Sand and Surf? Actually Bay City Rollers
What is a family to do when the temperature in your city is predicted to hit 105 degrees? Of course, “YOU GET OUT OF THERE!” And we so packed up the car and we went to Beverly… Hills that is…. Not really… We actually headed to Half Moon Bay on the coast where the temperature was set to hit about 78 degrees. Beautiful! We cruised over the San Mateo Bridge, where we stopped in Foster City to stock up on provisions before hitting the sand and surf. As we walked toward the Safeway store that just so happens to be in front of the VISA’s Metro Center headquarters building , our attention and footsteps were diverted to the smells emanating from a Dim Sum Chinese restaurant called ABC Seafood Restaurant.
Dim sum is the name for a Chinese cuisine which involves a wide range of light dishes served alongside Chinese tea. Dishes may include meat, seafood, and vegetables, as well as desserts and fruit. The items are usually served in a small steamer basket or on a small plate. The Cantonese phrase dim sum (點心) means literally “touch the heart” or “order to your heart’s content”. And that is exactly what we did. Asian lady servers pushed wonderful carts of food around our table and the plates started stacking up.
As a sampling, here are some dishes we were treated to:
Gow (餃, Dumpling; 餃子 gau zi, Gow gee; or 饺子 jiǎozi, Jiaozi): Gow is a standard in most teahouses. They are made of ingredients wrapped in a translucent rice flour or wheat starch skin, and are different from jiaozi found in other parts of China. Though common, steamed rice-flour skins are quite difficult to make.
Potsticker (simplified Chinese: 锅贴; traditional Chinese: 鍋貼; pinyin: guōtiē; literally “pot stick”) Northern Chinese style of dumpling (steamed and then pan-fried jiaozi), usually with meat and cabbage filling. Note that although potstickers are sometimes served in dim sum restaurants, they are not considered traditional Cantonese dim sum.
Char siu baau (叉燒包, char siu baau, 叉焼包, chāshāobāo): the most popular bun with a Cantonese barbecued pork filling. It can be either steamed to be fluffy and white or baked with a light sugar glaze to produce a smooth golden-brown crust.
Spare ribs: In the west, it is mostly known as spare ribs collectively. In the east, it is Char siu when roasted red, or (排骨 paai4 gwat1, páigǔ) when roasted black.
Now that we were “provisioned”, we took a short tour of Foster City where I had lived during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. The Loma Prieta earthquake, also known as the Quake of ‘89 and the World Series Quake, was a major earthquake that struck the San Francisco Bay Area of California on October 17, 1989 at 5:04 p.m. Caused by a slip along the San Andreas Fault, the earthquake lasted approximately 15 seconds and measured 6.9 on the moment magnitude scale (surface-wave magnitude 7.1).
Foster city is a planned community situated with awesome views of the San Francisco Bay and surrounded by lagoons and waterways where boats tool around marine style homes, condos and apartments. It is basically an island with a Cape Cod ambiance. We walked along the main lagoon toward my old apartment and admired the skills of windsurfers skimming along on the water. Our tour being over, we jumped back on highway 92 and headed west toward our final destination.
Unfortunately we hit a major snag in the form of a major traffic jam on the small two lane highway to Half Moon Bay. This would mean at least an hour of slow bumper to bumper traffic. Being a successful traveler requires that one remains flexible to changing your plans and to adjust to where the wind takes you. I immediately pulled a U-turn and we proceeded North to San Francisco itself!
We encountered fog on highway 280 when driving thru Daly City. There is a joke told by Filipinos that the reason Daly City has fog is because all of the citizens (mostly Filipinos) all turn on their rice cookers at the same time. It was smooth sailing into the city by the bay and we worked our way to the Embarcadero which is along the bay side with mild sunshine and a cool 78 degrees.
We parked and walked into Pier 39 to poke around and shop. The pier is a shopping center and popular tourist attraction built on a pier in San Francisco, California. At Pier 39, there are shops, restaurants, a video arcade, street performances, an interpretive center for the Marine Mammal Center, the Aquarium of the Bay, virtual 3D rides, and views of California sea lions hauled out on docks on Pier 39’s marina. From the pier could see Angel Island, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the Bay Bridge. Blue & Gold Fleet’s Bay cruises leaving from Pier 39 to various places around the huge bay. The fog we saw earlier caught up with us and started coming in thru the Golden Gate and flood the bay past Alcatraz while we shopped.
Hours later we were hungry again and decided on one of the restaurants called Swiss Louis mainly because we felt like Italian food with a bay view of the Sea Lions. Besides, the aroma of Italian cooking always draws me in.
We had a wonderful waiter by the name of Scott who hit it off with the kids and poked fun at our youngest who was a great sport about the whole thing. It was obvious that both knew how to kid the other and he was happy to strike a pose to memorialize the new friendship. We will definitely be coming back to say hello again and again.
We strolled some more around the Pier, took many pictures of performers, Sea Lions, and Bay traffic of Cruise Liners, Container Ships and many others. Somehow we even ended up on a few of these pictures. Imagine that!
As the day drew to a close, the sea chill made itself known and we decided to turn our way back home. It is really amazing the adventures you can have when you have flexibility of a butterfly and allow the wind to take you where ever it blows. Our goal was to beat the heat and that is exactly what happened. It all happened according to plan… God’s plan that is.
Tags: Bay City Rollers, Dim Sum, Foster City, San Francisco
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