Five Pounds in Five Days

Kuya, Liz, Aidan & I drove to San Francisco from LA (a 7-hour drive non-stop) for the long weekend of the July 4th holiday. Our plan was, leave Friday early morning, visit some relatives and friends, then start the drive back home Tuesday whenever we woke up. We ended up following that schedule. We also ended up gaining tons of weight in the process. When we arrived Friday, we visited Tito Alex (Mama's brother) and Tita Thelma. They prepared enough food for a Filipino fiesta for each meal we had at their house.

Saturday morning, we drove off to Ferdie, Kuya's high school classmate. He brought us around Pier 39 (which was PACKED with tourists); then we had the usual photo-op at the Golden Gate Bridge; then he brought us to look at the redwood trees at Muir Woods, which is a National Monument. The highlight of the day for me, however, was dinner, which we had at Patio Filipino. EVERYTHING we ate there was good- the Crispy Tilapia, Bangus Sisig, Coco Loco Shrimp (something like Ginataang Hipon), super garlicky rice, and the desserts! There was some variant of halo-halo in buko, ice cream on a sylvana with mango balls in syrup, etc, etc. I think I personally ate enough for five normal people that night.


Sunday, we were off to visit Ate Agnes in Daly City. She brought us to Gerry's Grill for dinner. Gerry's just opened in the Bay Area a few months ago, and is set to open in the LA area in August, which has Kuya and Liz excited. We ordered the dishes we usually did back home, and though they were a bit Americanized to appeal to a larger market, we still enjoyed them. Again, I polished off a meal that would have been enough for the average Filipino family of six. Our gluttony seemed endless that evening, because we immediately hied off to Ghirardelli, where we did not content ourselves with a mere scoop of ice cream. Each of us had an ice cream concoction with at least three scoops of ice cream. At this point I had to unbutton my pants since my stomach was very much overextended.

The next day, we had another big dinner at Tribu, yet another newly-opened Filipino restaurant, where we had another meal that we really shouldn't have. I won't give you the gory details, but I do have to mention the bagoong rice, which was topped with scrambled eggs, tomatoes, mangoes, and some pork (which I removed). It was sooo good, I intend to replicate this (sans pork) when I get back to the Philippines since it's easy to prepare.

So, we said our goodbyes to beautiful San Francisco, and drove back to Southern California the next day, which was the 4th of July. We saw some fireworks on the way home, because we ended up arriving home around midnight. People have been asking me what I did for the 4th of July weekend. I tell them I went to the Bay Area, not for sightseeing, but for weightgaining.