I'm back from my whirlwind trip to the Bay Area, exhausted from traveling and a bit sick from so many rich meals, but happy.

On Tuesday evening, I met up with fellow weblogger, Uncle Jim, for a Cuban dinner and several potent mojitos at La Bodeguita del Medio in Palo Alto. Uncle J proved to be quite a charming and erudite fellow, although he is much taller in person than he appears on his weblog. Among his many accomplishments, he was the librettist for a polyglot opera called Sub Pontio Pilato (scroll down to the 5th entry for some mp3s, production photographs, and a PDF file of the libretto itself).

Wednesday night, a friend and I drove over to Santana Row (beware the nasty embedded audio) in San Jose. We did some window shopping and had a fine meal at Consuelo's where we drank a couple more potent Mojitos, and dined upon guacamole made fresh at the table, Ensalada de Nopales (cactus salad), Mole Poblano con Pollo, Camarones al Mole de Tamarindo, topped off by warm Mexican chocolate cake and crepes with Cajeta for dessert.

No wonder my tummy's upset.