San Francisco Journal Entry #4: Fooding
Burma Superstar: clouds of people waiting
I admit, we could have been more aggressive about pursuing dining options. We concentrated on activity and ended up eating where we dropped due to exhaustion. Luckily, San Francisco is such a foodie city that we were guaranteed to eat well wherever we were.
The major discovery for me was in Little Richmond, a neighbourhood that Mia from Sequential Tart used to live in (I later discovered that my cousin Johnson used to live there, too). A moderately dense residential area with generous streets, the area's main shopping drag is very multicultural: Chinese grocery stores, Eastern European eateries, Vietnamese restaurants, and French bistros, all pressed up against each other in tall, narrow post-Victorians.
Mia met us at the De Young Museum, where Ray and I had spent the afternoon. She was taking us to Burma Superstar and had sent her family ahead to start the wait at the small but popular restaurant. When we arrived, we saw a cloud (it was too diffuse to call a "crowd") of people outside. We were told that there was a 45-minute wait. One of Mia's relatives had already written her name and a cellphone number on the clipboard that hangs in the restaurant's phone booth-sized foyer, so we felt free to explore the neighbourhood. We spent most of the time at Green Apple Books, a new/used book/CD/related stuff store housed in two three-story buildings, separated by another building. I was telling Mia about our trip to the necropolis Colma when she spotted a local writer's murder mystery set in... Colma! I regret that I didn't buy that book.
When we got "the call", we gathered up the troops and returned to Burma Superstar. The outside "waiting room" wasn't any less populated. Inside, the small restaurant was crowded. There was a sign advertising Aung San Suu Kyi t-shirts, but I didn't see any. By this time, I was really hungry and very excited to try a new cuisine. It was described to us as a combination of Chinese and Indian; I would add Thai. In other words: three kinds of delicious! I didn't write down what we ate -- I was too busy eating it! I remember a lamb curry and the tea leaf salad. I don't know what kind of tea leaf it was, but it was tasty.
Toy Boat Dessert Cafe: every town should have one
Afterwards, we walked over to the Toy Boat Dessert Cafe. It's a combined ice cream parlour, candy shop, retro toy shop and corner store. I bought Obama trading cards there! The place was totally adorable. Every city needs one!
We had a number of other successful food outings with friends.
On our first full day in San Francisco, my friend Brian took us on a whirlwind driving tour of the city and surrounds. Lunch was at Absinthe, a French bistro in Hayes Valley. The place looks like the kind of place you would use to film a scene set in a French bistro. A friend of Brian's wife did the post-impressionist-inspired paintings on the wall. I had a good trout dish, but didn't trust myself to have a glass of wine (I get sleepy), let alone absinthe (I fall over).
For supper, Brian surprised us by proposing we eat at the science centre. I expected those hard sponge bars of astronaut ice cream. Instead, we got The Moss Room, a high-end dining room in the basement of the California Academy of Science. You walk down a flight of stairs, along a moss-spouting wall of stone pieces and alight on a floor over an aquarium. It sort of put me off the fish options, so I had the pork chop.
After our visit to Colma, we had supper with Rachel on the Fourth of July. People take this holiday seriously. Very few restaurants were open, particularly in the evening. (Fireworks start at 9:30 p.m., insanely early for someone used to waiting until 11 for Canada Day fireworks in Edmonton, land of the late sunset.) We drove around in circles until I remembered that earlier that day, Ray and I had walked past two French restaurants that were open for business in an alley of fancy restaurants near our hotel. They were both still open in the evening. Both had outdoor patios -- which were really just charmingly improvised lines of folding tables run half-way out to the alley with a vinyl covering overhead -- and both were bustling. We chose Cafe Bastille; Ray had read a good write-up about. Inside, there was seating on the main floor and in the basement. It had a casual, nautical theme and a friendly, boisterous clientele. I decided to go for classics. I had the coq au vin (which reminded me of Gilbert's), and ordered the Crepes Suzette, but they were sold out. We missed the fireworks, too. Zut alors!
Trina Robbins suggested we meet up for supper before we headed to the opening of Cresting the Wave, an exhibit featuring the work of San Francisco comix artists, including Trina. With her partner, Steve Leialoha, in tow, we went to a favourite haunt of theirs, Chow, on in the Castro district. The place was large enough, but opened further back into a covered (and heated!) patio, which was more like an addition to a house. The food offerings were a leafier brand of diner. I had a delicious sole sandwich. The secret was paprika, I think, but don't quote me.
On our second Saturday night in San Francisco, we met up with one of my old high school classmates, Atsushi, whom I hadn't seen since university. He drove us to Palo Alto to tour Stanford, where he had worked as a researcher. Palm Drive -- literally the palm-tree lined drive on the main campus -- is gorgeous, but my big Stanford thrill was driving over part of the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). Particle physics is getting to me! For supper, Atsushi took us to a Japanese restaurant in Menlo Park. It looked like it had been converted from a 1960s diner. I had an excellent supper combo that included sashimi and the irresistibly named Stanford Roll, a concoction of yellowtail, avocado and I forget what else. It was brilliant.
Bookending Brian's car tour, my cousin Johnson took us out for a spin on our last full day in San Francisco. Ray experienced alarm clock fail, so we started with brunch at Cafe de la Presse, which is just across the street from the Chinatown gate. When I read the menu, I cursed myself for having woken up early and breakfasted on a Starbucks "protein plate" (mini-bagel, peanut butter, fruit). At the cafe, I only had room for a tomato salad, but it was great.
(I made a mental note to go back to Cafe de la Presse next time I'm in San Francisco. Another place to return to is Cafe Zoetrope, the restaurant owned by Francis Ford Coppola. He owns the copper-clad flatiron building that it's located in, as well as the vineyard that produces all the wine it serves. We had stopped in for desert with daveroguesf and nosaJ 'Is WYSIWYG' ttenroC from The VHive. Mine was a rich chocolate gelato and an excellent cafe americano.)
Supper with Johnson was near the Castro Theatre, where we had just been to the Silent Film Festival to see a Fall of the House of Usher double bill (American short, French feature) with daveroguesf. Johnson had heard good things about the Thai Chef. His sources did not lie. The menu is extensive, with charts that help you choose the chicken/beef/vegetarian, etc. option in mild/medium/hot. The restaurant's decor is nothing to write home about, but the place was hopping with happy people and lively conversation.
Ray and I did fairly well on our own, too. Our best find came after we saw Moon on the first Sunday night. We couldn't find a suitable (read: affordable) place in the vicinity of the cinema, so we walked vaguely homeward. We turned up a street and found restaurants on all four corners. Turns out we were in the theatre district -- our kind of neighbourhood! We chose Puccini & Pinetti, an Italian place attached to a boutique hotel. The restaurant was mid-level, mid-priced and amiable. Our waiter, who amused me with his resemblance to a young Tobey Maguire, knew all about Edmonton because he is a hockey fan. In California! Shocking! I was starving and needed the iron, so I stuck to the basics: spaghetti and meatballs and a Kenwood merlot. Simple bliss.
We also discovered the glory of "cafeteria food" in San Francisco. Every every major museum or gallery we went to had gourmand grub at peasant prices. You could get an ahi tuna salad at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), thematic curry chicken salad (delish!) after seeing the King Tut Exhibit at the De Young, fancy spins on ramen noodles at the Asian Art Museum. Someone needs to write a guide to great cafeteria dining in San Francisco. Oh, wait, that someone could be me! *goes to find publisher willing to pay upfront costs and "expenses"*
The one food experience we didn't even attempt was visiting the fresh markets. There is a supposedly very good one at the ferry terminal, just blocks from our hotel. We're going to have to stay in a place with a kitchen next time!