Always worth a (photo) journey…

J and I spontaneously decided to spend a night in San Francisco as a belated birthday celebration and we searched for a last-minute hotel deal on Saturday morning. Little did we know that we would hit the jackpot, because we found a ridiculous deal for a one-night stay at the world-famous Fairmont!
My fingers couldn’t hit the “book” button fast enough!!

We arrived in the city in the late afternoon and checked into the hotel. It’s beautiful from the inside and we had a fantastic view from our hotel window.

I realized once more that SF is such a photogenic place.
As I am trying to get more “photo-time” in, I was pleased to find out that I’ve indeed started “working” with my camera a lot more. I took some decent pictures this time around. My favorite:

We headed out to dinner a little later and had Italian food at “Ti piacerá¡”  in Nob Hill.
Fantastic bruschetta, fettuccine Alfredo with prawns and spinach salad!
The only thing I am really missing on the menus of the Italian restaurants over here in the US is tomato soup. A really good, chunky and creamy tomato soup made from scratch. You just can’t get it anywhere (as you can’t tuna pizza, but that’s a whole different story)!

Sunday morning we enjoyed the nice hotel room for as long as possible. We checked out right before noon and decided to take a walk through Nob Hill and North Beach before heading back home.

The weather was beautiful and we stopped in North Beach for a late breakfast at Caffé DeLucchi, a sweet little street café with outside tables! Even though it was a busy Sunday in North Beach – which in fact might be the case every day of the week, come to think of it – we got a table right away.
I ordered a big cafe latte and a veggie omelet. J had Southern style biscuits and gravy. I really thought the food was great.

What sucked though was that our waiter was a completely incompetent jerk. Don’t get me wrong, I know that waiting table is a tough job (I’ve had some experience in this department) and I am usually not a complainer at a restaurant and very patient, especially when it’s busy.
However, I do believe that you need some organizational skills if you want to do a somewhat decent job as a waiter.
Well, let me tell you, this guy had ZERO organization.

I ordered my latte and there was no extra cream or sugar on the table. Something I would make sure is there before I even seat someone. He didn’t bother asking if I needed any.

Then he brought the food. It looked delicious (unfortunately I didn’t take a photo to prove it) and I started picking at the home-style potatoes, waiting for the waiter to come back with my toast and some ketchup/Tabasco.
He didn’t come. Neither did the toast or the ketchup.

I had also ordered some more hot milk (despite it being a latte, my beverage was WAY too strong for my taste. Remember my pickiness about coffee?) which of course he forgot as well.
I also noticed that we were not the only customers with missing condiments and toast, but that the couple next to us was also eating their breakfast without the aforementioned items.
By the time I got up to go inside and complain at the counter, because the waiter didn’t even come close enough to call him to our table, J was already finished with his breakfast and my omelet was almost cold. Terrific.

I could have managed to ignore some of his incompetence if he had apologized for the inconvenience and offered to heat up my meal or something. But he didn’t. He didn’t say anything at all.

Needless to say, we tipped him a lot less than usual (and J and I generally consider ourselves very generous tippers).

Regardless of the long and elaborate breakfast story, we had a fantastic time. San Francisco is always worth a trip, no matter how horrible the service at a restaurant might be ;)