Black Friday at the Westfield Centre

Black Friday. The Day after Thanksgiving. The biggest sale day of the year or the "No-buy" day, depending how you see it. We had the day off. We needed to get a new pair of glasses for Cedric and hand cream for me. Seeing the new Disney animated/live action feature "Enchanted" was also on our list. When we saw the movie was only playing at four theatres in town (not even the multiplex Metreon), we aimed at spending the day around Union Square. We'd try the brand new Century Theatres on Mission in the Bloomingdale's building. Eating lunch around Union Square has always been a difficult one. There isn't much between the hot dogs on the street or the combo Cheesecake Factory on Macy's top floor or Neiman Marcus' Rotunda and the latter are always super busy. Instead, we stopped in the Mission district in our favorite taqueria to have super quesadillas con carnitas (for the grown-ups) and meat tacos (for the girls) at Pancho Villa. As good as ever and at 11.30am we beat the crowds.

All abord bus 14 along Mission. Sat next to a drunkard who kept offering a can of beer to Cedric. Made it to Mission & 5th. We spotted the entrance to the Century Theatres on the back of the Bloomingdale's/Westfield shopping center. Up five floors, roll down the red carpet. What a nice place this is.

I had no idea the new shopping center included a new set of silver screens and what's not to like about this one? No crowds, clean spacious lobby, new comfy seats with cup holders (and retractable armrests, yes!), direct entrance to Westfield on top floor if you've got time to kill before the trailers. That's the option we chose. We had 40 minutes to go before movie time. We found Cedric's sun glasses in 20 minutes while the girls twirled in the glasses shop taking advantage of the shiny slippery floor.

"Enchanted" was a very pleasant surprise. A self-deprecatory modern fairy tale, the movie has Prince Edward and the lovely Giselle maiden fall in love at first sight after one song and decide to "get married before noon." Shall we? No no no, the evil queen gets in their way and propels the candid Giselle to modern day New York. The entire movie is an ode to Disney's Snow White in many ways and the song/dance numbers make it delicious and refreshing. These workers in blue overalls dancing in Central Park are hot cakes!

Speaking of which, it was time for a cup of hot tea after the movie. Cocola Bakery was a welcome haven after walking down many floors to find L'Occitane on the first floor and a hair salon tucked in a corner next to the Muni entrance at the concourse level. Small tables, long bakery counter, good choice of pastries and baked goods, hot drinks, just what we needed. My oh my the size of the cups of chocolate! When I saw them arrive on the tray, I never thought my girls would get through half of one. Fortunately, they scored pretty high in my girls opinion and they both sipped them without a wink. And that was the end of our day.