San Francisco and what to do in it

that being said, i still find some great stuff in the bargain bins at amoeba (which are bigger than most stores inventories) it's just so colossal and chaotic that it scares away most people.

(I kid, I kid - post-burst SF is actually supremely pleasant again)

i went back a few weeks later and had the worst experience in my entire life. bad service, a waitress that wispers even though the music is loud, and she has a tongue ring and has a lisp so you can't understand her even if she did speak up. they made us sit at a super small table (like 2 square feet) for 5 people. and half of the table had this artsy rock formation in the middle of it. we had to put our drinks on the ground because there wasn't enough room. the food was good, but the service was bad, which made the food kinda bad.

moral of story is, go there with gygax or don't go there at all.

well, better than smogville. i did inform you that i might be relocating , stop rubbing it in. (JasonD please treat as CONFIDENTIAL! PLEASE)

wrt "the boom"!: The boom wasn't so bothersome (so long as you ignored the establishments that catered to the boomers...) i mean really spencer, nothing says "dotcom SF" like foreign cinema:

"We were kind of the place for the chic, young, Prada-wearing, cell phone-carrying, CNBC-watching crowd, and for a while we were packed every night," explained Bruce McDonald, owner of the Foreign Cinema restaurant in San Francisco's Mission district.

Foreign Cinema, located in a spacious warehouse, complete with a wall-sized movie screen for diners' entertainment, used to serve 400 people a night. That number fell to as few as 30 late last year, as unemployment in the Internet sector mounted and surviving dot-com companies started watching their pennies.

To try to win back customers, Foreign Cinema recently revamped its pricey French Bistro menu to offer somewhat lower priced American comfort food like pork chops.

The film fare has changed, from esoteric foreign films to some cheerier all-American musicals like "Singing in the Rain." Comfort entertainment to go with the comfort food, which it is serving in increasingly large portions.

Foreign Cinema sees its moves as critical to its survival. It wants to reach out to an older, somewhat less stylish crowd that may not have money to burn but has enough to eat out from time to time.

"I do mourn the old days," McDonald said. "Life was a hell of a lot easier and you could count on a lot of money coming in. Now you have to work hard for it."

ugh.

berkeley, university ave and shattuck.

straight off the downtown berkeley bart.

modlang (www.modlang.com) - for latest uk imports. lot's of garage and psych stuff. very pop-oriented.

the comic store next to modlang rocks. i can't remember the name.

crepes a go-go... my favorite crepe place in the bay. i like it because it's not as frou frou as all those dumbass gourmet places. the (dark) chocolate, banana, coconut crepe is just perfect in semi-sweetness, texture, and fillingness.

there's a lot more in this area foodwise, etc. great china. sushiboat (or sushico). thai e sun.

if you head north on shattuck you find the gourmet ghetto where nouveau cuisine came from. the cheese board is the shit there for breads and cheeses. there's a deli next to a pegasus books that also rocks. barney's burgers is good. cha'am on shattuck is really really good thai.

berkeley... telegraph and durant

a 10 minute stroll up from downtown berkeley BART...

amoeba - the berkeley location doesn't have as good a used selection but the new stuff is just as together and it's a block down from rasputin's, which is another large store that isn't amoeba haight, but still decent. rasputins has a BUTTLOAD of seven inches. that's right. a buttload. both of these stores are also in the telegraph area of berkeley which has both moe's and cody's books, and more ... plus lot's of great food.

cafe intermezzo has awesome pbhb sandwiches...peanut butter honey and banana on big, thick wheat bread. the salads there are easily two meals and really good.

blue nile... great egyptian food.

top dog on durant is a favorite for hot dogs and stuff.

king pin donut on durant will make you fat with glee. the buttermilk donuts are pretty awesome. it's also on the end of the asian hallway... where you can pretty much get fast food asian of many different varieties. some better than others... but generally edible.

this area's also pretty well hooked up with vintage clothing stores and stuff and lot's of street vendors with all the dirty hippie hook ups you could possibly want.

Rockridge at college ave... off Rockridge Bart station.

great food... zacharay's deep dish chicago pizza is the shit.

pearl of siam is decent thai.

cactus taqueria is one of my favorite burrito joints... it's right off the bart there. it's probably not authentic enough... but it's all natural and way good.

barney's is there if you want burgers and shakes and curly fries that rock.

there's a dreyers ice cream store here. yum!

also on this stop is pendragon books... a small place that's pretty well packed... and another book store that's south on college on the right that i can't remember the name. both are very tasteful and have a great collection of the latest bits.

saturn records kicks ass. it's a small crowded place. there's a small section of spockmorgue weirdo stuff you can't find most places. it's also one of the best place in the bay area to find collector's vinyl. if you wanna tempt yourself with $30 trips to rarity heaven, saturn will probably do you right. i also like it cause they've got very condensed sections of certain types of music. pan through their punk section and you'll find the best of the best. you won't find the latest or the rare name... but there's a quality you usually don't find at most stores in the area.

i could describe a few other hoods... but but but...
m.

Also, I always eat at a Barney's whenever I'm in the Bay Area. The curly-fries are great for hangovers!

the one great thing about the area is the quantity of different types of restaurants. brazilian pizza? tibetan? afghan? and more... it's all there.

Sushi A'float Restaurant is the one i was trying to remember... they send you your sushi on a little boat....

another thing... with BART, it's easy to stay in berkeley... hit some breakfast ... goof around... get some lunch... then get on bart and go into san fran goof around and then BART back to where you're staying and vice versa... you can really mix and match the locales if you want that way.
m.

i'm not sure if you're going to be in the east bay during the weekend, but you have to go to Berkely on Sunday morning. across the street from the Ashby BART station (where they have a killer flea market with a real drum circle, not that hippy shit you find in Golden Gate park, and you can buy some crazy swords) is a Thai Temple. every Sunday until about 1.30 or 2, they have Thai brunch. it's the best thing in the entire world. everything is super duper cheap, and the servings are huge. 4$ gets you a heaping serving of your favorite Thai food. The mangos and sticky rice are to die for!!!

le cheval (french vietnamese) - downtown oakland (10th/clay)
-one of my favorite restaurants in the bay area and suprisingly affordable
lotus thai (on piedmont ave. near rockridge and college)
-service/decor used to be better, but the food is still good.

there is a really good comic store on piedmont too but there is an even better one on divisadero between page and oak in SF called comix experience, it's got all the small run indie and fantagraphics-like stuff. they have a complete set of meatcake!

bay tours: forget the fisherman's wharf, go downtown to the ferry building (where market ends downtown) on a clear day and take the tiburon/angel island ferry. pack a lunch and hike on angel island, a 740 acre island in the middle of the bay. $8 including park admission and is a nice way to spend a half day when the weather's nice away from the city. the views from the ferry of downtown SF, north SF, alcatraz, golden gate bridge are really worth it for the perspective from the water.

fisherman's wharf: crap, crap and more crap. tourist traps, revisionist/false history (ghiradelli chocolate is something of a manufactured myth), but there is an In N Out hamburger on jefferson (btw leavenworth and jones) if you're hungry from hiking up telegraph hill to coit tower. uh... trying to think of more to write about...

golden gate park: i recommend the japanese tea garden, it's a nice little walking park in the middle of the park. if you want to walk from the haight to inner sunset or inner richmond, this is a good destination on the way. strawberry hill is kind of fun to hike up, you get some nice views up there.

museums:
the asian art and deyoung museums are located in golden gate park but the deyoung is closed for renovation.
SFMOMA is pretty nice, they have a decent chagall retrospective through the summer.
next door, is the yerba buena center for the arts [keep checking back]

The only good thing about Fisherman's Wharf is that the Musee Mecanique moved there temporarily while they rebuild the Cliff House. Haven't been to the new home but this collection is my favorite thing to show out of towners; absolutely amazingly huge collection of coin-operated diaoramas from the early 20th century.

Sutro Baths is my favorite place in the entire world.

Beauty Bar: bring some coke and make a hundred new friends. Yuck.

there was one really good club here but it moved to the sublounge (dogpatch - 3rd/20th).

Make OUt Room is the best bar in the Mission but go to get fucked up, not for excellently mixed drinks (ditto Latin American Club up the street).

they occasionally have good live music here (i saw the m0unt@in g0@ts here 3-4 years ago? jonathan richman played a 4 hour set here as well).

The only good thing about Fisherman's Wharf is that the Musee Mecanique moved there temporarily while they rebuild the Cliff House. Haven't been to the new home but this collection is my favorite thing to show out of towners; absolutely amazingly huge collection of coin-operated diaoramas from the early 20th century.

YES! excellent recomendation, i forgot that it moved... what ever happend to the camera obscura?

oh yes the best ice cream in the world is now located in berkeley: mondo gelato on shattuck right by bart.

ciao bella is my favorite, they have a shop at 3rd/harrison and a new cafe in the new ferry building.

okay, i'll try to think of more when i get back on sunday.

(That said, there are more and more places that "feature" Mitchell's ice cream nowadays, so maybe just keep an eye peeled for it since there's little else to do near San Jose @ 29th!)

Also, I stand by my recommendations. The critiques upthread are TYPICAL Bay Area snob bullshit.

SF/East Bay has a large amount of charismatic, conveniently located "ok" food joints, with the occasional fucking excellent place, in a sparse mire of shitty places.

LA has a slightly smaller amount of not-as-conveniently located restaurants, but they are all "fucking excellent", though surrounded by a lot of shitty restaurants.

Your right, you don't, so keep your insulting nonsense judgments about me to yourself.

The places I mentioned are good fun, and I doubt most people visiting them would have your same elitist reaction ("HORRIBLE hill-dwelling BMW-driving loudmouths", "Clientele are hysterical young people trying to be posh", "Beauty Bar: bring some coke and make a hundred new friends. Yuck"). Your smug, sickening and judgmental attitude reminds me why I left. Yuck, indeed.

so yeah, these aren't necessarily my picks for best of SF but good advice caters to those who are asking for it.

i'm sure someone much smugger than i am (impossible!) will chime in about how great the french laundry is even though they haven't been there in 3 years or something but that's really not going to help clarke and stolenbus (charlieva?) on their adventure.

Gygax spelled out in more detail the reasons why I made the points I did. I really do think that both ceasar and foreign cinema are overpriced; well, foreign cinema is criminally overpriced and I think the food there is not as good as the concept of the restaurant (which is a good idea). Ceasar isn't so much overpriced (although the drinks there are expensive, but they are, from what I understand, well mixed {note: I don't drink anymore}), but it is terribly loud in there and you're more apt to hear the conversation at the next table than the person across from you. Sorry!

The Beauty Bar is a coke den, or was the last time I went. It was fun when it opened but then they started charging a cover at the door. It seemed to be a place for the wanna-be-NYC-hipster electroclash detritus to wash up. It might be fun to visit once though but not if you've been to the New York branch already.

vegetarian:
there are some famous/pricy veg/vegan restaurants (most notably millenium and greens), but here are some other more reasonable ones:
golden ear (o'farrell btw. jones/leavenworth)
herbivore - a small chain: divisadero/fell & valencia/21
legume - 24th/noe

another suprise to look out for:
the tamale lady, a woman (just turned 50 last week) who travels from bar to bar in the mission (sometimes lower haight) has a rolling cart full of fresh tamales (and hot sauce) which is always a treat.

IMPORTANT REMINDER:
don't think because you're going to california in the middle of august that you will be greeted with blue skies and a warm sunrays washing over you. san francisco is notoriously gray and foggy and cold and windy in the summer months. (i spent the fourth about 100 miles inland and it was in the 90s. when i drove back into SF it was 57 mid-day). bring layers. the east bay (berkeley/oakland) is about 10-20 degrees warmer on average. even the east side of SF can be 10 degrees warmer than the west side. again: BRING LAYERS.

Thanks!

We went to Toronado (beer bar) on the lower Haight last night. My wife said, “I never thought I would be in a bar again that smelled like [our dive bar in law school]”.

oh cool! I thought for sure Toronado had closed sometime in the past

Beer selection was insane and the vibes were great once I got the hang of it (don’t ask questions).

Rosamunde recently closed but yeah Toronado is still kicking along.

guy at door: you know this is cash only

rosamunde can go to hell (at least the original owner known as "Smiley")

I think rosamunde is reopening?

(it reopened yesterday)

Yeah I heard some rumor about that. Like the workers took it over?

Feel like I'm the only SF resident on here sometimes... Rosamunde (Haight) never closed it was sold to Rosamunde employee #1 who rebranded it as Berliner Berliner. She also makes her own sausages unlike Rosamunde that buys their product from a major big box retailer.

Toronado also never closed but the two bars that paid a hefty sum to license the name (SD and Seattle) both closed in the past 5 years. Toronado just celebrated their 36th anniversary, still employee owned and operated. They own the whole building so they are approaching legacy status. I wish PBKR would have let me know as I have a sizeable tab there that I could have hosted a round or two.

Hurrah for clarity! Anyway drinks on Steve er wait

Have not met any ilxors in real life. Maybe next trip!

Steve, thanks for putting Duarte's on the map for us and to all the other CA folks who offered advice.

We're back home feeling very lucky and recharged.

Oh I wouldn't have met you guys, just sent a round lol.

I ate at John’s Grill last night

Oh I wouldn't have met you guys, just sent a round lol.

:(

I would have loved to have met up but didn't want to impose on plans -- also it's been a bit of a holiday whirl for me on various fronts!

Thanks, Ned. Would love to meet up on another trip some time.

Just a quick note that I'll be at the Laetitia Sadier show at the Chapel tonight! My birthday treat to myself, and why not?

Ok as a former Seattle resident (like 20+ yrs ago at this point) I am super excited about KEXP Bay Area (in 2 wks!)

KEXP SF is live on your terrestrial receiver @92.7FM

thats so fuckin awesome

Thanks! Tuned in today

Whoo boy we're going to be drowning in fliers and mailouts by Election Day

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/04/04/san-francisco-mayor-race-aaron-peskin-00150538

On a wholly separate note -- lukas and I are both seeing Steve Roach at Grace Cathedral on Saturday and I've got a couple of guest list spots open. If anyone wants in, let me know!

https://gracecathedral.org/calendar-events/reflections-steve-roach-structures-from-silence/

(To the ilxor who asked -- you need to get me your own email in your message, I don't know it otherwise!)