On the road again: San Francisco, day 1

There's no way a day can start well when I have to get up before eight a.m., as I did this morning to begin my travels. Once I hit the airport, however, everything went absolutely as well as one could reasonably expect: quick check-in, good bandwidth in the Admirals Club, first class upgrade, bandwidth on the plane, and, amazingly, landing and taking off from the same gate in DFW. That never happens.

I scored an exit row seat for the second leg and again had bandwidth, so I worked almost all of the time I was in the air, which was great.

The weather out here is on the chilly side, which after the summer we've experienced is an absolute treat.

Dinner was at Alice Waters' famous Chez Panisse, which I had never visited before. We opted for the main restaurant, in which you eat whatever the fixed menu of the day happens to be. The highlight of ours was, in my opinion, the quail: every single bite was tender and tasty and perfectly cooked. It was a very good meal, though I must confess that it did not show me why the place has earned in multiple years a spot in many lists of the top ten U.S. restaurants. Still, I enjoyed both it and the company very much. A good evening.