[San Francisco] Cheesecake at Macy's

Week 1
Day 4 (Nov 23rd, Sunday)
Day 2 in San Francisco - Cheesecake at Macy's

Above the glitzy glamour of Union Square, there's an open secret which every San Franciscan knows. There's a Cheesecake Factory on the topmost floor of Macy's! ^__^

Being the American equivalent of our very own "Secret Recipe", The Cheesecake Factory restaurant chain serves gourmet food and very, very yummy cheesecake. That was where our hungry pack was headed after our long drive back from Napa Valley!

Leonard dropped my parents and I off in front of Macy's while he and my brother went off to hunt for space in the craze of San Francisco's fully-parked streets! Not knowing that there's a direct elevator to The Cheesecake Factory, we took the escalators through Macy's, all the while fighting off temptation to wander through all those wonderful racks of gorgeous clothes... >.<

When we landed on the top floor, to our surprise, The Cheesecake Factory was practically JAM PACKED! It was like some scene in the O.C. where beautiful, well-dressed ,young people stood around holding drinks and talking loudly. The clock was nearly 9pm and I wondered why the Americans had their dinners so late... and on a Sunday night too! It was chaotic. Timidly, I navigated my way to the counter and put on my best American accent that I'd learnt from TV. The counter girl told me we had to wait for an hour, then gave me a pager that would blink when we were ready to be seated . An hour??!? That was like the craziest thing I'd heard so far... cos I'd never waited an hour for my dinner before.

Hungrily, we went to stand by the cheesecake display. The rows of decadently tempting cakes seemed to expand along with my appetite with every growing moment. Just then, my brother and Leo walked in, with Leo holding a stalk of red rose! Yay, my first flower in US! :-)

Since we had an hour to kill, we went down to explore Macy's and then wandered out in the freezing night to the streets of Union Square's shopping district. We saw a street performance, basked in the warmth of Old Navy and soon, it was time to go back to the Cheesecake Factory. This time, we took the elevator up.

There are 2 dining sections in the restaurant - indoors or outdoors, where other than food, you can also feast on the magnificient Union Square night-time panorama while chilling halfway to death. Thankfully, we were seated indoors. My stomach was grumbling when our waiter came to take our orders... I was rambling on with all my orders while he gave me an incredulous look! Turns out the American way of dining (read: slow-dining) is for the waiter to first take your drinks order, then go away and give you time to figure out what to eat, then the waiter comes back to take your food order. No wonder the Americans invented fast-food!!

I can't remember now what we ordered but it vaguely consisted of kobe beef steak, some spicy fish with Italian rice, pork rib rack, cheesecake and mango yoghurt drink! OMG, I miss that strawberry cheesecake!!!

Some photos of Union Square in the night time... (this were actually taken on Day 1 when we reached San Francisco)

While we were loitering around in Union Square 1 of these guys suddenly came up to us and requested we take a photo of them... when I asked them how do I mail it to them he just said nvm, we just want a photo... =_='''... wonder where they're going off to next... tsktsk...

This is the famous Sir Francis Drake hotel which is just one block away from our hotel. We passed by, and the faux elegance caught my eye. Went in to look around and also to use the toilet. :-P

Christmas in the hotel