My family and I always take the long drive up north to the Bay Area at least once a year to escape the heat here in SoCal and visit one of my cousins. Its a good thing we went up there this weekend, because I was hearing that temperatures reached well over 105 degrees, while temperatures in the Bay Area was in the upper 60's. Nice.
Anyway, every year we always head to the same attraction. Pier 39. For the clam chowder and Trisha's mini donuts, which my brother cannot live without while in San Francisco. Don't get me wrong. I love clam chowder and mini donuts as much as the next gal. But I wanted to do something different this time. I wanted to make this more of a foodie trip. So I did some research and found out about The Ferry Building Marketplace.
The Ferry Building serves as a terminal for ferries that travel across the San Francisco Bay.
It also has a marketplace inside its corridors, which I was really excited about. The marketplace houses numerous specialty food shops and outside of the marketplace is a farmer's market every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. However, I'm not here for the farmer's market, but what's inside the marketplace.
We entered the marketplace at the center of the corridor and the first thing we encountered was Miette. And you know me and my sweet tooth.
I took home some of these goody French Macarons, along with some homemade marshmallows and meringue cookies that my daughter requested.
The one thing I was most excited about was Chris Cosantino's Boccalone.
They're known for their dried and cured meats like salami.
I wanted to try out a sandwich and so we ordered their Muffaleta, which had a few cuts of cured meat and olive tapenade all wrapped in a french baguette. It was delicious.
As we proceeded further into the corridor, we came across a side vendor selling the Italian donuts called Bomboloni. There were plain bombolonis, and there were bombolonis filled with different flavored custards such as vanilla, peach, chocolate, and pistachio. My favorite was the plain vanilla custard. The dough had a hint of orange.
There were other specialty shops for cheese, wine, olive oil, organic beef in the marketplace. And then I came across a mushroom stand, where you can purchase this mushroom tree to grow at home.
I wish we had more time to explore the Ferry Building. We only allotted a couple of hours for this stop because we still had to make time for Pier 39 and Trisha's mini donuts. However after Pier 39, we decided to do a quick stop at Haight & Ashbury. The corner of Haight and Ashbury and its surrounding neighborhood is noted for its role as the center of the 1960's hippie movement and the Summer of Love of 1967.
Its not really a foodie stop, but hubby and I wanted to roam the streets where the likes of Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, and Jimi Hendrix once lived.
We even found the house where the Grateful Dead once lived.
We also came across some performing hippies, which you'll see a lot of around the neighborhood. Performers trying to make a living, hoping to get discovered by some record executive.
I would say that this particular trip to the Bay area was quite interesting. It was more full of history and food rather than a trip to a lot of the tourist traps. I wish we spent more time in these areas but we only had a day to explore the wonders of San Francisco. Until next year, San Francisco.
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