Category Archives: Food

Happy Easter!

Posted on April 13, 2009 by thedude

thedude and Kelly celebrated the day with a non-traditional Easter brunch at the Claremont Hotel. We raised a toast to the U.S. Navy for rescuing Captain Phillips unharmed.

This was also a chance to experiment with my new Canon G10, which so far is wonderful to shoot with, and produces amazing images for a camera of its size. I think I’ll be using this new camera a lot.

Posted in Bay Area, Food, Holidays | 2 Comments

Burma Bound!

Posted on August 4, 2008 by thedude

It’s official! Last night over dinner with a group of friends who have all been to Burma several times, we decided that we’re really gonna do it. We’re planning a November trip to Burma! Everyone in the group is very excited – and even a bit jealous of our budding travel plans. Their enthusiasm has a lot to do with why we decided to do it. But the main reason we feel comfortable about the idea is because we have now had dinner twice with our guide-to-be on the trip – William Myatwunna. William totally charmed us with his warm smile and polite good-nature. He is also the best tour guide in all of Burma. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Conde Nast magazine recently picked William’s Good News Travels as one of of the top 128 travel specialists in the world!

Interested in traveling to Burma? I’d suggest you book with William soon. He’s about to become very busy!

Posted in Burma 2008, Food, New Friends | 1 Comment

Linden Street Brewery

Posted on August 1, 2008 by thedude

The gang enjoys free beer on Friday at the Linden Street Brewery. I’d say you should check it out, but it’s already become too popular.

UPDATE: I just checked the web site, and it seems this will be the last free Friday for a while. Sorry you missed it!

Posted in Bay Area, Food, iPhone, Just Blogging | Leave a comment

Fire!

Posted on July 17, 2008 by thedude

There was a small fire early this morning in our building’s new restaurant. It looks like a bucket of kitchen rags smoldered for hours before creating just enough heat to cause a sprinkler head to blow in the kitchen area of our favorite eatery.

The fire and smoke caused far less damage than the deluge of water from the sprinkler head. The restaurant will be closed for a few days while they replace a water-damaged wall.

I was extremely sleepy at 5:30 this morning when I took these, which probably explains why I didn’t shoot more of them.

I saw Eloisa this afternoon, and she seemed to be in pretty good spirits. We look forward to seeing MoNO open again soon!

Posted in Bay Area, Food, Just Blogging, Loft Life | 1 Comment

I Will Work for Food

Posted on June 4, 2008 by thedude

This photos-for-food-and-drinks deal we have with our friends at MoNO is working out very nicely for us. Yum!

Posted in Food, Photography, Shameless Self-Promotion | 5 Comments

MōNO Grand Opening Soiree

Posted on April 15, 2008 by thedude

The Grand Opening at our favorite new restaurant appeared to be a smashing success. Lots of delicious food, wine and a few of our favorite neighbors. Thanks, Todd and Eloisa!

BTW, I went “old school” when I shot these. Just to see what kind of results I could get, I mounted an older Nikkor 50 mm 1.4 lens and focused manually! It was a lot of fun, and when I got the focus right, the results are very pleasing. This old lens looks great at 4.0! The only bad part is that it takes two hands to do this, so I couldn’t easily carry a glass of wine while shooting.

View the rest of the images from the Grand Opening here or here.

Posted in Food, Loft Life, New Friends | Leave a comment

D3 Saves the Night

Posted on April 8, 2008 by thedude

I was asked at the very last moment to shoot a few pictures of the new restaurant for an upcoming issue of Bon Appétit. With the deadline literally hours away, I went downstairs to see what I could do. The funny thing is that I was apologizing for the photos all the while I was shooting them, fearing that I’d get lousy results in the less-than-ideal lighting.

Shots like these are simply not possible without the Nikon D3 and the its spectacular 14-24 mm lens.

Posted in Bay Area, Food, New Friends, Shameless Self-Promotion | 6 Comments

Brunch with the Goyas

Posted on March 30, 2008 by thedude

Still loving the new camera. Any excuse to shoot with it is good enough for me, but especially when it involves good food and fine friends!

Posted in Food, Old Friends | 3 Comments

MoNo “Soft Opening”

Posted on March 27, 2008 by thedude

The new restaurant opened its doors for dinner last night. The invitation-only event, held primarily for residents of the building, neighbors and close friends, was a smashing success. I can say without reservation that the food and wine at our new restaurant is excellent. It was also a blast to hang out with some of my favorite people – my neighbors! We will definitely be having dinner at MoNo soon. Saturday night, to be precise. See you there!

Posted in Food, Loft Life | Leave a comment

Easter Food Fest

Posted on March 24, 2008 by thedude

Oh my. I guess I should feel guilty about yesterday’s food orgy, but I don’t. I’m too busy drooling over the pictures. Here’s a taste of the menu at MoNO.

After we finished photographing (and eating!) the food, we continued the feast at Chris and Ben’s with champagne and succulent leg of lamb.

I can’t help but say a couple things about the D3 combined with the 14-24 mm lens. Together they allow me to do things I would not even try with my D2X. With the D3, I can shoot in much lower light than previously possible. It’s surprisingly easy to get used to being able to shoot at ISO 1600 with virtually no loss of image fidelity. And the lens is incredible! Look at the images above and see if you can find any color-fringing at all. Even in the horribly overexposed regions there is none. Wow. Same goes for barrel distortion. This zoom lens is better wide open than the Nikkor 14 mm prime it replaces at any aperture. I am so happy to have this lens. Now I really want to own the other Nikkor lens in this class.

Posted in Food, Holidays | Leave a comment

New Restaurant, New Camera, New Lens – All Excellent!

Posted on March 21, 2008 by thedude

I had to work at home today so that I could be here to deal with a few building issues. That’s the bad news. The good news is that I finally had the chance to eat lunch at Mono – the highly-anticipated new restaurant in our building. I am thrilled to report that everything about lunch was excellent. The shots above show proud chef Todd Wilson and his classy interpretation of a grilled cheese sandwich. I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of my chicken sandwich before tearing into it. It was delicious.

These are among the first shots taken with my new Nikon D3 and 14-24 mm lens. Two things stand out. The first is the sharpness of this amazing lens. The second not-so-obvious thing is that these images were shot at an ISO setting of 1600. Wow! This camera will change the way I shoot.

Lucky for me, the owners of the restaurant noticed my new camera and offered me the chance to do some photography for their web site in exchange for food and wine. Hm… How long do you think I had to ponder this one?

Posted in Food, Loft Life, Photography | 3 Comments