whoo hoo!

Thanks everyone for going to INDIGO. it was fun, a lot more intimate and mellow than the previous outing.

I'm think that maybe for JUNE we should go to some place on the cheap and down home. I've been eating a heck of a lot of fancy meals, and I'm thinking maybe something a little less rich - as in rich moneywise, and rich foodwise would be swell.

Any thoughts on this idea?

In the meanwhile, take a look at these lovely photos of HIGH SPRING DAY. Hope you guys had as much fun as AJ and I did... or more so...
















A lovely photo of people with the food spread.





















the entertainment, a bluegrass band called THE TANGLERS.





















AJ and Peter hanging out (photo courtesy of ANNIE)





















Irvin pigging out on grilled meat (photo again, courtesy of ANNIE)


























Karen and Melissa staying high and dry while others went swimming in the lake.


























and the others out swimming in the lake (AJ, Peter and ANNIE are those little heads you can barely see).

CHANGE OF VENUE

Okay I originally wrote a huge email to send to everyone - but no one reads my emails, so I'm posting on here instead. I've made an executive decision to change the venue because I think 9:30pm is too late for everyone (see the post below about the 9:30pm reservation at MYTH).

Especially since some people are driving up from Menlo Park.

So I've gone ahead and made 8pm reservations at a restaurant called INDIGO. It is in HAYES VALLEY and looks lovely. It also has a fab 3 course prix fixe deal where you get to choose appetizer, entree (excluding specials) and dessert as well as unlimited wine from a select list (visit their site and click on SPECIALS and scroll down for the wine list they are pouring from). All for a lovely $49.

Plus (as an added bonus) the general manager went to college at INDIANA UNIVERSITY - BLOOMINGTON (go hoosiers!).

If INDIGO is not acceptable as a substition, I've also listed a few other options for us to choose from. email or post and let me know if you aren't happy with INDIGO. I still have time to change it...

And my apologizes for not being able to get MYTH or QUINCE.... Quince may not be possible with such a large party (the largest party they seat in their dining room is 6. and they refuse to slit the party up into two tables). MYTH is still possible but I'd have to make it much more in advance to get a reasonable hour.

If people are hardcore about going to MYTH though, let me know and I can keep the 9:30pm reservation and cancel the INDIGO reservation. If not, I'll see about getting MYTH for another month...at a more reasonable time.

---
Other restaurant options:

7:30pm ILUNA BASQUE - Delightful and festive Basque cuisine, tapas. Over in North Beach.

7:45pm LULU - SOMA Provencal French restaurant. It's actually quite nice and rather large. They have great pizzas and a nightly rotisserie special (which on a Thursday would be squab).

8pm OCTAVIA LOUNGE located near the GAY and LESBIAN center on market, they have a "Jazz with the masters" open mic/jam session going on. The food seems pretty eclectic california.

8pm FRINGALE - an excellent south of market french/basque bistro. Vegetarian option is a crispy polenta with spinach, piperade and frisee.

8pm LE PETIT ROBERT - another French restaurant on Russian Hill restaurant. Vegetarian option is an artichoke mushroom cheese lasagna.

8pm LE CHARM - another SOMA French Bistro. They have a prix fixe along with ala carte options. Vegetarian options is a gnocchi with wild mushrooms.

8:30pm LUELLA - ex ANDALU alum opened this lovely california/mediterranean inspired Russian Hill Restaurant.

see ya next week!

MYTH

Well Quince wouldn't let me split the party in two. And they didn't have a room for us anyway. So we have the chef's table at 9:30pm at MYTH.

I know 9:30 is late. But alas, I couldn't get anything else. Let me know if this is a problem and you need to be taken off the list. I have 72 hours to cancel. I can also see about finding another place.

Here's the list:

Annie +1
Jenny (ANNIE and EMMIEAMY's sister)
AJ
Irvin
Melissa
Peter
Grant
Sundiep
Vivek

so a total of 10.

Cheers!

MYTH or QUINCE?

So here's the skinny. I need a head count for the MAY restaurant. People have mentioned both MYTH and QUINCE to me, so I'm going to go with one of those.

Here's the catch. The largest group that QUINCE can accommodate is 10 people at the special chef's table (inside the kitchen - a very trendy sort of thing, to have a kitchen table that you can eat at, at least it use to be about five or six years ago). The one caveat to it is that it's expensive, with a MINIMUM price of $800 combined drinks and dinner for the 10 people.

So the price might be kind of a limit for some. The other option is we can see if we can book three or four smaller tables of 4 to 6 people. or if we make it a LARGE party, we can try to book the entire restaraunt. how fun would that be? but of course it might be expensive....

MYTH looks like it will accommodate any size group so maybe that is a better choice. I haven't had a chance to contact them, so I am not sure but from their website it looks pretty large. I dunno. Either way though, let me know and I'll make the reservations. Cheers!

PS. Also let me know about HIGH SPRING DAY.... it's this SUNDAY!!!!!