On Thursday I was lucky enough to meet up with La Doctorante, buddy of LKB, art-historical dissertatrix and author of an excellent secret blog, for lunch and some museum-going. I could tell you more about the blog, but you know what would have to happen next. What I can tell you is that we were lucky enough to get seats at the bar at The Slanted Door in SF’s refurbished Ferry Building.

We started off with some cocktails, including the Indian Summer – Tanqueray #10, ingredient of the moment Nikolaihof biodynamic elderflower syrup (which also made an appearance later that day at Chez Panisse), and grapefruit juice – and Ginger Limeade – Hangar One Kaffir Lime vodka, ginger, lime. Both drinks were declared ducky.

Next up, spring rolls. You have to have them, and they delivered admirably. Tofu, mushrooms, glass noodles, mint and chunky peanut sauce. The fact that I had two chopsticks of very different thickness and length didn’t slow me down at all.

Continuing the thread begun at Salt House, I ordered the Dwelley Fram sweet white corn with green onions and chanterelles. Fancy succotash, perhaps, but the quality of ingredients made it all worth it. For some reason, I ate it with the odd chopsticks. The Slanted Door does a great job of recognizing the local farms that provide their produce. They all have great names, too: Allstar Organics, Catalan Farm, Dirty Girl Farm, Heirloom Organics, and Star Route Farm to name just the vegetable providers.

La Doctorante ordered the Hodo Soy Beanery organic lemongrass tofu – another great name – which was no less impressive. Slabs of shitake mushroom stood up in the middle, and the whole thing was tossed with a nice onion and chili sauce, but not too spicy.

After lunch, we ambled over to SFMoMA, a place that like Boston’s ICA is sometimes accused of having architecture greater than any of the work inside. I’ve always liked the building, and vistas inside like this one always make me happy.

We took in two great exhibitions, on Lee Miller and Frida Kahlo, about which I will blog separately, but I will leave you with this sculpture that was part of a show on contemporary Chinese art, well-timed to the auspicious day and Olympic opening.