Park Chalet

On Saturday Nick and I went out to the city to meet up with some of his coworkers for a recruiting event that their company was hosting.  A gal from Cincinnati flew out here to check out their company and interview for a sales position.  Nick's boss was showing her the sites, as she had been to California before but had never gone around to see anything.  One of Nick's coworkers came down from Seattle also (he took us out on the boat when we were up there) to join in the recruiting event.  They were originally planning to go to the Fan Fest, but the doors shut before they could get in.  Nick and I weren't keen on the idea of being bumped around by millions of excitable people to begin with so we had decided to go out there and meet them midday for drinks.  We met up with them at this great place called the Park Chalet.  It is basically the back side of their more prominent restaurant, Beach Chalet.  There was a nice lawn area that you could picnic at and have drinks.  The crowd was very Berkleyesq and I had a good time.  Afterwards, we decided to head back to Walnut Creek for some dinner at this amazing tapas place called Vanessa's Bistro 2.  Oh my gosh, so delicious.  The portions were small, like many tapas places, but they were so good.  There was nothing that we ordered that wasn't delicious.  I even enjoyed the salmon tartare!  They also servered decent sized glasses of wine, which I found pleasantly surprising for being a modern-style bistro in WC.  I had a Zinfandel that was very tasty and was only $5 a glass.  Not bad at all!  The best part?  First Star Capital (Nick's company) paid for it all!  Woopi!  Nick and I will be going back to Vanessa's for sure on our own.  It was just so good and relatively affordable.