SF Restaurant Review: Mr. Holmes Bakehouse

Here ye! Here ye! The cronut is out. The cruffin is in!* After hearing about this place for the last few months and seeing everyone post pics of this gorgeous shop on the interwebs, we finally made a trek to Mr. Holmes Bakehouse in SF to try the famous cruffin. 

Here's the deal: they make exactly 100 cruffins a day, each person can buy a max of 2, and you have to line up to score them. We went on Sunday morning...they open up at exactly 9:00 am and we rolled up about 8:45 am and we were the last ones to get a guaranteed cruffin, so I recommend showing up a bit earlier. Still, it's not this level of hysteria, so that's nice. SF vs. NYC for the win.

The shop itself is really lovely (ignore the photo of me, because #nomakeupselfie). They have genius branding and marketing going for them and the pastries all looked / smelled amazing. If you go, definitely check out their other donuts and croissants if you aren't lucky enough to score a cruffin or need to gain some weight. :)

The flavor of the day was fluffernutter, which took me back to my elementary school days. I'm more of a savory person than a sweets person, but I must say that this thing is amazing. It blew us away how much we loved it. 

The bakery itself doesn't have seating and it's in the TenderNob, which isn't the nicest neighborhood in SF. After scoring our food, we took our new scooter up to George Sterling Park to enjoy the SF views and eat our cruffins. So worth the wait. I'm definitely a believer!

*Full disclosure - I have never had a cronut, so this is an uneducated claim.

Angel Island Birthday Weekend

This weekend Lucas threw me the best birthday party ever. We took a ferry from SF to Angel Island, which is a 30 minute trip from Fisherman's Wharf (this is the only reason I can think of that one should ever go to Fisherman's Wharf). The weather was perfect (75 and sunny...holla!) and we had 25 friends join us for the day. 

We set up shop right on the water and dug into the food / drinks immediately. We snacked on chicken salad and pimento cheese and then grilled burgers and sausages for lunch. We brought three coolers full of beer, chilled white wine, and rosé, so it was a party starting at 10:00 am. YOLO y'all. 

Food / wine comas started setting in and lots of napping / sunbathing happened.

 

We played Spikeball (Lucas's all time favorite game) and Catch Phrase, which is always a good idea.

Growing up, my mom made me a homemade funfetti birthday cake every year. Lucas surprised me with a 6-layer (!!) funfetti cake from SusieCakes, which is just about the closest thing you can get to my mom's and it was so so so good and incredibly thoughtful of him.

Sweet friends!

...and the party continued on the ferry ride back! Thank you to my amazing friends that came out to celebrate with me. Life wouldn't be the same without you and 26 will be the best year yet...I can feel it! :)

Sonoma Barrel Tasting

We spent last weekend in Sonoma with great friends to participate in Barrel Tasting Weekend. There are hundreds of wineries that participate, and we managed to make it to: DeLoach, deLorimier, Cellars of Sonoma, Harvest Moon, Inman Family, Mounts, Soda Rock (they ID'd all of us more than 4 times each...we're 21, OKAY?!), and Truett Hurst. There were loads more but I can't remember them all...I'm sure that has nothing to do with the copious amounts of wine I consumed...

Walking around the grounds of Mounts. This was our collective favorite winery that we visited...it is so cute, the wines are delicious, and the wine maker wears legit overalls (as if you needed a third reason).

The whole gang at Truett Hurst! This place is gorgeous with outdoor seating right on the creek.

I love the Sonoma wineries that have games like corn hole and bocce ball (for the record, the girls won everything).

Just hanging at deLoach, a casual French Revolution era themed winery. Nothing to see here. 

Most of the wineries served free food for the event, which was such a nice bonus so we didn't have to stop for lunch. Think: mini grilled cheese sandwiches, tri-tip crostinis, bbq sliders, and grilled bratwursts. Lucas made a beeline towards the food table the moment we walked into each winery. He can put away a ridiculous number of mini grilled cheeses...it's quite impressive. Check out the above action shot. :)

Things got a little weird towards the end of the 2nd day. This event was the best...we will definitely be back next year. :)

Tahoe Weekend

We just returned from a quick ski trip to Lake Tahoe, which is about 3.5 hours from San Francisco. My family flew into Reno and then met us at this rental house, which was close to the base of Heavenly. 

We're in the middle of a severe drought  but luckily Tahoe received a foot of snow last week, so the conditions were perfect. It was warm but there was a lot of great powder. We skied two full days and then capped each day off with the hot tub and bloody marys.

We drove back to SF today and made several pit stops along the way (Chick-fil-a, Starbucks, Target, TJ Maxx, Homegoods, oh my!). Lucas joked that we were setting a world record for stopping at the most TJ Maxx stores in one day. I was looking for a particular lamp, so haters (Lucas) gonna hate. We capped the day off with Evolution and a pit stop by The Bud Stop. :) Now back to work we go...