Drinks, then sushi?

My friend Kay went to a new happy hour thing last night that sounds pretty cool. It's the most intriguing happy hour concept I've heard of since the 25-cent Pabst offer, and this one sounds a little more chic.

Here's what she had to say:

"Third Thursdays at the California Academy of Sciences is definitely the
coolest thing I've been to in quite a while. What a great idea for them
to stay open late, hire a band, and serve cocktails! It definitely
brought out the 25- to 35-year-old professional crowd.

I guess the aquarium part used to be the Steinhart aquarium in Golden
Gate park. My friends remembered going there as kids and watching their
classmates (not themselves, of course!) throwing pennies in the
alligator tank, and they both remembered the two-headed snake. There
are no alligators or two-headed snakes at the aquarium now, but there
is this amazing! Amazonian fish, I think it's called Pirarucu,
Arapaima, that must be five feet long, with huge, beautiful scales,
that has a tooth-covered tongue that it uses instead of regular teeth
to crush its food. There's also a Dog-Eating Catfish that really does
eat mammals--well, the carcasses of mammals, anyway.

I didn't think it was possible to enjoy looking at anything more than I
enjoyed watching that Amazonian fish, but there is this other tank that
has several Moray eels and a very, very large Giant Seabass that had
the coolest, yet creepiest big glassy eyes I've ever seen on a fish.
And he kept watching me, through whatever little window I went to. But
I don't think he was evil. The eels had these pipes to hang out in, and
one came halfway out and the Giant Seabass came over and nuzzled it.

We also got to see a soft-shelled turtle (I can't remember what it was
called) wake up where it had buried itself under the sand and come up
to breathe some air through its "snorkle-like nose." It doesn't sound
all that exciting, but considering that we never even would have known
it was there except that he woke up while we were looking, we were
pretty excited. And he was pretty strange looking.

There's also this room upstairs that at first looks like it's just a
boring classroom, but it's full of fascinating things, like stuffed
animals and birds (the kind that were once alive, not the plush toys),
many, many beautiful and varied eggs (I wish I could keep a basket full
of them in my house), a bear hide that you can touch (it feels thick
and lush and warm), owl pellets that you can touch (I didn't), and
much, much more. I loved that room.

The main exhibit there right now is ants. It was pretty boring and made
me feel itchy.

The bar is just a temporary, catering-type deal. I got a gin and tonic
for $5, which I thought was pretty good, but my friends got bottles of
Becks beer for $5 each, which wasn't really so good. Oh, and there's
some sort of raffle drawing with business cards that you drop in at the
bar, but I never heard the drawing so I don't know anymore than that.

I would go back again and again to see my new friends the fish."

Here are the details:

Third Thursdays at the California Academy of Sciences
875 Howard Street b/n 4th and 5th
5pm - 9pm
$5 cover

We should round up a posse for drinks (maybe followed by dinner? sushi seems appropriate) for May 19.