Hoagie,

Sorry that happened to you. Its really an epidemic here and seems to get worse by the year.

To anyone else coming to visit you can't leave anything visible in your car at all or it will get broken into. And even if you don't have anything visible, your car might get broken into.

It’s funny you say that.

When we got our car my girl was pissed about it not having a screen for the trunk. I️ of course told her she was way overreacting.

After the fact I️ read about how the car break ins are up %100 over last year in certain parts of town. It’s for sure something the rental companies should be telling folks.

At the end of the day I’m not too fussed. It’s a situation with an ignorant tourist parking in the wrong place at the wrong time. If I️ hadn’t gotten that spot I’d have paid $10 and parked across the road in the lot and not gotten broken into.

It’s really something I️ should have known about and been better prepared for.

Hoagie,

If it makes you feel any better (it won't), lots of cars get broken into in lots and garages too. It's just terrible all over the city.

French Laundry is great, but **** that $175 upcharge. The whole supplement thing is really getting out of hand at fine dining. At least they didn't skimp on the shaved truffle!

I totally agree with you re: Morimoto being whatever.

Hoagie -

Sorry to hear about the break-in. I've lived in New Orleans, New York, Argentina, Colombia, and Mexico, and I've seen (or have heard/heard of) more mid-day break-ins in 1 yr in SF than in the 16 yrs combined at the other places.

I still haven't made it to the Laundry. Ate at Per Se a few times over the years and just for some reason I haven't made it a priority yet. I don't think I'd pass up a French Laundry truffle risotto for any price tbh.

I ate at Moya in Soma after my BJJ class tonight. I embarrassingly have never eaten Ethiopan food and I think I have a new favorite cuisine (or at least Moya's version of it) - this place is fantastic. Everything was seasoned perfectly and the flavors are different than what I'm used to. I'm excited to go back and try the rest of the menu.

*the steak tartare, with spiced clarified butter and chili powder, was unlike any tartare I've had. I like tartares with different fats in them but didn't expect clarified butter and spice to mesh so well with it. It's great. I wish the meat was diced instead of ground but now I'm just being a nit

*there's no decor or ambience to speak of which adds to it's charm imo. There were only 2 people working. It was refreshing to see a small family-run operation banging out awesome food out of what looks like a takeout pizza joint in a spotty neighborhood.

89/100 - the best ethnic food I've had in SF

I knew somebody who had some sort of intense hallucinogen stolen from his car in SF. He said if the burglars took it thinking of the amount to take of other common edibles/hallucinogens, they'd trip out of their minds.

Has anyone here gotten comped at Graton? Would be cool to get free room offers near wine country, even if only in off seasons. Curious to hear if comps can be had for green (which is in my comfort zone), black (maybe if I sharpen up on card counting), or purple (nah) players.

Also a bartender last night told me that most Whole Foods in the area (all the SF ones plus some in Santa Clara county) get a shipment of Pliny every Wednesday at noon. I dunno if this is a big deal or not, but in my 4 months living here I haven't seen Pliny on sale other than at the actual Russian River brewery, so this was good news to me.

The jug shop gets Pliny every Wednesday too

Pliny is now at City Beer pretty often I think, generally have to ask at the counter though.

My favorite thing to do is paying $20 to get my car parked at Thanh Long

Does the Mission smell like weed all the time or is it temporary because they just legalized marihuana? Walked around the Mission upon arrival today and the smell was everywhere.

Hope they lower the upcharge from $175 if its black truffles instead of white truffles.

Got back from San Francisco yesterday, great trip made better by all the recommendations here.

Stayed in the Mission, around guerrero and 24th. Excellent location, close to lots of restaurants, bars, and Bart, yet fairly quiet at night.

Saturday walked to Dolores park where the smell of pot was overwhelming. Cool views though. Had dinner at Lolo which was very solid but not outstanding. No dish really stood out and my mezcal margarita was not balanced, too much mezcal not enough sour flavors.

Sunday walked to Noe Valley which was really cool. I liked the vibe and how it was a little quieter than the mission. I guess I'm getting old. In the afternoon we did the Anchor Steam tour which was nice too.

Sunday evening we went to Foreign Cinema which the wife absolutely loved. Food was solid, ambience great for a couple, and the movie choice (the great Gatsby) was a great pairing. We had the most delicious creme brulee I've ever tasted.

Since it poured on Monday we parked ourselves at Philz on Noe Valley. Great coffee and sandwiches. Their bagel was simple but delicious. Monday evening we went to Sugoi sushi which was really good and fairly priced. I had the tuna and the toro and I think I like the tuna better. That was a first! We went before the sea urchin discussion in the cooking thread, otherwise I would have tried it.

Tuesday was a full work day so we didn't do much. Wednesday we went for lunch at Limon, which is always solid, then had pastries at Tartine. Their bread pudding was amazing, and my wife loved the lemon tart. Finally, that night we walked to Almanac for beers. Great sours, even though I'm not a big sour fan.

Thanks for all the recommendations

Glad you had a great time! Foreign Cinema is one of my favorite restaurants there.

When you come back, I recommend going to Alcatraz. Yeah, it's a tourist trap, but wicked cool!

Just moved into a loft in a new building downtown. Looked at a bunch of different neighborhoods and I’d have to put this city up with NYC as far as just HOW different one neighborhood is from the next. Made the decision pretty difficult! Anyways it’s good to be centrally located. It’s in a “rough neighborhood” but I’d have to say after extensive searching that if one is willing to put up with a little of that, there are still good deals to be had in some of these new buildings.

Anyways, lazy poker player question first - does anyone know of a good service to get a deep apartment clean once a month? I haven’t lived in the states in 10 years.

Aside from that, good food, bar, or cool ttd recs in union square/TL area? Any and all will be checked out and are appreciated! Thx

igot,

TL/Union Square area is amazing for food and drink of all price points from dive to fancy.

What is ttd? Things to do? If so, that's easy, score hookers and drugs.

Get a little more specific, I've got tons of recs in that area. Start with a couple of types of places you're interested in.

Which part of the TL are you in?

We are going to be in San Francisco (1st time) for a conference in July and will be staying a few extra days to check out the city.

It is looking like we will have about four days tied up with conference stuff and the better part of four days of free time. We are going to be staying at the Mark Hopkins for part and an Airbnb nearby for the rest of our stay. We will be getting around by foot, muni or uber.

Rough Draft Itinerary:

Day 1 - Arrive early afternoon. Plan is to drop our bags at the hotel and then head out on foot and/or muni our way around to whereever, probably some combo of Chinatown/North Beach/Embarcadero. Grab lunch somewhere. Grab a nice-ish dinner.

Day 2 – Muir Woods in the morning, Sausalito for lunch. Maybe at Sushi Ran? Ferry back and wander around depending on energy levels. Will have conference related obligations in the evening.

Days 3, 4, 5 – All conference which ties me up every day including dinners which I expect will be at various restaurants fairly close to the Mark Hopkins. My wife will get to do some sort of organized currently unknown stuff. One of those days I believe the entire conference group is going to Alcatraz for a tour. There may or may not be some time included in there to explore the City on our own.

Day 6 (Sunday) – A full day to just explore. We will have to check out by 11 and can’t check in to the airbnb until 3 but I figured we would grab brunch somewhere and check out whatever that day. My wife has never had dim sum so we probably ought to include that somewhere along the way. Might be a good day to wander the Mission district also.

Day 7 – 6am to 9pm Yosemite bus tour. Eats up an entire day and makes for a long one but we have no clue if or when we will be this close again so I think we will take advantage while we are in the neighborhood.

Day 8 – Another day to do whatever. We may rent a car (and driver) for a few hours to zip around and check out anything that we wanted to see and didn’t get a chance to by that point.

Day 9 – Get up and head to the airport relatively early

We talked a bit about going to either Sonoma or Napa as well but we have both been pretty dry on the alcohol front so would probably only consider tacking it on as part of the car/driver rental in order to tailor the amount of time devoted to wineries.

There appears to be no shortage of fine dining available but the prices get pretty high pretty fast by the looks of it.

Interested in any must try places near the Mark Hopkins.

Places we might try plucked out of this thread: Commonwealth, Flour + Water, Yuet Lee, R&G Lounge, City View, Mission Burritos or Tacos, Slanted Door, Tartine Bakery, Zuni Café (is the chicken really that good?)
Places we are curious about that I didn’t notice mention of in this thread: Akiko’s Restaurant, Mister Jiu’s, Sakana, Seven Hills, Amelie, Del Popolo.

Is Sushi Ran in Sausalito okay to hit for lunch in super casual clothes and are reservations required during the week?

Any other tasting menus in the the Commonwealth/Flour+Water price range? Are there any tasting menus that price be damned just ought to be tried anyway? Best sushi/omakase options nearby or not? Kiss? Sugoi?

Floppy,

Check the weather. July is usually kinda chilly in SF!

Your day plans look good, you'll definitely get to check out a lot of stuff. Some comments:

Sushi Ran - I haven't been in forever, but I think it's still very good. I wouldn't bother with it, though, plenty of excellent sushi in SF. Instead I'd eat a sandwich or fish and chips or something at some little cafe on the water.

Sonoma or Napa - if you're not really into wine, I probably wouldn't bother.

There appears to be no shortage of fine dining available but the prices get pretty high pretty fast by the looks of it. - fine dining tasting menu and omakase sushi prices have escalated like crazy the last few years.


Interested in any must try places near the Mark Hopkins. - Olea is great for brunch, I imagine it's pretty good in general. Sushi Toni is a reasonably priced casual sushi place with very good sushi.

Commonwealth - this is the best tasting menu value in SF imo, and I really love the food and service there.
Flour + Water - another good tasting menu value, as well as just good restaurant in general. tough reservation.
Yuet Lee - very good but sorta hole-in-the-wall Chinese place
R&G Lounge - a little fancier Chinese place than Yuet Lee
City View - very good dim sum
Mission Burritos or Tacos - tons of options throughout the Mission
Slanted Door - I would skip it
Tartine Bakery - they also have Tartine Manufactory now. and lots of other excellent bakeries all over SF too.
Zuni Café - the chicken is great, but nbd to skip Zuni.
Akiko’s Restaurant - sushi is great, but pretty expensive. if you do decide to go to Akiko's, make sure you're going to the right one. Akiko's Sushi Bar is an unrelated place a couple blocks away (which also gets good reviews).
Mister Jiu’s - I liked but didn't love this place. Chinese with a modern/foodie twist. Check out the menu and see how interesting it sounds to you.
Sakana - low-key traditional sushi place that I think is great, and reasonably priced.
Seven Hills - very good Italian
Amelie - nice cute wine bar, can get annoyingly crowded
Del Popolo - excellent cal/Neapolitan pizzas. Plenty of places do great neapolitan style pizza in SF, but DP is a solid choice.

Kiss - excellent omakase, and a great deal too.
Sugoi - good place, but nothing special.

For sushi omakase, I'd go to either Kiss or Sushi Hon (I prob give Hon the edge between the two). Both are good values and excellent food. For casual sushi, Sushi Toni and Sakana are two good picks.

some other excellent restaurants not on your list (mostly in the sort of medium-nice category)
Uma Casa - Portuguese
China Live - this is kind of a tourist-focused emporium type place, but the casual chinese restaurant is really good with some amazing dumplings.
Cockscomb - if you're meat lovers, lots of delicious creative stuff here.
Rich Table - another fancy tasting menu dinner that isn't crazy priced, this is (slightly) under $100 and very good.
Cotogna - Italian
Cala - Mexican
Liholiho - Hawaiian, very tough res.

El D,

Thanks for the awesome list and suggestions!!

Re China Live we had been looking at Eight Tables upstairs but I think we have decided that it is just too damned expensive.

I would have thought San Francisco was quite a bit warmer in the summer but that has been a pretty consistent message about it being quite chilly. We will layer up for sure.

Thanks again!

LOL @ me, I was going to post about how much I enjoyed Hinata for omakase but when we got out to the street-parked car, the rear passenger window was smashed in (there wasn't really anything of value in the car ofc). Maybe I'll post about my favorite auto glass repair shop in the bay area.

oT,

Ugh, bummer, you’re the second recent smashed window itt.

At least the sushi was good!

All the sushi talk got me excited and I booked Hashiri for an anniversary dinner in a few weeks!

Joe,

Looking forward to hearing about that. Reviews sound very good, so hopefully it's worth the hefty price tag!

Yeah, so if you're on the Peninsula and get a window broken, Hi Tech Auto Glass in Redwood City is pretty pretty good.

Anyone have a butcher they really like? I recently went to fatted calf, and got some wonderful ribeyes... but they cost $60 each.

Also could use a weekday lunch spot near Market and Powell. Haven't spent really any time in that part of town so shooting in the dark.