The Highlight of San Jose Trip

The standouts for me were the food.  I had tasted the best Carbonara ever at "The Sausage Factory" in Castro in San Francisco.  Sean ordered it and I tasted a bit from his plate.  Apparently, using pancetta instead of normal bacon make a big different to this dish.  My ordered, some spicy tomato sauce thing, was nice too.  The portion was huge.  I ended up having to pack about one third of the portion.  It was still good after staying in the fridge for two days and microwave.

I also ran into unexpected Gumbo stand at a farmers market in Monterey Bay.  We were there to see the Aquarium but we arrived a bit late after we visit the beach in Carmel.  The ocean was very cold for me at Carmel but it was sunny and a lot of families were enjoying the weather at the beach.  But I digress, we did not went into the aquarium because it was about to close.  I thought it was also odd that the gift shop was not available to people who had not buy the ticket to see the aquarium.  Anyway, on our way back to the car, we came across the farmers market.  At the very end of the road I saw a stand that sell New Orleans food.  I was excited because, although this might sound racist, I saw that the stand was manned by two black women who spoke with Southern accent.  I just knew that the food would be good.  After being a bit indecisive, I decided that this would be a very place to buy Gumbo from and I wasn't disappointed.  The seafood Gumbo that I bought for 10$ was full to the brim with shrimp, fish and crab.  I was telling the ladies that I thought I would have to wait another year to eat New Orleans gumbo and my friend added that I was initially planned to visit New Orleans for labour day weekend but the hurricane disrupt my plan.  I, later, went back for hot sauce to spice it up and asked for the hottest one.  They gave me a bit of dubious looks but handed me the sauce.  I added a bit and while it was quite hot, it wasn't the hottest I ever had.  It was still good though.

I also love In-n-Out burger. The burger there was nice but their fried was the best I have ever had.  I would love to return to San Jose just for the burger and the Carbonara.  On one morning Sean also take me to a breakfast place downtown and I order omlette with hash brown.  The hash brown was lovely :d.  The portion was also nicely large.  Despite what many said about American penchant for large portion, it was not always true.  Some of the meal I had were not quite enough for me to be full.

I was there in time for the Castro St. fair.  It was quite nice.  The weather was cool and there were a lot of things to see.  One booth was selling Venetian masks.  They certainly looks very nice but also very expensive.  There were many things to see, also the Blue Angels were flying over the area as well.