Today is a special day, it’s Clare’s 2-month old birthday. She has been growing and is now about 8-pounds. We had a bit of a scare awhile a few weeks back as Clare was not gaining enough weight as the doctors would like. She’s still not quite where she *should* be, but the doctors are not as concerned as she continues to gain weight at the pace of 1-2 ounces a day.

As part of Clare’s First Year of Life, we’ll be documenting her through pictures on the 18th of each day until April 2011 at which time I’ll be making a baby book documenting her growth. Should be pretty cool and something neat to show her when she’s older.

San Francisco Shopping Center

We decided to do some window shopping to look at some cute baby clothes for our future child and decided what better place than Westfield’s San Francisco Shopping Center. Our first stop was the ritzy Bloomingdale’s. Let me tell you, there are certainly a lot of really cute outfits for toddlers from various brands such as Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Diesel, True Religion, Seven for all Mankind, and more. Very cute and very expensive.

From there we walked around the Shopping Center, stopping in to check out stores such as Zara and True Religion.

After spending some time walking around San Francisco Shopping Center, we decided to head to the Metreon to catch Saw VI. Originally I had planned that we would watch Michael Jackson’s This Is It, but the Metreon wasn’t showing This Is It and Andrea wasn’t in the mood to walk across the street to the Century at San Francisco Shopping Center, so we ended up watching Saw VI.

Saw VI

We’ve been watching Saw, since the very first movie for it’s interesting plot twists. It’s actually amazing how many Saw movies have been made, but given the box office success in the tune of $711 million worldwide and with a budget of $47 million TOTAL for all 6 films, it’s hard not to see why they continue making them. Also it turns out, there will be a SAW VII, but in 3D.

Saw VI was definitely good and entertaining, but one thing we’ve been noticing with subsequent Saw movies is that they have increased the gore factor exponentially. The first couple of Saw movies, were quite tame compared to the the last four, but I think it’s time to retire the franchise after Saw VII. There have been so many plot twists that it’s now expected. The one thing I like about the Saw franchise is how each movie introduces more background information on the characters and their connections to each other, that almost certainly always brings us back for more.

Acquerello

For dinner, I had chosen this nice and fancy Italian restaurant, Acquerello, based on research and reading online reviews, which turned out a to a very good choice. I should also note that Acquerello has a single Michelin star. This was our first time here and we were certainly impressed with their huge wine list selection and their three 3 wine cellars. The place is nicely designed with two dining areas, there might actually be three as there was a closed door labeled VIP Room so I couldn’t see in. The reason I chose an Italian place was because Andrea had commented that we don’t go to Italian restaurants very often.

The place is nicely decorated and the staff are extremely friendly and helpful. It also helps having a parking garage ($10 dinner specials, unfortunately no parking validation available at Acquerello) across the street so no hunting for parking.

We opted for the three/four course menu. We were surprised to receive a special chef’s special surprise of some kind of fried truffle cheese thing, which I can’t remember the name, it was a delicious hors d’oeuvre. For our first course, Andrea had the salad of wild arugula with hidden celery root and shaved apple in a candied vinaigrette (which looked and tasted nothing special) and I had the poached ranch egg nested over creamy leeks with whole-wheat butter crumbs (which was delicious, definitely recommend it!). From there we waited a bit until we were served our second course: Rabbit filled agnolotti with Taggiasca olives and prosciutto for Andrea and Ridged pasta with foie gras, scented with black truffles and Marsala for myself. Andrea’s rabbit filled agnolotti was good. It was our first time having rabbit and it certainly has a distinctive taste. My ridged pasta with the foie gras was excellent, although Andrea thought it was too rich, I found it quite delicious and creamy. For our third course, Andrea enjoyed the Veal loin over creamy polenta, chanterelles and veal sweetbreads and I had the American Kobe beef with Piemontese ‘Dragon beans,’ pancetta and tomato soffritto with basil. It was our first time having American Kobe and it is certainly an interesting cut of beef, can’t wait to try the real Japanese Kobe beef. Our neighbor had ordered the cheese tasting and it certainly looked so appetizing that we ended up sharing it.

Because it was Andrea’s birthday, her “birthday cake” was a stack of biscotti arranged much like fire log with “Happy Birthday” spelled out in cursive on the plate with a single candle. I actually found that to be quite unusual and was not very happy with that. Most other places either give you a piece of cake, sherbet or something more than just a stack of biscotti. Otherwise, it was a nice place.

Pics

As tradition with Stripes, we brought lots of cat toys and sashimi from our local sushi house (aptly named Sushi House; imagine their reaction if they knew some of the sashimi was for our cats). We got an extra special present for Panther this year: a cat furniture that is a two story condo. Turns out he very much likes it as he spent all night yesterday sleeping on the top floor curled up. Stripes explored it a little bit by going in some of the openings and so has Panther, but they both seem more interested in the open top floor. We put it next to our large windows in the living room so they can look out to the backyard.

When we finally let her roam around the house, she started exploring every corner and square inch of the place and has found her favorite lookout spot, a big window we have over the kitchen sink with a ledge. Last night she also spent the night with us in bed, although it took awhile before she tired down from running around in and out of our bedroom, but around 2 A.M. she finally curled up on the bed and went to sleep.

She also rung in her birthday with some maguro sashimi (Tuna) from Ichiban Sushi (if you’re looking for a good sushi/sashimi place, I highly recommend Judah Okazuya in San Francisco, great value for excellent freshness). Unfortunately she was still a little too scared to eat all of it, although she did have one slice of the maguro.

I’ll put some pictures up later tonight or so.

Happy birthday Dad! Pics to come later.