this is the personal blog of brandon quintana.
Vino100 Wine Club
June 12th, 2009
Over the past few months, I’ve been participating in the Vino100 Wine Club. I’ve always been interested in wine, but up until now, never really took the opportunity to get into it as much as I would like.
The club is $35/month which gives you a tasting of four wines once a month and two bottles from the four wines tasted. The club also offers 5% off all purchases and a 50% discount on wine events at the store. The two bottles of wine are a value of over $35 which makes the club a good value.
The store offers a good selection of wines from all over the world and the people there are very friendly and informative. I’m still learning a lot about wine and I feel like I’ll learn more as I try the different types of wine. The biggest thing I’ve learned so far is that you have to find what you like as opposed to what someone else likes. You may like something that no one likes and vice versa.
I really like all types of wine so I’m keeping an open mind about all the different wines I try. If anyone has some good recommendations for wine I should try, please let me know.
SF Restaurants: Eats, NakedFish, Burma Superstar Restaurant, Sushi Bistro, Nizario’s Pizza, Five Happiness
March 23rd, 2009
It’s been about two weeks since I’ve been living in SF. I’ve decided I’m going to try to eat at a different restaurant for each meal I have out there. I figured I’m only there a few days a week and I don’t see myself going grocery shopping and cooking meals. I’m mostly living out of a suitcase so it makes more sense to eat out. There’s a variety of different restaurants within walking distance to where I’m staying and have received some good recommendations so far.
Eats (50 Clement St)
Eats is a small breakfast place on Clement St. I had a bacon and cheddar omelette that was pretty tasty. I’ve had bad breakfast before, but for the most part it’s hard to ruin bacon and eggs. I don’t eat breakfast too much. I get caught up in my work and by the time I go eat, it’s already time for lunch. Eats was good though and I’d probably go back.
NakedFish (2084 Chestnut Street) – Website
We found ourselves in North Beach for St Patrick’s Day weekend and decided to have sushi at NakedFish. The restaurant has a sushi bar in front and a small seating area in the back. I started with the Tuna Tataki Salad which was pretty good. The tuna was fresh and flavorful and made for a good starter. I also had one of the house special rolls, but forgot the name of it. The fish was fresh and that’s all you can really ask for when eating at a sushi restaurant.
Burma Superstar Restaurant (309 Clement St) - Website
The following week, a friend recommended I try Burma Superstar. She had heard good things about it, so I headed over there for lunch. The place was packed with people waiting outside, but the wait was pretty short. I heard people talking to each other saying how great the place was and what their favorite dishes were. This got my hopes up and it didn’t disappoint. I had a Burma Cooler at lunch which was just a beer with lemon and ginger. I ordered the Burmese Style Chicken Salad and it was probably one of the best chicken salads I’ve ever had. The chicken was crispy and the dressing over the lettuce was very tasty. I probably should have ordered something else though because I left feeling hungry still. It was a good experience though and a place I would recommend to others.
Sushi Bistro (431 Balboa St) – Website
I was told that there was a sushi restaurant that only opens when the owner feels like it. He puts a flag or a sheet up on the window and then you know he will be open for the night. I think you need to get on a guest list or something like that because the house fills up fast. It’s supposedly the best sushi in the area. I walked by and saw people in line and a sign on the door saying to come back at 9:00 – 9:30PM. It’s too much work and I just want to eat. I decided I wasn’t going to get in there that night, but I’m going to try to find my way in there someday. Down the block this brought me to Sushi Bistro.
The restaurant is very hip from the crowd to the music and everything around it. I guess that’s what you get when the restaurant is featured in an iPhone commercial. It was just too busy for my tastes. I don’t really like the feeling where I’m eating in a dance club. There were too many people around me and people bumping my table and I was getting claustrophobic in there. The food didn’t disappoint though. I ordered the Ahi Tuna Poke special of course, which is a bed of baby greens with ahi tuna on top. The dressing was very flavorful and the tuna was very fresh. The avocado and crispy noodles were a nice touch and it made for a great salad. The waitress said the dish was one of their most popular items and it was definitely one of the better ahi tuna salads I’ve had. I also had the Y.T. Jalepeno which was also good.
Nizario’s Pizza (3840 Geary Blvd) – Website
Lately I’ve found myself eating pizza by the slice late night. This brought me to Nizario’s Pizza late Friday night. Pizza always seems better late at night. I picked up a couple of slices and ate them back at the apartment. The pizza was good, but not the best I’ve had. It was good for a late night eat, but there’s a lot of pizza places around there and I’ll have to try some of the others to find the best.
Five Happiness (4142 Geary Blvd)
I had a craving for Italian food so I ended up eating Chinese food. It was more of a matter of being really hungry and seeing a restaurant and eating there. The Five Happiness restaurant is a pretty typical chinese restaurant. I started off with the Hot and Sour soup which was pretty good. Most have pork, but this one didn’t and I want to say it could be vegetarian, but not sure. I had the salt and pepper chicken wings and shrimp chow fun gravy style. Both dishes were tasty and the restaurant was very reasonably priced.
I found some pretty good restaurants over the last couple of weeks, but out of this list if I had to pick a place to recommend it would be Burma Superstar hands down. When people recommend it and you leave a place feeling good about what just happened, it’s a good thing to remember. I had that feeling eating there and that’s why I’m recommending it. The other places were good as well and I think everyone should try them also. There wasn’t a bad place in this list at all. I’ll be back out there in a few days looking for more places to eat. Until then it’s back to work like always.
California Acadamy of Sciences at Night
February 22nd, 2009
I got a chance to go to the California Academy of Sciences this past Thursday night. I had been there before during the day on a weekend and there were tons of families, mothers hitting you with their strollers, and lots of little kids running around screaming. The same kind of scene you would expect from a kids birthday party. The night time experience was a whole lot different.
It was sponsored by Facebook and more catered to the young adult crowd. You had to be over the age of 21 because they were serving alcohol. That eliminated all the kids. All the tours are open during the day which weren’t open at night so if you are looking to get the full experience of the museum you should plan to go during the day. They had a DJ there and some people dancing. It was a pretty cool alternative to the standard bar/club scene, but it did close at 10pm. We were there for a few hours and it was just a nice change of pace.
A lot of the exhibits are closed during the night opening. There were no short educational films. The aquarium downstairs was open though, but it seemed unusual because all the fish were on the rocks or on the bottom of the tank like they were sleeping. They also used to have an Albino alligator there, but I think I read somewhere online that it’s no longer on exhibit. It was definitely less educational, but still a good time and much more enjoyable with people around my age group.
Wine & Chocolate Weekend – Lodi Wine Country
February 16th, 2009
Yesterday I met up with a few friends at the Lodi Wine Country. I’ve done a good amount of tasting in Livermore Wine Country and a few places scattered throughout the US. Lodi Wine Country was hosting the Wine & Chocolate Weekend event February 14-15, 2009. It lasted from 11am-4pm both days and I showed up around 3pm on Sunday. Even though it was kind of late, we were still able to taste at three wineries.
First up was Abundance Vineyards. They just opened a new location which was really nice. I’m all about modern things and it’s probably why I don’t have much appreciation for historical landmarks. To me it’s just someplace old. There were a decent amount of people there, but not too many. The wine was okay also.
Our next stop was Lucas Winery. They had some good tasting wine. To be honest, I have no clue what I’m doing. If it tastes good to me that’s all that really matters. I picked up a bottle of their Zin Blossoms. It’s supposed to be a summer wine, but I’m not sure if it will last until then. By then it was already 4pm, so we looked for a place that was open until 5pm.
This brought us to Jesse’s Grove Winery. It seemed like the people were much friendlier there. There were also some people that had too much to drink. I guess that’s what happens late in the wine tasting day. The wine maker explained a couple different barrels, one with oak treatment and one without and a mixture of the two. It was pretty interesting and nice that someone was willing to take the time to explain to someone that knows nothing about the industry. I picked up their bottle of Carignane. I noticed the alcohol content is a little higher than some of the other wines so that could probably be a good explanation for the state of mind of the people tasting there. One of my friends burnt her jacket on the space heater. Seriously who does that?
It was a pretty fun trip even through the weather could have been better. It was overcast and rainy at times. I guess that’s what I should expect during winter. I’ll need to go out and taste more as spring and summer come around. It’s much more fun when it’s sunny outside, but not too hot. I’m looking forward to my next trip and if anyone has any recommendations of places to go, let me know.
Quick Tips for Eating Organic
February 10th, 2009
I recently added Get Rich Slowly’s RSS feed to my Google Reader. They have some interesting articles on the site including one posted by J.D. last week, Quick Tips for Eating Organic. It’s cool that J.D. conducted an interview on Twitter, which I’m a big fan of, and got some great responses to include in the article.
Those great tips include:
- Farmers market
- Eat less meat
- Eat more affordable organic products
- Buy in season
He also included some great tips of his own. Check out the post if you are into eating healthier.
Site Redesign
February 8th, 2009
I set aside some time this weekend to redesign my personal blog. I was happy with the old design, but I just figured it was time for a change. I also wanted to polish up my portfolio since times are tough right now. I wanted to open up the design a little bit and make it easier to read. I was able to accomplish this by expanding the layout to take up the entire browser window and let the content define borders in the middle of the page. The fonts are slightly bigger and should be easier to read on the white background. I added the links to the social networks I belong to at the top of the page so it’s easy to find.
I cut out a lot of the garbage on the site which I thought was unnecessary. I’m the kind of person that surfs the internet, sees something cool and figures I should add it to my site. I think a lot of people are like that. I mean look at how many Facebook apps or widgets people have in their MySpace profiles. It was time to clean things up and scale it back. Limiting the number of plug-ins helped speed up the site dramatically.
I was able to limit the site to 6 plug-ins and I’m really happy with the result. I would like to give a special thanks to a few authors. All in One SEO Pack makes things a lot easier and I implement in all my Wordpress sites. Cforms for making a solid contact form product. I would also like to thank the author of Lifestream for making an awesome product for viewing social network information. It’s a big integration of my daily routine and the plug-in is integrated to allow status showing of Brightkite, del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, and Twitter.
If you have any comments or suggestions please let me know. Thanks.
Vegas
February 4th, 2009
Last weekend I headed out to Vegas for the Super Bowl with a few friends. It’s becoming a regular thing now for us to go in January. We all decided to take Friday off from work and head out early that morning.
It ended up being a rough morning. The dogs made a mess I had to clean up before I left. That made me late to drop them off, which made me late for BART. I missed my train and had to wait 15 minutes for the next one. I got to the airport with about 10 minutes before my flight and for some reason I let this lady with a baby cut in front of me. Wrong move. I heard them calling my name in the overhead speaker and as I arrived at the gate they were closing the doors. I had missed my flight. I had two choices: take the next direct flight in a few hours or fly to Burbank and then to Vegas. It was off to LA then to Vegas and a few hours later I had arrived.
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Pismo Beach
January 26th, 2009
I spent last weekend in Pismo Beach. I drove down there Friday night with a buddy and didn’t get in until after midnight. We were both pretty tired and ended up just calling it a night. The hotel room at the Sandcastle Inn was pretty basic, but it had a nice view. They are also pet friendly so I was able to bring my puppies on the trip with me. The price was very reasonable even with it being a winter month. The weather was a little wet and overcast most of the time, but you can’t really expect more than that even if someone makes guarantees or promises otherwise. There weren’t a lot of people laying on the beach obviously, but a good amount walking their dogs or taking a walk themselves.
We had the continental breakfast the hotel serves which was pretty basic – bagels, toast, muffins, waffles, juice, etc. I wasn’t expecting much more, but I definitely needed to eat somewhere else the following morning.
After that I took the dogs for a walk along the beach. We had hot chocolates at Mon Ami a small coffee and crepe shop in downtown Pismo. The people there were very friendly and let me take the dogs in which was nice. The hot chocolate was pretty good as well. There weren’t a lot of people out in Pismo Beach nor San Luis Obispo for that matter. I’m pretty sure it was probably bad weather, but it seemed like a ghost town in lots of parts.
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Ahi Tuna Salads
January 8th, 2009
Over the last few years I’ve primarily started eating chicken and fish. I tried to cut out pork and beef and for the most part been pretty successful. There are times when I do eat pork, but I try to keep it to a minimum. When I go out to eat I can usually find something to eat on the menu. I found myself going to more restaurants that have a variety of fish selections on the menu like sushi restaurants and fish taco restaurants. I also started eating a lot more salads. I can always get a chicken salad almost anywhere, but really started liking seared ahi tuna salads.
For the most part I don’t really eat at fancy restaurants on a daily basis. I’d like to but financially and where I live now makes it pretty difficult. Whenever I see seared ahi tuna salads on the menu or even a restaurant that serves seared ahi, there’s a good chance that’s what I’ll order. To me it seems like a pretty simple dish, but it’s not really something I can make at home. It really depends on the freshness of the fish. I’m a pretty simple guy so if the fish and lettuce is fresh and the ahi is not overcooked, I’m pretty happy.
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New Year, 2008 Is Gone, On To 2009
January 5th, 2009
So New Years came and went. It was funny. We were at Le Colonial in SF on New Years Eve. All of a sudden you look up and people are counting down “3-2-1. Happy New Year!” and it was 2009. It was so quick and it was really a finish to 2008 and how quickly it passed. Looking back at the year, it had it’s ups and downs. My New Years resolution for last year was do more of everything: more work, more exercise, more social activities, more charity. You get the idea. I was able to do a whole bunch of things in a short amount of time. At the end of the year though with about two weeks left I was a complete zombie. I had completely worn myself out throughout the year, but I was able to do more of everything.
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About Me
Brandon Quintana has been actively involved in web development for the past 11 years. Proficient web programming languages include XHTML/CSS, PHP, MySQL, and JavaScript.
