We had the best intentions of getting up Saturday morning to watch the Minnesota (us) – Michigan (Steve and Colleen) football game, but since it was at 9am and the only bars we knew would have it were far away, they decided to sleep in instead. I was up early, so I ‘watched’ it on my phone. Not that I really cared, because I knew exactly how it would end up. Our football team is godawful.
We met them at their hotel a bit later and rode the BART to the Mission for lunch at Pancho Villa. I was thrilled to find a tofu ranchero burrito on the menu. After a ton of food and a beer, we were ready to go be tourists. We rode back to where we’d come from, and walked to SFMOMA.
We only had 2 1/2 hours there, but we figured we’d see what we could. Our first stop was the rooftop patio, because it was gorgeous outside. It was kind of hard to leave there, actually.
We managed to see a pretty decent amount of the museum, including a really good Jasper Johns exhibition. We had a bit of time to hit up the gift shop for some souvenirs, and then decided it was time for beer. Luckily, there was a little brewpub called ThirstyBear right around the corner!
After a couple beers, we headed back to our respective hotels to change. Colleen and Steve came to meet us at our room, and we went to grab the town car they’d called using Uber. It was the first we’d heard of it, and the idea was indeed pretty awesome. Our driver took us over to the Japantown area, and dropped us off near State Bird Provisions.
We waited for a short time for our reservations, and got a table in back. We ordered beers, and our server explained how it worked: they had dim-sum-style carts going around the restaurant, and you could also order a few items off the menu, if you wished. We decided to wait for the carts.
The food was really impressive, but the carts were very low on the vegetarian offerings. We ended up ordering a couple things off the menu so I could have more dinner. All in all, though, it was great, and insanely popular. The line got a lot longer as we ate, and it was already late in the evening.
We walked over to Japantown mall in search of a beverage at a store that was just closing as we arrived. We decided to go check out a bar we’d seen on the way to the restaurant instead. When we got there we found a bouncer and a certain degree of fanciness involved, so we nixed that idea and went into a nearby pizza place for beers instead. We hung out there for a while watching sports, and then decided it was time to take them to the GREATEST BAR ON EARTH.
Colleen ordered another town car, and we had to chase him up the block because he had the location wrong. We got in and the whole car smelled like the driver’s really intense cologne. I said something about wanting water, so he told me to take a bottle from the back deck. I was happy to have it, but even the plastic was permeated with that smell. Amazing.
He dropped us at Red’s Place, where we got to introduce them to the joys of Chinese whiskey and the awesome jukebox.
Steve played a pretty amazing playlist, to the delight of some of the other customers. (It included “Call Me Maybe” and “Hey Jealousy”.) We decided it was finally time to leave when “Come Sail Away” came on, so we walked down the street in Chinatown singing it. (To the delight of some passers-by.) We were maybe a bit raucous, but then Chinatown was totally deserted. Nobody seemed to mind too much.