San Francisco is known for its huge Asian community. There's an impressive Chinatown that according to Wikipedia attracts more tourists every year than the Golden Gate Bridge, but to be honest? Even The Hague has a Chinatown, complete with a gate and Chinese street signs and all. No, what's more of a novelty to me is that there's also a Japantown (Nihonmachi) in San Francisco! Our last weekend in SF Japantown celebrated the arrival of the cherry blossom. We already went to the National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, but we didn't want to miss out on Japantown's own festivities!
It was so crowded! But fun, gezellig crowded, not *claustrophobic* crowded. The four of us could actually find a place to sit, so there's that :)
There was live music and a lot of other (Japanese) performances (I have no idea what stick fighting sport they were demonstrating here on this picture, but it was quite interesting to watch!). So much fun! But obviously we just came for the food.
For like 8 bucks you got some delicious chicken popcorn, samosas and stir fried rice!
These are my faaaaavourite snack. Pot stickers!
All washed down with an ice cold Sapporo :)
The whole neighbourhood truly reminded me of Japan, but this cathedral (St Mary's) really brought me back to St Mary's cathedral in Tokyo. I've wanted to go back to Japan ever since we came back from our first trip to Tokyo, so being in Japantown in San Francisco made me so happy.
After the festival we went for a little shopping at Union Square, but in the evening we were still in *Japan mood* and wanted to grab some sushi for dinner. Unfortunately the sushi place we went to was packed! Our house was in Hayes Valley though, so that meant a lot of other great restaurants in the neighbourhood we could just walk to. We ended up at a place called Sauce. No sushi, but in the end we were kinda happy it worked out this way! *all pictures at dinner were taken with my phone, sorry if they're blurry!
None of us felt like having an entree, so we opted for a bunch of 'social plates' instead! Love how they called it social plates and not appetizers!
Crab cakes with cole slaw and tartar sauce. So good we ordered another batch.
I never had deviled eggs because they always seemed sooo unappealing to me, but I'm glad we ordered these!
The slider of the day: fried chicken and onion rings. These were my favourite out of all the dishes!
Sausage cheese bread and tomato sauce. Not bad, but nothing special either. My least favourite out of the bunch.
A little poutine for the table. Poutine always reminds me of something that has already been eaten (...) but it is soooo good. Cheese, fries, gravy - what's not to like? Mmm.
Meatloafballs with whipped potato. Cooked medium rare, just the way I like it.
But then... the pièce de resistance! A platter of dessert samplers! I took pictures as quickly as possible, we were all dying to dig in!
Fresh cinnamon doughnuts with vanilla bourbon sauce and blueberries. Oh. My. Word. I've never had fresh doughnuts before, so they've totally ruined regular doughnuts for me. The sauce was a great addition, not too sweet and just slightly vanilla-y.
There was a couple sitting at a table next to us, and the man was a little tipsy. When they left, he asked if he didn't cause too much noise. He didn't, although he did linger at our table a little too long, while the girlfriend obviosuly wanted to leave ;) He asked us if we also had such a great meal and then he remembered seeing the waitress bringing doughnuts to our table. 'How were they? We didn't get them!' We immediately got excited and said they were soooo good. The man was then super disappointed and was like 'Ahhh i knew it, see!!!!! I knew we should've gotten the doughnuts!' *sad face*
Yes. If you're ever at Sauce. Get the doughnuts. If you don't get anything else, make sure to at least get the doughnuts.
There was a couple sitting at a table next to us, and the man was a little tipsy. When they left, he asked if he didn't cause too much noise. He didn't, although he did linger at our table a little too long, while the girlfriend obviosuly wanted to leave ;) He asked us if we also had such a great meal and then he remembered seeing the waitress bringing doughnuts to our table. 'How were they? We didn't get them!' We immediately got excited and said they were soooo good. The man was then super disappointed and was like 'Ahhh i knew it, see!!!!! I knew we should've gotten the doughnuts!' *sad face*
Yes. If you're ever at Sauce. Get the doughnuts. If you don't get anything else, make sure to at least get the doughnuts.
Pistachio ice cream and caramel. Not really my favourite flavour of ice cream, but everyone at the table really enjoyed this. The caramel was lovely, I scraped every last bit out of the bowl :P
This was a huge let down, because we only got TWO of the mini smores while there were four of us! They were these perfect little graham cracker cups, filled with chocolate and homemade marshmallows. Honestly Sauce. Just two? :P Oh, and there were also strawberries and cream (always good). The strawberries were huge, but so sweet and not water-y.
You can find Sauce here! They also serve a mean cocktail and you can even stay the night if you happen to get drunk/a food coma. Our house was only a short walk away from here, so we could just pass out at home :')
You can find Sauce here! They also serve a mean cocktail and you can even stay the night if you happen to get drunk/a food coma. Our house was only a short walk away from here, so we could just pass out at home :')