I’m not going to be able to make this one, but my friend Trevor Carpenter is hosting an Olvera Street Photowalk down in L.A. on November 25th. Olvera Street is a street in downtown L.A. that is rich in Mexican culture and a visual delight for photography. I took the photo of the guitars above at Olvera Street a few years back. If you can make this walk it should be a good one.
Come on out tonight if you can make it and want to hang out and shoot. Details here.
Cafe Myth: 490 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, CA; 415-677-4289
Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Well I finally got around to trying Cafe Myth this past week. I’ve been a big fan of Myth the restaurant in San Francisco and was excited when I first learned that they’d be taking over the Cafe down the street from the restaurant on the corner of Pacific and Montgomery in downtown San Francisco.
And what a pleasant and enjoyable lunch it was. If you are the type that enjoys gourmet food but not gourmet prices then Cafe Myth is just the place for you. The lunch menu is full of little gourmet twists. I have to say that this was the first time I’d ever had truffle covered homemade potato chips (excellent!).
The Cafe is somewhat small and seats about 50 or so in a pleasant indoor/outdoor patio combo. You order your breakfast or lunch at the cafe counter and then a waiter brings your food out to your table. They have a really nice help yourself water bar complete with your choice of cucumber or lemon waters and lots of ice. The decorations are modern and contemporary and many of the themes (eg. cactus) are borrowed from the full service restaurant and represented in miniature form.
Although you might think $3.50 for potato chips is a bit steep, when you factor in that they were generously covered in white truffle shavings and the portion was easily enough for three people, the price is much more reasonable. Oh, and the potato chips beat the Lays down at Subway hands down seven days a week.
In addition to the truffled potato chips I also ordered Sid’s Roast Beef sandwich for $8.50. The sandwich came with a small side salad and pickle and really was more like a sandwich and a half. In fact, two people easily could have shared the lunch I had between the giant portioned sandwich, salad and extra large potato chip order.
The sandwich itself was awesome. A Meyer lemon based dressing combined with a large portion of rare roast beef was just the decadence that I was hoping for on my vacation from my usual lunch salad. Absolutely delicious and a great value.
Cafe Myth also has some great bag lunch specials which generally include a sandwich, a side and desert (pumpkin chocolate chip cookies) for less than $10 as well.
The meal was beautifully presented as well. I’m going to get a salad the next time I go there and enjoyed watching the waiters bring out these giant salads in these big beautiful white bowls.
In addition to a great gourmet lunch, Cafe Myth also has a full espresso menu and bar and is a great place to take a load off for an hour or so in SF if you want to meet someone and just linger for a bit at a cafe. Romantic and airy, the outdoor patio especially is great for hanging out and watching the mix of Jackson Square advertising and PR types walk past.
If you are visiting SF make sure to check out Cafe Myth for lunch. Spend the morning shooting the downtown architecture and after you shoot the Transamerica Building it’s just a short walk up Montgomery to the Cafe. Get there early though as by 11:45 you’ve got a long line beginning to form at the Cafe.
More from Yelp.
HD Photo to become JPEG XR | Underexposed – CNET News.com
From Stephen Shankland over at CNET:
“A new attempt to provide a higher-end sequel to the ubiquitous JPEG image standard is officially under way.
The multiple countries participating in the Joint Photographic Experts Group, which created the JPEG standard, have approved an effort to make Microsoft’s HD Photo format a standard called JPEG XR, said Bill Crow, who has led Microsoft’s HD Photo effort and who just took over the company’s Microsoft Live Labs Seadragon imaging project. XR stands for “extended range,” a reference to the format’s ability to show a wider and finer range of tonal gradations and a richer color palette.
“The country vote is done, and it passed,” Crow said. “That means the International JPEG committee has decided to go ahead and create the standard. Now it’s just a process of doing that work,” a process that will begin later this month in a meeting in Kobe, Japan.
The move is an important step in the transformation of the photo format from an in-house technology called Windows Media Photo to a neutral format more likely to be palatable to companies that don’t want to be beholden to Microsoft.”
