RamblingDyna

Marnee Thai restaurant was only 5 years old when I first stepped into their simple, small and quaint Irving Street location in 1990. Back then a majority of Southeast Asian eateries were in the Inner Sunset and Richmond districts of San Francisco. 15 years later, increasing competition has spread to the Mission, Tenderloin and Polk Gulch, but old school Marnee Thai continues to make savory, fresh and affordable Thai dishes. Chef Chai Siriyarn opened the Irving street restaurant in 1986. It’s won 16 local, national and international awards and about a dozen rave reviews including Zagat’s Top Ten Thai Restaurants for 15 years. He opened a second restaurant on 9 th Avenue a couple of years later. Their signature Spic y Angel Wings was the first dish to pop in my mind the minute I walked in the door. My friend Mags hadn’t been to Marnee Thai in about 10 years and said that’s the only dish that stood out from the pack. From Oakland and Redwood City to San Jose, I have yet to fin...

I went to the Doctors Without Borders/Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) campsite on the coldest and cloudiest day of the week and I was impressed with the people who stood in line and braved the Golden Gate winds for 1.5 hours of the outdoor walking tour. I’m glad the MSF camped in San Francisco's backyard, although its ironic the Marina backyard is known for its yachts, yuppy cars and ginormous apartment rentals . Dolores Park would have been more appropriate or in front of City Hall where they recently had a vegetable garden display. MSF is a non-profit, non-governmental organization that provides humanitarian assistance (medical treatment, disease prevention, sanitation treatment, counseling, food and shelter) to the 42 million refugees and displaced persons in more than 60 countries. Instead of reading the statistics or watching the brief TV news reports (if any), MSF setup the site to showcase real life situations of a refugee. M...

Wowee wow wow. I had no idea what to expect at Red Bull’s Soapbox race. From looking at their past events online, I knew it would be fun but man, this was crazy-shouting –hilarious fun and jam packed! Gimme more! Before I get to the juicy details, the delays at the 16th Street Bart Station (where I disembarked) were unbelievable. The crowd was probably 3 times what you normally see at rush hour. Luckily the 5 station agents (usually there’s only one) helped guide newbies at the ticket machines and monitor the flow of people exiting. Took about 10 minutes for me to finally break free from underground only to get caught in the mass exodus to Dolores Park. What a very interesting sight (dam I should of took a picture of it) to see hoards of non-locals mooing their way westward on 16t. Some car drivers definitely looked baffled with their “what the?” faces as they couldn’t speed through the streets and cut corners like they normally do. Five blocks later, I blinked twice and held my bre...