are you offering a plane ride (from a presumed fighter pilot)???

what's this gonna cost?! sounds once in a lifetime...

Ja,

Slanted Door is great. Nationally acclaimed Vietnamese food.

Everything is great (only thing I think is just so-so is the ahi tuna entree), here are my favorites:

Crispy Imperial Rolls
Fresh Spring Rolls
Braised Beef Short Ribs

Chicken Claypot
Shaking Beef
Catfish Claypot
Roasted Seabass
Noodles w/ Dungeness Crab Meat
Steamed/Roasted Whole Fish

Spinach, Chard, Kale, Bok Choy, etc. all delicious
Lemongrass Tofu

If you don't have reservations, you can get to the bar early and eat there. The counter bar has a full menu. The lounge area of the bar has a small apps/rawbar menu.

If you want to have Slanted Door food but not pay for an expensive meal out, check out their to-go place Out The Door - they have locations at Ferry Building and the new San Francisco Center on Market.

They have cheap basic rice/noodle dishes that are great. Apps like the imperial and spring rolls, pork buns, etc. They also have to-go kits of some of the entrees like the shaking beef and claypot that you can take home and make. And my favorites, delicious Vietnamese sandwiches - the Saigon Roast Pork is so good. Great way to have their food at bargain prices.

The Tonga Room is awesome.

I used to live on Clay between Taylor and Mason. Sweet views but kind of pain getting around up and down all those hills, also not much street life. I moved to upper haight and liked it a lot better for all the easy stuff to walk to and good food.

SFO is not even the worst airport in the Bay Area. That "honor", by a long shot, belongs to that 60s/70s throwback, SJC.

They really should level SJC, build adjoining baseball and football stadiums there (to relocate the A's and Raiders), and then rework Moffett Field into Silicon Valley International Airport (or whatever).

Favorite (public) golf course in the area is Cinnabar Hills in south San Jose.

Any night in the East Bay can be capped off by a visit to Fenton's Creamery in Oakland.

Drive north to San Francisco on highway 280 in the late afternoon. It's a beautiful drive from Palo Alto, with the sun setting over the hills and the fog pouring in.

It's alright but there are so many great drives in the area. I love driving Skyline Blvd and Hwy 9 in the hills of the peninsula. I think it's "Saratoga" that's a cute little community you start in, you can head through to Santa Cruz then back on the 1. Take a nimble car and be prepared to do lots of passing (it's no fun if you get stuck behind slow people).

There's lots of little hikes throughout there, but the big daddy is the Skyline to the Sea trail. It's meant to be a backpacking trek, but you can do most of it in one day if you have someone to drop you off in the morning & pick you up at the other end of it.

That is almost 30 up and down (net down) miles. Makes for a very long day, but is definately doable.

I wish. We moved to Sacramento. What a joke. Upper Haight >>>>>>> Sacramento.

Just about anything except Chico >>>>>>>>>>> Sacramento.

I live in Sac now. I moved here from MA for a job. While it's not the greatest city ever, I think it's got enough going for it that if you have a good group of friends, you should never be bored. Pretty good bars, decent enough eats, plus close to some outdoorsy crap. That being said, I'm planning my exit sometime in the next year. It's either SF, Seattle, or back to Boston for me.

Back to Bay Area stuff: Sodini's is a really good, fairly priced Italian restaurant in North Beach. It's on Grant and Green. Their gnocci is awesome.

2nd Sodini's

Goddamn I went to Chico State. What you got against me??????

kind of outside the usual limits of the bay area, but if you find yourself in sacramento, check out the fish ladders at nimbus hatchery near folsom. if you thought the average OOTer's urge to breed for the first time was strong, they've got nothing on these fish. the ladders are usually open from mid fall to spring, but the hatchery is operational all year.

Renting a sailboat and sailing around Alcatraz is perfect.

Mountain biking across the Golden Gate to/up Cardiac Hill

Dim sum

Breads of India in Berkeley

Beer with sunset over the ocean at the Beach Chalet (for the view. Food is ok. Beer is good)

Marnee Thai at 24th and Irving

High Tea at the Top O' the Mark

Tapas at Zarzuela

The cheapest seats in PacBell Park

Crepevine 9th and Irving

Going to the corner of Haight and Ashbury to see that yes, there really is a Gap there

Any concert at the Fillmore

Fenton's Ice Creamery on Broadway in Oakland

Walking Telegraph Ave in Berekeley with no purpose

The ZAP Festival

Golf among the cypresses in the Presidio

Twin Peaks at night

Herb Caen's column (likely forgotten by now), the only redeeming quality of the San Francisco Chronicle, which died with him

Living in San Francisco, period

Chinese food in SF: San Tung on Irvine (good dim sum) and Ton Kiang on Geary.

SF: Visitors can go to the Metreon and catch a flick, Asian art museum, De Young museum in GG park, Exploratorium, Haight Ashbury is cool to check out.

For a couple of single guys, check out the Mitchell Brothers, Ofarrell street theater.

South bay: Check out Santana Row to have coffee/shopping, lots of hiking trails in the surrounding mountains, tech museum/Imax.

Yeah, I just did that drive Hwy 1 from SF to Santa Cruz and then back up Hwy 9 from Santa Cruz to Saratoga, it's an awesome drive with a decent car.

I did the round trip once in one day, it was about 22 miles. Took us 7 1/2 hours.

if you guys go across the bay into berkeley there are some great places you should hit up.

bettes diner has great breakfast, and the most amazing milkshakes.

mario's la fiesta is incredible mexican food for really cheap.

i think the place is called crepevine, its on university right below oxford, and it has great crepes. the best tomatoes period.

top dog, for whenever you're drunk and hungry. try it you'll thank me.

blondies pizza.

for entertainment, check out beckitts a great irish pub.

the mallard has a couple of pool tables upstairs and a great vibe.

the albatross is also a great place to drink, and they have darts and lots of board games you can play at the table, but they only take cash so be prepared.

there are also a ton of great little bookstores all around berkeley.

and if you want to watch a game and drink some beer during the day hit up raleighs on telegraph.

also know that tuesday and thursday are the big nights for the college crowd so if you want to be creepy and try and hit on co-eds those are the nights.

oh yeah and i can't remember the name but there is a great donut shop in the ghetto food court on durant or channing.

King Pin

There's a donut store on Polk that has fresh hot donuts ready right after the bars close. The first time someone took me there drunk, a hot donuts was the last think I thought I wanted. But the taste was like heaven in my mouth.

suzzer,

http://bobsdonuts.com/

Bob's. Piping-hot fresh donuts from there. That is a truly amazing drunken experience. Oh, make sure you go to the right place. Right on the corner a couple doors down is a completely differnet place, Bob's Diner.

I'm also surprised nobody has mentioned cheap Bahn Mi (vietnamese sandwiches) yet. My favorite is Saigon Sandwiches. I believe the special combo pork sandwich is now $3. So, so delicious.

Grubsteak down the street is also a fun late night drunken experience. You will get food poisoning about 1 in 10 times. But hey nothing else is open, and I'm drunk and hungry dammit.

Also I'd kill for a vietnamese sandwich place near me in LA. There's one near downtown that's awesome. The best thing is the spicy meat sandwich, and dip it in that fish carcass soup they make. Also the cold spring rolls. Gluhhhhhhhh.

Just went here for lunch with another 2p2er. Got there late so we had to sit that the sushi bar.
Got the Sashami lunch. 3 pieces each of Salmon, Maguro, Yellowtail, and Halibut plus soup, salad, and rice for $12.90! It was very very good!
Friend got the sushi lunch for same price. 3 pieces of cucumber roll, tuna roll, and california roll. One piece each of Salmon, Maguro, Yellowtail, Halibut, and Ebi. It looked really good. He confirmed it was good, but could not finish since he is a little under the weather.

A couple of guys were having the Chef's Menu. I think it's 10 pcs and some hot appetitizer. Gonna get this next time I go.

thread is tl;dr since i live in Reno.

Alfreds for steak/martinis

Truly Med for Shwarma/Falafel

Top Dog (Berkeley) for, well, top dogs.