After the Maharani Indian fiasco earlier this week, I've been craving Mehfil Indian. I went to Mehfil (600 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 974-5510‎) and got three of their lunch specials (intended for my lunch and our dinner). Mehfil describes the dishes best on their website. (I apologize for the pictures - I forgot to take them until I had eaten some of each dish.)

Coorgi Tarkari - (Fresh vegetables cooked with red onions, coconut, garlic, and cumin’s) "In this dish a masala is prepared by grinding fresh turmeric roots, garlic, red onions, cumin, mustard and coriander seeds, green chilies, red chilies, and fresh coconut. This masala paste is tempered with curry leaves and finally the vegetables like blue lake beans, potatoes, eggplants, mushrooms, and carrots are sautéed and cooked." $5.00

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What I Ate: February 19, 2009 (Mehfil Indian)

Compared to yesterday (which had a large variety of different foods), today's meals were nothing special.

Lunch was reheated cottage pie - still good.

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What I Ate: February 18, 2009

Handheld, 1/60 sec at f/2.8 on ISO 200, 17-35mm f/2.8 lens

I received a delivery of mini-doughnuts from Dee's Mini Organic Doughnuts. The doughnuts came nicely packed with multiple boxes tied by a ribbon with a handwritten note from Dee's. Each box contained tissue paper with a handwritten legend showing which doughnuts were which type.

The doughnuts were a little denser than I expected - like a (tiny) heavy luxurious cake. Each of the doughnuts seem to be exactly the same except for the frostings - which were all quite good. The maple glaze was incredible. (All the ingredients are organic and almost all of them were also locally sourced.)

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What I Ate: February 17, 2009 (Dee's Mini Organic Doughnuts, South Beach Cafe, Trader Joe's Organic Joe's O's, NuLait Yogurt)

This was a long exposure on a tripod shooting down a staircase where about ten to fifteen people were climbing up and down. The fifteen second exposure was long enough for most of the people to disappear (since they don't block the light for an appreciable amount of the 15 seconds). There were a few people who didn't move during that time, so they remained visible in the photo. If I recall properly, I was standing at the top of the stairs on Man St. looking down at the intersection of Shotover St., Duke St., and Rees St. in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Tripod, 15 sec at f/22 on ISO 100, 17-35mm f/2.8 lens

Today was President's Day, so Tina and I had the day off. We treated it like a lazy day - woke up late, cooked a little breakfast for lunch… I cooked a couple of hash browns and ho boa dan ("purse eggs" which are fried eggs that have been folded over - easier to get perfect than eggs over easy and requiring less oil).

When dinner-time rolled around, I felt like making a cottage pie (or sorts - planned to use ground beef in a thick gravy with a layer of sweet corn kernels and a topping of mashed potatoes). I went and purchased my supplies (as well as several pomelo - I can't get enough pomelo, I love this fruit) but by the time I finished, I was really hungry so I swung into KFC on my way home and grabbed a three piece meal with potato wedges and cole slaw. (I made the cottage pie while eating my KFC dinner - you'll see the cottage pie in a future meal…)

Today's dinner was one of those examples where I dined there so you wouldn't have to. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. For lunch, I took Tina up to Crossroads Cafe (699 Delancey St, San Francisco, CA‎ - (415) 836-5624‎) where I often have lunch. She had never been there before so I spent a little time telling her about the Delancey Street Foundation that runs the place (and also about Delancey Street Moving School where the founders of Moovers and many of their movers graduated from - which is probably the moving company we're going to choose for our move to Austin). We had a BLT with Avocado and a Focaccia Pizza.

The BLT was excellent (as usual) with thick tasty bacon slices (not thin and crisy, but slightly soft and chewy), whole leaves of butterleaf lettuce, just enough mayonnaise so nothing tasted dry, and creamy avocado.

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What I Ate: February 15, 2009 (Crossroads Cafe, Maharani Restaurant)

Here's another photo I took while hanging out at Camalie Vineyards in Napa. It was from 2005 - that year, Tina went to China and I was left alone to fill the time. We had only gotten married the year before, so I didn't really know what to do with myself, so I drove up to Camalie to help with the harvest and crush (didn't really help that much - I never really do… just show up and wander around; relaxing for me, not much help to Mark). Going to Mark's vineyard is going to be one of those things I'll miss when I move to Austin.

1/90 sec at f/5.6 on ISO 200, 24-120mm f/3.5-5.6 lens

We slept in today (Valentine's Day), and had a lazy start to the day. Around 4pm, we ended up at Nordstrom's Cafe Bistro (2400 Forest Avenue, San Jose, CA‎ - (408) 248-2180‎) at Valley Fair. I wanted to try this place since I've never eaten in a department store and had read good reviews for their pizza and sandwiches. We were both excited to try something new.

The format was interesting, you just walk in and stand in line at the cashier while looking at paper menus (like brochures). Once at the cashier, you tell them what you want, they charge you, and you wander around the nicely appointed dining area to decide on a seat and/or waiter. After sitting down, you put down the bill holder that the cashier handed you (which is odd since I'm used to seeing the bill holder/presenter only at the end of a meal) and your waiter comes by and picks up the bill in its holder.

Our waitress was polite, super-friendly, and enthusiastic (seemed like she genuinely enjoyed being there). She verified the drinks we had ordered and brought them to us quickly. We had ordered a few items to try out starting with a Ratatouille Pizza with Chicken. I had hoped for a thin-crust pizza with a crispy crust (like that from South Beach Cafe), but it was not to be. It was the next best thing however. The crust was thin, the dough slightly salty and a little chewy, the bottom was soft but not limp and oily (like the other thin crust pizzas we've had in the South Bay). Decent and tasty.

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What I Ate: February 14, 2009 (Nordstrom's Cafe Bistro)

I had a couple more moving companies come through and provide estimates, so I had to quickly wolf down some leftovers from Acapulco for lunch.

I also had an Orange Julius while at the mall picking up Valentine's Day cards for Tina (shhh, don't tell her, she hasn't gotten them yet).

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What I Ate: February 13, 2009