Holiday season is upon us and all sorts of activities are on the season schedules in San Francicso. One of those is SantaCon, an event that got its start in San Francisco in 2004 and looks like this.
The other is eating out, and that was made possible last Saturday night by the return of MotoDad from Germany. He had already put in a request for a steak dinner, and so after a brief dalliance with Harris’ we went to Alfred’s, set in the middle of an alley just outside of Chinatown. It turned out to be a great choice; not as crowded as the Van Ness steakhouses and not as loud as the meat market that is Izzy’s. We had a big expansive table and he steaks were delivered with just the right amount of doneness. I went a little cray with a Bernaise sauce that had perfect consistency, though it could have used fresher herbs, and a polenta that was smooth with great texture. MotoDad ordered a German beer nd I asked for the house martini, which arrived as a chilled glass and a glass shaker filled with the makings. The waiter did the necessary, poured enough of the shaker’s content into the glass to bring it a fingernail’s width from the rim, set the shaker on the table and walked away. I easily coaxed two more glasses from what was left, and the evening was perfect in every other way. Neither of us finished our steaks, bringing them home in paper bags.