u/lubberlubber

Heading to NorCal in a few weeks and already have SingleThread booked, but we have 1 night in SF and wanted to good meal there.

We really wanted to go to Lazy Bear (we’ve been before and loved it) but for some reason they were completely sold out that day (maybe a buyout? Every other day is available). We currently have Birdsong booked but I really really really abhor the 22% autograt and it seems like from posts here the service isn’t great and they push upsells which i also hate.

We’ve been to Quince and Benu and liked them but wouldn’t go back. Atelier Crenn looks interesting but it’s pescatarian and we are meat eaters. Kiln is out as we don’t love Nordic.

Any recommendations other than birdsong for a great tasting menu (preferably something “California” and fun, not too stuffy, not too upsell-y)? In short Lazy Bear for people who can’t get into Lazy Bear? Happy to go with a 1* too.

Also going to be in Monterey and Big Sur (but options there didn’t look inspiring—Aubergine seems very boring).

Thanks!

$350 each OBO.

Hey there—selling 1 VIP ticket SUNDAY PORTION ONLY. Must pick up in person from my hotel on Sunday morning or afternoon. $350 OBO.

We must connect on Facebook or IG before to verify.

Just did something that I’m having slight remorse about.

I’ve been on the hunt for J flights from Asia to NYC on a specific date. The HND-JFK JAL 350 would be ideal since the product is so highly rated.

I had 70k transferable JAL Miles. Then I read about the trick on that certain website where you look for random hotels and book nonrefundable stays for instant points. Poked around for an hour and found a 57X multiplier hotel for ~$3100. It would net me 152k points.

Logged onto JAL and found 2 J flights (HND-JFK) for 110k miles each.

Pulled the trigger.

So total cost - $3100 + $500 JAL surcharge + ~$500 repositioning flight (have to reposition in all scenarios because there is no direct). Just over $4000 total for 2 J flights.

Cash for the JAL flights are astronomical (over $10k) so I won’t use that as a comparison. The cheapest acceptable J tickets were around $6k (unless I want to do Air India or Egyptair or have crazy layovers).

In my mind, this is a still good deal. My reasoning is that if I saw $4000 cash for JAL 350 flights for 2, I would book it without a doubt. Y tickets are about $1500 for 2, so another way to think about it is paying $1250 per person to upgrade (under $100 per hour).

So…how do you think I did? I’m mainly kicking myself because I missed out on 2 transfer bonuses that ended recently. Would’ve saved me thousands.

I’m gonna call this a success story but curious what y’all think.