Meals Across America: What Begat Steak Tips with Peppered Mushroom Sauce

As Kate from Mi Piace Kate Design has told you, G and I went down to San Francisco to visit the rest of the Meals Across America team and to celebrate the new year. As hoped, we had a fabulous time and the most common word we have used to describe the experience was "indulgent."

The most indulgent day of the trip was our final day in town when we toured about in the Mission district with our other two Seattle friends and The Intern. Unfortunately Mi Piace Kate had some projects going on at home, so she could not join us. On that day we stopped and ate. Five. Different. Times. Here's a quick rundown:

Breakfast goodies at Tartine. We had the open-faced Croque Monsieur -- which has delicious although difficult to eat with a knife and fork while standing. For dessert (don't judge us having breakfast dessert... in our defense we didn't eat breakfast until after 12pm) we had bread pudding with seasonal fruit. 'Tis the season for cranberries and this bread pudding was amazing and G commented how she loved how eggy it was. After this meal, I was full for the rest of the day.

However, after some shopping we stopped at Farina. We had decided that it was high time for a Bloody Mary. Luckily, this place fit the bill perfectly and we rounded out those Marys with the complimentary focaccia bread (thinner than most, crispy, and delicious) and some fresh fried calimari. We also took some time to remember a fallen comrade. He fell into a great job in NYC and thus no longer hangs out with us. We decided to send him a postcard and we all took some time to write part of the message. Then... shopping!

In no time at all, we ended up at Regalito Rosticeria where most of us enjoyed a bright pitcher of sangria. One odd duck chose to have a beer. I guess he wasn't quite as full as the rest of us. This might have changed after we ordered chips w/ guacamole, taquitos, and some pollo con mole to share. Wow... again, lovely fresh flavors and it was amazing how quickly the food disappeared from the table.

With full bellies, we had decided to walk it off... so we went shopping again! To our surprise, this caused us to want to take another break. So, we stopped and looked at the Foreign Cinema. What a gorgeous setting to watch dinner and take in a movie! We were strong though, and resisted eating or drinking anything here. Mainly because we ended up stopping at the bar that was attached to it called Laszlo for beers and cocktails. No food! And Mi Piace Kate joined us and gave us an injection of fresh energy.

So, we trotted back outside and headed for dinner. Our plan was to go to Dosa for some Indian food that the Intern gauranteed us would be delicious. Unfortunately it was going to be at least an hour before we could get a table. Undaunted, we put in our names and headed outside again to waste some time. "Hey!" we exclaimed, "We can go get some drinks and appetizers!" This brilliant idea brought us to The Corner. We were ushered to a cozy table in the upstairs loft where we had a bottle of rosé (some of us had a champagne cocktail instead) and shared a cauliflower appetizer and a cheese plate. Twenty minutes into our enjoyment, the phone rings and our table is ready... already! So, the boys ran out the door and back to Dosa to ensure that they would not give our table away. I'm sure the girls sat around, giggled, and other such girly nonsense. Oh, and hopefully they paid the bill.

At Dosa we could not resist the signature dish... a dosa. These are like giant crepes filled with vegetables of various sorts and tons of spices. They are served with a couple of different sauce options for dipping. I think we ordered four different stuffed dosas... and seriously, we waited longer for the food than it took to eat it. This is not a slam of Dosa at all, but rather an illustration of how quickly the food went. Seriously, four giant dosas and a prawn dish were devoured in five minutes. Tops. We had sauce left over, so we ordered another plain dosa so that we could continue dipping. We still had some of the lentil sauce (soup) left over, so The Intern sucked it up and well, sucked up all that soup. I think he ate four bowls.

Then we went to... home. Happy. Engorged. Indulged.

Where's the post about Steak Tips with Peppered Mushroom Sauce? Well, the whole point with starting with a description of our trip was to show you why all of our meals since then have come from Cooking Light. Steak with mushroom sauce doesn't sound like cooking light to me... and it certainly didn't taste like it! But, I'll save that for the next post.

To round it out, here are some other photos from the day: