Fun dining: Another Monkey

Last week, the Mirthmaker and I went to a new and hip restaurant, Another Monkey. It was recently written about in the Food section of the SF Chronicle and piqued my interest. (Mostly, it's within walking distance of where I work so I'm excited to have a new lunch place.) Honey Bunny is not always the most adventurous when it comes to trying to restaurants while the Mirthmaker is, so off we went.

It was so good. Again - fresh food, prepared well and simply will win me every time. Being a vegetarian, I also appreciate when Asian restaurants truly understand that preparing something vegetarian means no fish sauce, no chicken stock, so on and so forth. AM takes it a step further and actually notes which items on the menu are vegetarian to start with, and which meat-oriented dishes can be modified to be vegetarian. Awesome.

The two biggest likes of the evening were my mixed drink and the bathroom. My drink was a Strawberry Margarita and I was expecting the usual in that department. What I got was a drink that looked like a regular on-the-rocks margarita only slightly pinkish and with just a couple very small strawberry parts hanging out within. Don't get me wrong - I love the goopy, smoothie-like fruit margaritas but I very much appreciate that AM took a different approach and went clear with this one. It was mighty tasty and likely the best drink I've ever laid lips on. Highly recommend!

The bathroom... was stunning. I know it's a crazy thing to say because it's a bathroom and we all go to various bathrooms all the time and who cares? Let me start by saying I'm not a fan of co-ed bathrooms generally, or those with frosted glass doors where you can still see a faint blob of a person behind the glass. AM really went there on both accounts. They are frosted glass 'cubes' (not stalls, but fully enclosed bathroom, well, cubes), all lined up next to each other; two for men, two for women. The sinks and a wall length mirror are right in front of you as you walk out of your cube. I felt exposed upon entering the scene but quickly got over it and immersed myself.

Mostly, it feels so artful in there. The actual cubes each have mirrors and art and decor in them. There's a giant J-pop painting on the far side of the room. The washing stations are super modern in that there are no sink bowls at all, but just a slightly sloped countertop where the water runs back towards a drain. The bathroom was such a wonderland that I had Fun With Photography.



It's entirely possible that the margarita took over, I'll admit.