Dan rec­om­mended a place to eat in Willits, so we stopped at Gribaldo’s for lunch. He actu­ally told us that he didn’t remem­ber the name of the place, but that it had a big sign that just said “DINNER” (not “diner”) and that it was in Willits across from the Taco Bell.

I was orig­i­nally going to go with a break­fast dish, but the wait­ress rec­om­mended the fish, which is locally farmed in Fort Bragg. She did not lead us wrong! Tim C and I both got the 3-​piece fish and chips, expect­ing each piece of fish to be like a roll of quar­ters. Instead, we got this:

Each piece was big­ger and thicker than a chicken breast!

Con­tin­ued to SF with a mild case of food coma after that. Got Tim C back to his place OK, though. I went home after that, and the plan was for a nap between the morn­ing and evening fes­tiv­i­ties, but unfor­tu­nately I did not have time for it if I wanted to take the bus out and not worry about park­ing and poten­tial drunk dri­ving later. Hopped in the shower and ran to the bus stop.

Met up with Aaron L, Sue L, and Gio Linh at Plouf, where I was dying to have moules et frites for the first time in for­ever! Started the night off with a Chouffe. Gio Linh appre­ci­ated the bot­tle, if not the contents:

For din­ner, I got the “prix fixe,” which was a soup or salad, moules, and a dessert. The soup was a clam chow­der. Over­all, not as good as the chow­der from Crudo, but it was inter­est­ingly spiced — there was some heat from chili oil on top. The mus­sels were great! My only com­plaint there was that I wish they gave us more broth in the bowls for dunk­ing our fries and bread. And for dessert, I had the prof­iteroles. You should have heard the waiter say it, because Gio Linh couldn’t hold back her laugh­ter. The cream puffs had ice cream instead of reg­u­lar, and the whole plate was cov­ered with a dark choco­late sauce, pis­ta­chios, and raspberries.

Unfor­tu­nately, both my bor­rowed cam­era and my phone seemed to be low on bat­ter­ies, so I did not get a lot of pic­tures, but here’s the main dish:

After that, Gio Linh went home because she’s still a baby. Aaron L and Sue L also went home because they had Bay to Break­ers in the morn­ing. I wan­dered around the cor­ner to Rick­house, where I met up with Albert T and Tim C.

Our first round:

There was a solid line out­side at this point, though, and the rain was pick­ing up, so we moved to the Bur­ritt Room to met up with Almira V, Dorothea C, and Chris H. Unfor­tu­nately, my cam­eras com­pletely died at this point, but I really like this bar. No line or cover to deal with out­side. Very chill bar area with ample seat­ing. (Yes, I’m old and I like to sit and chat with friends while I drink.) There’s a side room with music and danc­ing if you wish. And most impor­tantly, the drinks rock!

My first drink was a “Torii Toddy,” which was Japan­ese whiskey with hot chrysan­the­mum tea and some other fla­vor­ings. (It’s fun to watch the drinks made, each bar­tender has a set of 12 or so small unmarked glass bot­tles — think soy sauce bot­tles at an Asian restau­rant — of aro­mat­ics.) It doesn’t sound like it would be a good combo, but it was amaz­ing. And prob­a­bly the best self-​medication I had for the cough I had that night that was aggra­vated by our walk through the rain.

We sat around there for a while, talk­ing about our jumps and what we were going to do for next year. (Still noth­ing set yet. Any sug­ges­tions?) Then Dorothea C gave me a ride home and that was that.