeley, CA 94707
(510) 526-4373

and reservations for the weekends are recommended. To see their menu, click here.

This weekend was Porter’s bachelorette weekend out at the cabin. It was nice to take a weekend and unwind. And it was nice to spend some time with Kitty – the other girl in the wedding. Our original plan was to go kayaking and horseback riding this weekend, but instead we went on a picnic at Hog Island Oyster Co. (pictures to come) and hung out at Salmon Creek beach watching all of the surfers and kite flyers.

We also visited the Cowgirl Creamery, which was DELICIOUS. I ended up buying two cheese, one was a sheep’s milk peppercorn and one was a harder goat cheese. Porter bought some Chevre, which was to die for. I strongly suggest checking out their cheeses if you are a cheese lover. They are phenomenal.

I also got the chance to finish up Harry Potter. Man! It was a bummer. Like such a bummer, you can’t even be sure that there will be a happy ending at the end of the series kind of bummer. I guess that is life though, huh… not always a happy ending.

Two weeks ago, Porter, Sheesha and I went to a restaurant called someone’s something Haufbrau. It is basically like a buffet with prime rib, turkey, chicken and meatloaf. I would classify it as a classic American food. My sister found the giant ham hanging in a warming oven to be the funniest thing ever. What is even funnier is that both Porter and I tried to capture the essence of the ham with my digital camera. Porter did a great job. Mine was just plain scary.