San Francisco 2009

Re-visiting San Francisco always fills us with a mixture of delight and anxiety. We love the city and its environs, filled with interesting things to delight the eyes, the nose, the mouth, even the ears. But the serious business of deciding where to eat is an early and then constant focus. How many of our meals do we want to spend going back to favorite places? For that matter, how many of our favorite places are still open?

Most of the places we choose are not in the heart of tourist San Francisco. That’s not a deliberate choice, for the most part. We’ve discovered that we enjoy driving around town and thereabouts, so having a car and staying somewhere that we can park without paying $35 a night for the privilege is what we prefer. We landed a room at the Buena Vista Motor Inn that averaged under $100 a night, including parking and continental breakfast. It’s not fancy, and since it’s on busy Lombard Street, traffic noise could be a problem for some. But more money for fun, we think, and besides, the room was twice the size of a budget-ish hotel room near Union Square.

The single place we succumbed to for a return visit was Bar Tartine in the Mission District. We blogged about it last year, and you can read about it here. The most remarkable dish we had was dessert, which ought to be no surprise since Bar Tartine is an offshoot of the remarkable Tartine Bakery & Café. It was what’s called a vacherin, ice cream atop a meringue base. We hadn’t had one since we were in Paris several years ago, and this one was stunning. The strawberriest ice cream ever sat atop the crispy-chewy meringue, which was flavored with pink peppercorns. Talk about flavors tap-dancing on the tongue...it was fab.

And speaking of ice cream, interesting ice cream flavors are the hot thing in San Francisco. Among the leaders of the pack is Humphrey Slocombe—that’s the name of the shop, not (apparently) a real person. Folks who recoil in horror at the idea of offbeat combinations like carrot-mango and milk chocolate-passionfruit should save themselves a trip. But for the rest of us, a visit to this modest little shop whose signature dish is called Secret Breakfast and is flavored with cornflakes and bourbon, is pretty much a necessity. After tasting several things, we ended up with a cone of coconut sorbet and Thai chili lime sorbet, and a dish of balsamic caramel. The combination on the cone was perfect, the coconut cooling off the sharp chili-lime mix, and the balsamic caramel, which is apparently something people either love or hate, was absolutely addictive.

Humphrey Slocombe

2790 Harrison (@24 St.), San Francisco

1-415-550-6971

www.humphreyslocombe.com

Noon - 8 p.m. Tues.-Thurs and Sun., noon-9 p.m. Fri.-Sat

Credit cards: No

Wheelchair access: Good

Smoking: No

Dim sum, the Chinese breakfast-lunch consisting of dumplings and other small dishes of assorted goodies, not all of which are completely identifiable to the uninitiated, is, for most serious eaters (and us), a necessity in San Francisco. The immense place we found on a side street in Chinatown three years ago has disappeared, so we began snooping around for a new spot. What we came up with was the Mayflower Seafood Restaurant, in the Outer Richmond neighborhood. Warning: Leave extra time for finding a place to park. It’s always tricky in this neighborhood, but Sunday mornings seem absolutely forbidding. Still, the hoof of four or five blocks is worth it.

The food, served from carts, is a mixture of new things and items regular St. Louis dim sum-lovers have seen before and more exotic choices. Actually, in many cases, it only resembles what we’ve seen before. Stuffed eggplant, for instance, seemed like it had been hand-stuffed with a more coarsely chopped shrimp filling than any we’d seen around town, rather than the almost factory-similar pieces often showing up hereabouts. The char siu bao, the steamed buns filled with pork contained shredded, rather than chopped pork, minus the red coloring, porkier and more alluring than any we’ve ever scarfed down. Among the exotica were dishes of tiny squid in a tangy, gingery sauce.

Generally a remarkable dim sum, and as we were leaving, we discovered it’s one of a group of 3 restaurants, the other two farther south on the peninsula, and one of whom is the sibling of the now-gone-and-much-mourned Hong Kong Flower Lounge, which had been just down the street from where the Mayflower is now. Good people-watching, as so often happens at dim sum in California, with multigenerational family groups and scads of cute, well-behaved kids.

Mayflower Seafood Restaurant

6255 Geary Blvd, (@26 th St.), San Francisco

415-387-8338

www.mayflower-seafood.com

Lunch & Dinner daily

Credit cards: Yes

Wheelchair access: Fair

Smoking: No

Entrees: $9-$35

And we do have a couple of "don’t bother" places. Yuet Lee, the ancient restaurant at the corner of Broadway and Stockton whose lime-green exterior for years had no signs in English at all except Coca Cola and who put out ethereal seafood, has fallen on hard times. Prices have risen, customers seem to stay away, and the food just isn’t what it once was. And the Washington Square Bar & Grill, once owned by the legendary St. Louisans Sam Deutsch (Fran Landesman’s brother) and Ed and Mary Etta Moose, and a watering hole for the powerful and famous, has re-opened under the original name. For nostalgia’s sake we had lunch there. Unremarkable food, distant staff, a sad reminder of what used to be.

Comments

[mister]

Thanks for the tip on the motor lodge. Finding reasonably priced lodgings in big cities is always a problem. In the early 80's I used to stay at what was originally a Basque boarding house in the middle of Chinatown. Though parking was a hassle, the rooms were inexpensive enough and a nice family style Basque dinner was served nightly. At one time S.F. had the best chinese food in the state. It has since been surpassed by L.A, specifically Monterey Park. The chinese food scene in LA is the most vibrant in the US because it seems to be the city of choice for new immigrants. I would venture that the variety and quality is even superior to that of NYC. As a matter of fact it's my opinion that in terms of quality, representation of regional variations, and the share number of restaurants, LA can't be beat for Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and Japanese restaurants. While I am at it I'd also add Peruvian, Persian, Mexican, and Salvadorean. LA is a great city for those of us who enjoy exploring ethnic cuisine.

[Ann]

Are you perhaps talking about the Obrero on Stockton Street? I stayed there several times on my first visits to the city. Bambi MacDonald, the proprietress, Popped up in a couple of books I read years ago. Quite a character.

[Emily Barklage]

Where do you go for dim sum in STL?

[mister]

Yes, it was the Obrero. What a small world! I understand Bambi died a few years ago and was considered somewhat of an iconoclast for doing family style basque at a time when it had mostly died out in S.F. In the early 80's there was a basque restaurant near the Obrero called Des Alpes. I am pretty sure it's gone now, too. As college students with little money, Paprikas Fono, a hungarian restaurant at Gharidelli square was another place we were fond of and would go as a splurge.

[Ann]

Yes, Des Alpes is gone. There's still a Basque spot in Bakersfield, I believe, with all the trad stuff.

As to local dim sum, we don't have a current absolute passion for any one place. Really do want to go try Mandarin House's when we get a chance, though; we were really happy with the food there for dinner.l