So I’ve become food obsessed like everyone else in San Francisco…not really because I love food so much, but I’m fascinated with the effort, love, and dedication people have for the food and restaurant that they’ve created.

On Friday, K and I watched Argo at the Kabuki theater (great movie, learned a lot, Ben Affleck is so talented) and ended up having dinner at one of the last open restaurants in Japantown…I don’t even remember it’s name. It was casual…although I spied a Michelin Recommended certificate. I had soba noodles with mountain vegetables (spinach, carrots, and the standard works) and green tea.

Saturday. I had Farley’s housemade granola with soy milk, and half-caf coffee. Really good granola…dried unsweetened cranberries, not clumped together, not too sweet, generous portions of almonds and pecans, toasted to goldeny perfection. (I must admit, I had a bowl of oatmeal just before this…wasn’t planning on getting food!)

Saturday dinner: So I got K to come over (apparently he grumbled to himself unbeknownst to me) after I finished some studying, and I was searching up restaurants open late. We were too late for the “semi-late” ones, but there was this highly-rated and yelp-popular Korean restaurant open until 2 am further down the muni line. What intrigued me about this place was that people were saying it was in someone’s remodeled garage, and the pictures looked sketchy. I wanted to check out the grungy Korean garage joint! But alas, Toyose, was just a shady exterior which opens up to a pretty cute, regular restaurant. I wanted to see cement floors, fold-up chairs, and random family members walking around. I ate a little bit of Japchae yam noodles and kimchi appetizers. This was around 11 pm…K said it was actually pretty bad and is probably only popular with the drunk crowd at 2am…Probably true.

Sunday morning was a win though! We went to Outerlands  for brunch (didn’t have to wait long!) which is such a cute, cozy place. My friend calls it “hipster meets comfort food” which is totally on-point. We sipped on lemon ginger apple cider and barley tea. The cider was sooo yummy! (At first, they mistakenly gave me the bourbon spiked cider…) Although I only slept 6ish hours last night, I knew I wanted some of their famed sugary cider so I worked up the energy to do a morning beach/slight incline run! Then we had granola, persimmon, and yogurt. I don’t really eat yogurt anymore. But this is winning combination right here: persimmon + fresh chopped mint leaves + drizzle of honey (I’ll try it with maple syrup on my own). My entree was the avocado winter citrus salad which was delectable! Tri-colored grapefruit and mandarin wedges, blanched almonds, and ripe avocado topped a bed of sharp greens. It was an interesting combination of flavors. I tried some of K’s dutch pancake with spiced apple which was really satisfying too. Yumm… =)

Oh and I had the best muffin of my life today by Peiru, baker of Sweet Aha Bake Shop. She makes SUCH good muffins! All of her goods are vegan and she doesn’t use any fake vegan substitutes. I had her lemon poppy seed muffin last week…omgodz the taste of real lemon was so good. Today, I tried her ginger cinnamon muffin which I fell in love with.