We ate well ... in November

I saved a picture a while back in Blogger without posting it, so I did a "view drafts" to find it. And discovered this post, which somehow never got posted back then. Mom was visiting, so here's a happy memory for Mother's Day. More to come when she visits next week!
Mom and I were locavores yesterday: We had lunch and dinner at restaurants within three blocks of home. Lunch was at Gaia Bistro, which as always was delicious. This is the egg sandwich. Totally delectable.
For dinner, I had a gift certificate to Izakaya Den, which is new and across from Sushi Den. They're owned by the same guy. He built the building for it, and it's quite nice inside, and full of trendy people.
And some not-so-trendy people, since Mom and I had no idea that MYO handrolls means "Make Your Own." DIY I know, but MYO? So we ordered this MYO sampler and got a plate of nori, some rice, and a bowl of fixin's. Which was good and fun, but a surprise!
Something else interesting we got was this "napoleon" of Serrano ham (the forerunner of prosciutto), goat cheese, basil and tomatoes, with aged balsamic. Very tasty.

You may have noticed that ham and cheese napoleon is not very Japanese. Izakaya Den's thing is that it offers Japanese dishes on the left side of the menu (including a full sushi bar), and Mediterranean dishes on the right. Which is weird, but it works.
The place was packed, anyway.

We also had some Kobe beef medallions with chive sprouts, and I had some octopus from the sushi bar, and we shared clafoutis for dessert. The drink pictured above is a "Riki-shaw," which is pear vodka, sake and something else. I liked it, but at $11 I only sprang for one.