Yey! I finally took the ferry from Larkspur to the city today.

Marcia, a friend I met through Dawn at O’Reilly, mentioned that she’d be on vacation all week and was looking for things to do. Meanwhile I’d decided after some recent ad hoc trips to the city that I needed to be more systematic in my excursions. I decided I should go when I have a few hours free on a weekend and spend some time focusing on just a single neighborhood, of which I’d learned there are several. So I suggested we take the ferry down and check out the Marina to start.

We were on the ferry in Larkspur at 11am, got to the city around noon. Since it was convenient and we were hungry, we stopped by the Slanted Door for lunch, located in the ferry terminal. I’d eaten at this restaurant back in October when I was in the bay area meeting with a former co-worker.

The place was hopping, hour and fifteen minute wait for a table, so we sauntered over to the bar (also full) where two seats opened up in minutes. We started with some non-vegetarian spring rolls, which I expected would be fried (as opposed to summer rolls) but these came uncooked and beautifully prepared, complete with a cooked shrimp in each, visible through the rice paper. Inside was a little bit of pork, some lettuce, and rice noodles. We dipped them in a sweet peanut sauce.

The vast majority of wine on their list was from France—none from Sonoma County, so I couldn’t flex my newly earned awareness of our local appellations. Under a category they labeled “Rich Whites” we choose the Champalou Vouvray, la Cuvée des Fondraux 2004. It was sweet and quite good, but I honestly can’t say what else it tasted like. I enjoyed it and would definitely recommend with spicy food, like the carmelized shrimp I chose, the same entree I had last October—purely a coincidence. Marcia had flank steak with noodles which was also quite good, and for dessert I strongly suggested the pot de creme—purely on purpose.

The rest of the afternoon consisted of a lot of walking (I still haven’t figured out the Muni) down Broadway and then Columbus which had a lot of interesting restaurants, including the infamous Stinking Rose. We hung a left onto Union Street, which SFGate had singled out as particularly happening strip in the Marina. After several blocks of just housing (we were still pretty far east) we came upon some signs of life, including one of the American Apparel stores, which I’ve been wanting to check out. Verdict: it’s weird in a good way, a rainbow of bright colors and photos reminiscent of Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” video. I picked up three tshirts.

We looped back around to Chestnut which seemed a little more lively, tried some more clothes on, finally heading over to the Palace of Fine Arts for some photo ops. It had been marvelously sunny and windy all day long, but now the fog was coming in. More importanly we needed to get back to the ferry terminal before 7pm to catch the last ferry out of the city. We hailed a cab and were soon on our way.