It was time for our annual summer visit to the Presidio of San Francisco. Initially the home of the Ohlone people, for over 200 years this area served as a military fort for Spain, Mexico and, in 1846, control was passed to the US Army. In 1994, the Presidio, with 1,500 acres and over 730 buildings, closed as a military installation and became a National Park.
This was our fourth annual visit to the Presidio of San Francisco. We stayed at the Inn at the Presidio. The building was constructed in 1903 and was used as the residence for unmarried officers. We were moved from our original reservation at the nearby Lodge at the Presidio to the Inn. As a result, we were upgraded to a two-room 530SF suite with king bedding. Both the Inn and Lodge include a complementary European style breakfast and a hosted afternoon wine and cheese gathering. As much as we've enjoyed staying at the Lodge, we're considering a 2025 stay at the Inn at the Presidio. The extra space is really nice to have.
Hiking
The Presidio grounds offer 24 miles of hiking trails. This trip, we decided to hike a six mile round trip from the Inn to the secluded Marshall's Beach. Starting from the Inn, we hiked to the Golden Gate Welcome Center and then connected to the Batteries to Bluffs trail to reach this beach. The hike is somewhat challenging with long steep stairways that generally lack handrails. However, the reward is a beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Marshall's Beach is locally known as a clothing-optional beach, but on this cool and windy day, everyone was wearing jackets.
 |
Our second hike was to view the Andy Goldworthy's "Woodline" sculpture. This hike was about a 40 minute round-trip hike from the Inn via the Tennessee Hollow Trail to Mountain Lake Trail to Lover's Lane Trail.
Dining
Within walking distance of both the Presidio Inn and Lodge are Sessions at the Presidio and Colibri Mexican Bistro. We enjoyed dinner at the former and lunch at the latter restaurant. Dalida is a new restaurant in the Main Post area serving Mediterranean dishes. We'll have to try Dalida on our next visit.
Kusakabe, San Francisco During our Presidio stay we took this opportunity to dine at Kusakabe, in downtown San Francisco. While outside of Presidio grounds, it is only a 20 minute cab or Uber ride. This restaurant primarily serves sushi - with a wide variety of flavors and presentations. Kusakabe received a Michelin star a few years ago. The artistry of the chefs and the flavors of each item was a sensory and visual experience.
We tried the Petite Omakase menu which included:
- A Chawan-mushi (egg custard and dashi) amuse-bouche
- Seven Otsumami appetizers
- Four kinds of sushi, focusing on fish from Tokyo markets
- Kaburajiru - dashi broth with Arctic char and turnip
- Four additional kinds of sushi, focusing on fish from Tokyo markets
- Miso soup
- Plus an optional Wagyu Jibu-ni, two thin slices of poached A5 Wagyu in a sweet shoyu sauce, with Sansho peppercorn and onsen egg.
- Rice cracker sandwich filled with matcha ice cream and Azuki bean paste.
- To accompany our dinner, we each had a three-glass sake flight - each glass reflecting six different sake products.
No comments:
Post a Comment