Eating my way through California

Yesterday evening we returned from five nights and five days in the Bay Area, and it was one of the best trips we've ever taken out there. I've got plenty of photographic evidence, but what I'm thinking about today is the sheer diversity and deliciousness of the food we consumed during our trip.

In order:

Egg tarts (a Chinese baked good), Thai food, egg tarts, a brownie, half a veggies/cheese Croque Monsieur from Tartine Bakery, half a Mission burrito (with pollo asado and the works), a caesar salad (self-made), chocolate-covered pretzel chips (my new favorite Trader Joe's product), oatmeal, Berkeley Bowl sushi, homemade guac, homemade burrito bar, Mexican wedding cookies and sister-made lemon squares, oatmeal, 1/2 masala dosa and 1 veggie-filled samosa with cholla from Vik's, pizza and fresh greens at Jupiter, yogurt and whole-wheat sourdough toast, sushi from Manpuku in Berkeley, gelato, a teriyaki chicken sandwich with sauteed mushrooms and some sweet potato fries and onion rings from Pearl's, champagne via Leah and Simon and a few bites of tiramisu, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a hardboiled egg, half of a turkey sub from Subway, and a Specialty's semisweet chocolate chip cookie.

In that five days/nights, I ate out 10 times if you count the gelato and the Berkeley Bowl sushi. In comparison, we usually eat out on average around once every six to eight weeks. It's hard not to go hog-wild when we go to California, where we have so many restaurants we love and access to so much amazing food. I love that nearly all of our food is homemade, and that we eat so healthily most of the time, but that, every once in a while, we splurge for a few days on spectacular food that we only eat a few times a year. It's too bad it all must be crammed in to such a short period of time.