When the cat’s away…

the parents play.
Mika spent last week with her grandparents, and we took advantage of it to go out to “nice” restaurants, “nice” being a code word for “child unfriendly” ones. We did hit a few child-friendly restaurants as well. I’ve been a good girl and written reviews of all of them, which will be on my website as soon as Mike returns them.
We started last Monday by going to Bistro Liaison in Berkeley, which had been in my list for a while. It’s a nice, loud and friendly spot in downtown Berkeley serving classic French food at moderate prices (entrees under $20). The food was good, not great, but we enjoyed ourselves.
Tuesday was our night for hitting San Francisco. We considered going back to Piperade, but decided instead on Bocadillos, a tapas bar by Piperade’s owner Gerard Yrigoyen. It was a disappointment. The food was good, but not outstanding and not particularly innovative – nowhere nearly as good as Piperade’s. We didn’t like having to wait and the barstools were not the most comfortable of places. In the future I’ll leave places like this to the younger crowd.
Wednesday was “Lost” night, so we decided to stay in and have dinner (Zachary’s by the fire. We did have lunch together at East Village, a dim sum place. The food was OK, though not great, but I loved their pork buns.
Thursday we joined Regina and Boris for dinner at Neumanali – a posh restaurant in Hayward. The food was good, the service clearly deficient. I wrote a letter to the management about it and I still haven’t heard back.
Finally Friday we had a low key evening, dinner at taqueria Canc