I swear I tried to come up with a less pornographic-sounding title.

Okay, I didn’t.  But I thought about it.

It may have taken me nearly 40 years but I finally made a proper trip to San Francisco.  It was pretty awesome.  Beautiful scenery, amazing architecture, friendly people, lots of local color (read: homeless/crazy people) and most importantly, unseasonably warm weather and clear skies for 5 straight days.  The locals almost seemed mad about that.  While there I saw all of the touristy things that one should on their maiden visit to San Fran; The Walt Disney Family Museum, the golden gate bridge, Pier 39 and Haight Ashbury.  My traveling companions and I also took every opportunity to enjoy the food of this culinary destination city.  I often wondered what is the native cuisine of San Fran but came up with some mixed answers.  With the city’s large Asian population, a lot of Asian food looms large (which I love) but there’s also a lot of Mexican food (some claim the burrito has its roots in San Fran) and Southern food.  Not to mention, food trucks galore, but I’m getting ahead of myself.  I documented every meal I had in town so please enjoy the findings of my research!

Burger Meister (CLOSED)

Our first stop upon arriving in the city (First, meaning we ate among our luggage which we’d just hauled across town) was the Cole Valley location of Burger Meister.  Locally owned and locally sourced, Burger Meister’s goal is to deliver amazing burgers at affordable prices.  I dove in head first and ordered the house specialty: the Mesiterburger, with fresh avocado, thick-cut bacon, sauteed mushrooms, sauteed onions and choice of cheese (I chose Pepper Jack).

The burger was well cooked and messy as hell, which I enjoyed.  Super high quality bacon set it off nicely and I enjoyed the use of red onions, a particularly bold choice for sautee as I usually only see sweet onions done in this manner.  Red onions are more burger-friendly flavor-wise.  The folks at Burger Meister know their stuff.  I also had a “Blended Cow” milkshake with Vanilla ice cream and Ghirardelli chocolate syrup.  Pretty standard but damn tasty. Further reading.

Brenda’s French Soul Food

Dinner for our first night in SF was at Brenda’s, located in the Tenderloin; a part of town known for its scared white people urban diversity.  This place is the brain child of  Louisiana’s own Chef Brenda, who brought her Nawlin’s-born creole culinary skills to SF in 1997 and ten years later (along with her wife, Libby), opened the very place we were sitting in for dinner.  This was arguably the finest restaurant meal I had in this city.  Readers of this here blog know that I went on a life changing trip to New Orleans last year where I acquired a forever love of creole-style cooking.  This place hit me where I live.

I started with the Crawfish Beignets (because anything donut-like is automatically my favorite thing) with spiced with cayenne, scallions & cheddar.  It was less light and fluffy like a Beignet and more hearty filled sandwich-like.  SUPER tasty.  I also had the buttermilk-fried cauliflower with a side of house ranch dressing.  So simple and yet so tasty.  Golden-fried to create a great crunch but not at all greasy.  Very impressive starters.

While my dining companions gave high marks to just about everything they tried (Hush puppies being the big hit with an honorable mention to Brenda’s amazing fried chicken, which is worth the trip alone) but my “Stop the presses” moment came from the Catfish des Allemands, which is Bronzed catfish and crawfish étouffée over pecan rice pilaf.  I would put the sauce in this etouffee among one of the best I’ve ever had.  It was so robust, so full of juicy tomato flavor, rich and satisfying.  This dish was nothing short of a grand slam.  Absolutely fantastic.  Seriously, go to this place.  Further reading.

Coqueta

First proper meal of day two was the first and only honest-to-Alton Brown celebrity chef restaurant, Michael Chiarello’s Coqueta, located on Pier 5 in the Embercadero.  Much like the term “Coqueta” is Spanish for “Flirting with no intention of putting out”, this place is eager to serve you small plates with no intention of stuffing you.  Spanish style cuisine and small bites are the order of the day.  This was the really the first place on my trip where I started to notice the commitment San Fran’s culinary community has to exquisite presentation.  Case in point: The Pintxos (small skewers of meat, cheese and/or jammy yummyness in a single bite served table-side)

Tell me that shit isn’t ART.

For my small plates, I started with Patatas Bravas (Smoked New Potatoes with Bravas salsa and garlic Aioli).  It was a tasty enough dish but nothing Earth shattering.  Just a nicely presented treat for those of me who love potatoes.

Next up was Albondigas a la Feria (Duck and pork meatballs with tart cherry temperanilla salsa and crispy shallots).  With these two proteins front and center, the richness and juicyness factor of these balls were cranked up to 10.  A successful dish that I thoroughly enjoyed.

Overall I would say Coqueta was a nice place to stop for a snack but the price seemed more “dinner” for what we got.  Still, this was a good place for Tapas made under the direction of a very talented chef and his team.  Note to self: try the Paella when I have more time.  Further reading.

Bambino’s Ristorante

For dinner we made a quick (and I do mean quick) stop to a small Italian restaurant near our rental house.  Bambino’s is small, quaint and packs all of the San Fran charm you could want or need into a home-style Italian joint.  I had the Angel Hair Pasta with tomato, artichoke, basil and shrimp.  Simple, light and delicious.  I almost got gnocchi but I learned quickly in San Francisco that you pretty much need to eat light before you jump on the muni/BART/trolley/bus/sketchy bike ride because it will be followed by 6 blocks of walking, which one cannot due with a tummy full of potato flour.  But this dish was very tasty and the price was good.  I could see myself eating here regularly to explore the rest of the menu if I lived here.

Farmer Brown (CLOSED)

Brunch was a must while in town so the following morning, we ate at Framer Brown. This Southern-inspired restaurant offers fresh food made with locally sourced ingredients.  They also make some pretty tasty cocktails.  As for me, I was there for the brunch buffet, which I thoroughly enjoyed.  Cheesey grits, fried catfish, chicken and waffles with all the other standard breakfast fare presented and accounted for.  Good stuff.

The only real downside to this otherwise very impressive meal was some less-than-stellar service.  More than half the people I was traveling with had been there before and raved about the service so I’m willing to chalk this up to an isolated incident but not gonna lie, it will be fresh in my mind when I go back.  and of course I’m going back cuz duh, brunch.  Further reading.

Neptune’s Waterfront Grill and Bar (CLOSED)

We did lots of touristy stuff in SF but the most touristy thing we did was a trip to Pier 39 with a boat ride around the bay and Golden Gate Bridge.  After our ride we decided to hit up a nearby restaurant.  Neptune’s Waterfront Grill and Bar wasn’t the most impressive place I ate but they did have big frilly drinks with fruit in them and some decent food.  Just not what I ate.  Neptune’s offers a “Lobster Mac and Cheese” which is bland, under seasoned and barely contains any trace of lobster (a fact the price seemed to be unaware of).  Meh.

  

By the bye, if you want the most bomb lobster mac and cheese you will ever have ever in life, go to D Bar in Hillcrest.  You will thank me later.

Alembic

I had been planning this trip for weeks.  Asking friends, co-workers, colleagues and strangers where to eat and drink.  The gold star suggestion came from my co-worker Nick who told me this was the place to go in Haight Ashbury.  Imagine my delight when I discovered that the rest of my group were already planning to go there.   Alembic bills itself as a bar and I will tell you that their craft cocktails are top shelf.  Absolutely spectacular libations but the real break through was the small plates of food offered.  They were, quite simply, the best food I had in San Francisco.   With such a large group, we ordered nearly the entire menu.  I tried a lot of dishes and did not have a bad bite of food at all but I’m gonna focus on the three things I personally ordered.

I started with the corn fritters  with padron peppers, seabeans and smoked tomato salt.  They were crunchy, sweet and loaded with concentrated flavors.  I am usually not a fan of crunchy (my love can be found on team crispy) but these were so well done and so snackable.  I could eat a bucket of them.

Up next was the Rye Bao with confit pork, pickled fennel, jalapeno and black garlic aioli .  Oh. My. God. You. Guys.  This was spectacular.  A perfect little sandwich with flavors that hit you in succession: the soft, delicately sweet bun.  The rich tender pork,  The zesty herbiness of the fennel,  the heat of the jalapeno and the zing of the aioli.  This dish is served with 3 bao but Alembic knows damn well you will be hooked after that plate and offers them a la carte for $5 each.  Outstanding.  I have dreamt of these things every night since.  Not even kidding.

Finally was the Local Albacore with cherry tomato, hungarian wax pepper and ajo blanco.  In addition to being supremely fresh and tasty, this dish was very unusual for me.  As a sushi junkie, all of the raw tuna I eat is always served on a cold plate.  The tomatoes and peppers were seared, then served hot on top of the tuna.  Not only did this create a really unique and delicious flavor contrast, it really changed the flavor profile of the fish and it was kind of amazing.  I loved it.

We were not done raving about Alembic and I doubt we will be anytime soon so if you’re reading this blog entry for your MUST GO HERE place, this is it.  Trust. Further reading.

Crepes on Cole

Breakfast the following morning was at a small, charming place located right near our rental house.  Crepes on Cole bills itself as “French-Californian crepery with a distinctive Parisian feel.”  Having never been to Paris myself, I can only assume that a typical crepery mirrors the Can-Can scene from Baz Luhrman’s masterpiece “Moulin Rouge” complete with rhinestoned strippers dangling from the ceiling on a trapeze, drag queen dwarfs krumping on tables and tightly choreographed dance numbers set to electro-Y2K remakes of Nirvana songs.  If that’s the case, Crepes on Cole has failed miserably on their erroneous claim!  But seriously, it was a sweet space for breakfast.  I had the Nutella and peanut butter crepe with fresh fruit.  Pretty tasty with a unique surprise:  Crunchy peanut butter!  PLOT TWIST!  Not my favorite type of peanut butter in the world but very tasty nonetheless.  Further reading.

The Ice Cream Bar

Interesting fact about San Francisco:  There’s lots of ice cream places in the city.  Like, a lot a lot.  As luck would have it, Amy, Durwood and I broke off from the group to search for some ice cream explore our neighborhood.  This search wound us up at an honest-to-Mayberry old style ice cream shop and soda pop place called The Ice Cream Bar, which the is the cutest friggin’ thing ever.  Amy was eager to try something unique and boy, she found it.   It was a milkshake made with Duchesse de Bourgogne Flemish Red Ale, Toro Albala Don PX 2010 sherry, Morello cherry ice cream, and turbinado syrup.  Readers of this here blog can tell you I am no fan of beer but I gotta say, this was pretty damned tasty.

I was here for the ice cream and I wasted no time ordering one of the house specials: an ice cream cookie sandwich made with banana cream pie ice cream between two chocolate chip cookies.  Everything made from scratch.  The ice cream was sweet with an almost gelato-like consistency.  The cookies were soft and chewy.  Just a perfect snack that transports you back to a simpler time of soda jerks, doo wop and classic cars without all that embarrassing political history.  Also, go to this website so you can see how GOD DAMNED ADORABLE this place is.

Foreign Cinema

For dinner on our final night in town, we got all gussied up and went to the Mission district for some outdoor California/Mediterranean-style food and foreign films projected on a giant wall at the aptly named Foreign Cinema.  The menu changes daily so my descriptions will be a bit more vague.  I started with a saffron pasta with blue crab.  This dish was beautifully presented but again with the “Served as an appetizer but priced as a main course”.  Granted it’s topped with caviar but I prefer the price point be determined by something less important than a garnish.  That seems to be a thing here.  It was a good dish but nothing spectacular and the outdoor setting raced to cool this dish to a less than desirable temperature.  That’s impressive for me because usually I eat so fast my plate is still smoking when I finish my food.

For my main course, I enjoyed a braised pork chop with roasted peppers, grilled leeks and champagne grapes.  The meat was well cooked, the peppers had great flavor and the grapes really added a nice sweetness.

This was a strong finish after a fairly weak start but that’s kind of the beauty of this place’s daily-changing menu.  I would go back but for the purposes of a review, I’d say I liked it but didn’t love it.  The movie playing was basically background visual as there was no audio but there were subtitles.  I see what you did there, Foreign Cinema… further reading.

Soma StrEat Food Truck Court

The Last stop (tear) in our SF trip was The Soma StrEat (HA!) Food Truck Court, which features a rotating line up of local food trucks in a park that also features beer, wine, tv screens, carnival games, wifi, and heat lamps for the cold nights.  So, heaven, basically.  There was some massive sensory overload and I had to choose my food wisely.  I decided to hit up Bacon Bacon because, yeah.    They’re known for their burger and it was pretty easy to see why once I got my mouth on it.  The Double Bacon Cheeseburger features All Natural Angus Beef, Bacon, Caramelized Onions, Secret Sauce and Cheddar.  All full of yum and more yum.  I paired it with a nice ginger lemonade from the nearby beverage truck whose name escapes me.

The real star was what I ate next.  Seoul on Wheels  offers up a distinctly Korean take on carne asade fries.  Crinkle cut fries with Korean BBQ beef, sriracha, cilantro and melted cheeses.  PORNOGRAPHIC is really the only way I can describe this.  Look at this picture.  LOOK AT IT!!!

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful in your life?  No.  No you have not.  This is Sofia Vergara and Joe Maganiello making love on a Grecian countryside-level beautiful.  Here’s a picture that aptly portrays me watching them make this for me.

So that was the full culinary disclosure review of my first visit to San Francisco!  I really loved my trip and the city.  It’s not some place I could ever live because I have to be able to escape people sometimes and that’s just not feasible there but I am already planning to return as San Diego is not so far away in the grand scheme of things.

And speaking of San Diego, I will continue updating with more and more reviews of places to eat in my own city that I love so much.  Thanks for reading.  It’s great to be back.

-Anthony