Recently in San Francisco Category
“A city can’t be too small. Size guarantees anonymity—if you make an embarrassing mistake in a large city, and it’s not on the cover of the Post, you can probably try again. The generous attitude towards failure that big cities afford is invaluable—it’s how things get created. In a small town everyone knows about your failures, so you are more careful about what you might attempt. Every time I visit San Francisco I ask out loud “Why don’t I live here? Why do I choose to live in a place that is harder, tougher and, well, not as beautiful?” The locals often reply, “You don’t want to live here. It looks like a city, but it’s really a small village. Everyone knows what you’re doing” Oh, OK. If you say so. It’s still beautiful.” - David Byrne
This is exactly why I don’t like San Francisco. Not that I’ve failed a lot publicly here, but it feels insular and homogenous, like a sprawled out small town masquerading as a real city. Give me New York’s anonymity any day.
Full article here.
(Thanks Swiss Miss!)
I’ve seen enough Law & Order to know that the sound of gunfire isn’t as explosive or dramatic as most people think it will be, so when a rapid succession of flat bangs burst out close by, my aural scan came up with “gunshots.” If I weren’t pregnant, I’d have been out the door to confirm and help, but R went instead (with admonitions from me to check for shooters before stepping outside - I don’t watch CSI for nothing) and yelled up to call 911. Disturbingly, I was on hold for at least two minutes with emergency response - what if there had been an intruder in our apartment? - but, on the other side of it, police, fire and ambulance were screeching up as the girl answered my call. “Are you a witness?” was the extent of our conversation, so they get points for efficiency.
R said the victim was just a kid, put him at about fifteen, and all but unconscious. Gang violence, the news said, which was my first guess too. My thoughts, in succession?
- “Thank God this country doesn’t materially restrict the sale of firearms or shooting down 15-year-olds in the street wouldn’t be possible.”
- “What is wrong with this city that this happens?” Sure, there’s violence in all cities, it’s a fact of urban life, but I’ve never felt so uniformly unsafe anywhere else. Low level criminality, vagrancy, lack of law enforcement and filth is everywhere in this city, even in the most exclusive neighborhoods. (My car was stolen from one of those ‘hoods and broken into in another.) No place is safe in San Francisco.
This town’s pervasive permissiveness in allowing crackheads to stagger around the theater district, homeless people to sleep in any doorway they choose and cars to be routinely stolen and vandalized, telegraphs to citizens and criminals alike that no one’s watching the store. If there’s no action on the small stuff, the stuff that happens every day, the stuff that depresses quality of life and demoralizes expectations, there’s definitely no deterrent for a group of guys who want to shoot someone in broad daylight.*
Turns out my Spidey sense that San Francisco is way worse than New York isn’t just anecdotal: despite having less than one eighth the population of New York City, the FBI reports that San Francisco has twice the rate of violent crime and murder (per 100,000 residents) and is charged with underreporting those numbers. Even if you were to take those numbers with a grain of salt, they’re shocking.
It’s nice that San Francisco had gay marriage first (albeit briefly), banned plastic grocery bags, and the vegetables here are organic and fresh, but what the hell difference does that make if I can’t run across the street to pick up my fresh, organic vegetables in a paper bag from a married gay grocer without getting shot while doing it?
- “Where the hell am I going to find a bulletproof stroller?”
We definitely have to move. Maybe someplace safer, like Newark.
*The “small crimes lead to large crimes” theory is called the “fixing broken windows” principle. Implementation of small crimes tracking and deterrence in New York started with transit cop Jack Maple and his fascinating CompStat system, more widely adopted under then-Police Chief William Bratton. Interesting read, picked up by Gladwell in The Tipping Point.
Just in time for Christmas, our doves are back.
Our deck and the carriage entrance below us used to be home to an expanding family of them, but the unwelcome arrival of a cat (stupid neighbors - thankfully since moved - them and their stupid cat and their stupid band) and the pod of pigeons who found out about our garden fountain one particularly hot summer, pushed them out. It was like reverse gentrification. The doves stopped building their nest, stopped believing we were a safe neighborhood for their kids, and moved on to parts unknown.
Before they went, the entire family, twenty-three birds, made an impressive cameo appearance and then they were gone.
Perhaps sensing that I missed them or that the evil cat was gone or that this has been kind of a tough season, three or four of them have come back to sit on our railing and look relaxed. I’m so glad. They’re that lovely soft gray, their eyes are so dark and intelligent and their cooing makes me feel warm like cocoa.
Welcome back, birdies! We’re glad you’ve come home.
In Bi-Rite’s model, the cookies are soft and chewy and the ice cream is their housemade creamy stuff, so you can score the best of the bakery aisle and some of their excellent ice cream in one cellophane baggie.
Why do I bring this up now? Because what kid actually likes pumpkin pie after Thanksgiving dinner? I do but I couldn’t sell it to anyone under ten: the texture is pretty repellent. Bi-Rite is your solution. Buy half a dozen of their gingersnap cookie + pumpkin ice cream sandwiches and you’re set.
(Just to be clear on that math, the “buy six” plan is for someone entertaining no more than four kids at table. The other two are for you.)
They also stock chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream, dark chocolate cookies with mint chip ice cream and snickerdoodle cookies with cinnamon ice cream but I don’t know why you’d ever leave my first love ginger+pumpkin. I ate it so fast I didn’t even take a picture for you to see what it looked like. I’ll remedy that later when I go get my next batch.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Available at Bi-Rite Market or Bi-Rite Creamery, both on 18th Street between Guerrero and Dolores. Creamery is almost at Dolores; grocery is in the middle of the block.
One of my readers is in San Francisco and looking for tips, so in addition to the original San Francisco: The Guide (and all the various reviews I’ve ever posted!), here’s an update on
Where To Eat
If you live in a major urban center in the US, you probably know about Open Table. If you don’t, come on over: when you need to make a restaurant reservation, you can do it over the web through Open Table rather than calling up the 19-year-old at the front desk between the hours of two and five. About 90% of all the restaurants where I’ve needed a table use the site, so chances are good that your destination is in there and you can book your fallback eatery when your #1 choice is booked til March.
Chinese Food
I also love House over in North Beach. The place is tiny and the food is unbelievable. “Clean” is the word that comes to mind to describe the cuisine: the fish is perfectly cooked, the sauces are well-matched and there’s no clutter to the dishes. Try the sea bass (if you’re sure it’s not Chilean) and any of the noodles if you’re there for lunch.
White Tablecloth
This is generally not my thing, for some reason. Maybe because San Francisco is home to so many excellent mid-range restaurants. Whatever it is, sometimes we all need a proper night out at a place that’s carpeted and where the waiters move around like sharks (silent, attentive with good teeth, that is).
Jardiniere has been my recent go-to for a formal dinner. The tasting menu is excellent but a little overwhelming unless you’re starving. Very traditional decor and presentation - not at all casual. Gets a lot of high-end pre-theater monied types since it’s behind the opera house and the symphony. Incidentally, their chef beat Mario Batali on Iron Chef America if that helps you make your decision.
A friend of mine who’s a chef raves about Quince. I’ve never been there, but I hear it’s the new, excellent place to go. It’s quite small, you absolutely need reservations and the cuisine will be innovative.
For a more traditional dinner, there’s Wolgang Puck’s Postrio. I haven’t been there in ages and Puck’s definitely jumped the shark - frozen foods? Really, Wolfgang? - but it was quite good when I did go. By “traditional” I mean bigger, more tourists (because of Puck’s name), and with a less cutting edge menu.
Gary Danko over in the Marina is another famous, special occasion restaurant. I hear really good things about it, but again, I haven’t been there myself.
Other Options
The reason I haven’t hit Quince and Gary Danko is because when we go out for a night on the town, I tend to like places that are a little more intimate and casual. My tastes fall somewhere between “foam of sea urchin” and “47 ounces of seared steak.”
Along those lines, there’s Range, still my current favorite. It’s in the Mission (local to me), has a changing menu, and is reliably excellent. That said, it is a little loud during dinner hour and sometimes a tad quick, like not a lot of dawdling over three courses. But their lamb chops are the best I’ve ever had as is, surprisingly, their roast chicken with tomatillos, which I had last week and loved, loved, loved.
If you and your plus one have the chance for a date night, I’m sticking with my previous recommendations of Firefly. It’s this small, quirky, off the beaten track, very comfy and quiet place that is perfect for a date, very neighborhoody and has really lovely, carefully prepared food from local, fresh California ingredients. R and I love it there.
For French food, there’s Chez Papa’s bistro over in our neighborhood, in Potrero Hill. It’s not my top general pick because the menu is narrow and specialized, but if you need a really superb, French-only dinner, this is your place. They also have a bigger restaurant downtown.
And finally, for sushi, I’m reiterating my vote for Blowfish, which serves the best sushi I’ve had outside Japan. More trendy than romantic, but if you go early you can avoid the posers and the worst of the noise.
Sidebar, since most visitors will end up in Union Square for shopping or cable cars or museums, just a couple of food notes:
- Food that’s not touristy or mass-produced is hard to come by down there. For superb sandwiches, soups and a sunny space to sit if you’re out shopping, try ‘wichcraft. They’re on a strange corner on Mission Street, just outside the back entrance of Bloomingdales. Definitely worth walking a block to take a break from shopping and get a proper lunch.
- Alternatively, I hear the food court in the newly renovated San Francisco Center’s basement floor has a lot of good offerings but I just can’t bring myself to eat in a below-ground food court, even if it is supposed to be good!
Bon appetit!
You have no track record of being able to manage multiple projects at once. Why don’t you just sit down, pick your favorite project and put all the guys on that one till it’s done?
Related, when you show me that you can feed and water the hamster all by yourself, we can talk about getting a puppy.
But now that I’ve been there, I’d like to offer a big shout out in the form of a gigantic thumbs down to Four Barrel.
I don’t care if they hand craft or double roast or ritualistically violate their coffee twice daily, that is some oily dishwater disaster coffee. To compound the error, they refuse to offer the usual buffet of bad coffee doctoring options. Raw sugar, half and half and skim milk are the extent of the sideboard buffet. No actual milk. No Splenda. Not even a grain of white sugar. Nuthin.
So you get your crap coffee and then you’re stuck with it. Bastards.
So here’s what I have to say to you guys over at Four Barrel Coffee:
I don’t come to your probably all-organic, no-leather, egg-free, wind-powered house and take away all your vegan muffins and forcefeed you chicken McNuggets, so don’t deprive me of my proper milk and artificial sweeteners after you charge me $3 for a small cup of blackened swill.
And don’t whine that the coffee beans were picked by vegetarian, hemp-clad peasants either ‘cause that doesn’t make it better coffee. Woody Harrelson and Ed Begley, Jr. could roast and brew my coffee one cup at a time in their environmentally-sound trousers and I wouldn’t care if it tasted like yours. Make a decent cuppa first and then I’ll be down with any sustainable plan you’ve got.
Geez.
When to Visit
April, May and June are good bets. So are September and October. November - March is likely to be rainy; July and August will be chilly and foggy.
Where You Should Stay
The major concentration of hotels is in Union Square, conveniently located right next to the worst neighborhood in San Francisco, the Tenderloin, home to tranny hookers, the mentally deranged and crack vials in the streets. (What did they expect when they named it the “Tenderloin”? If they’d’ve called it “Daisyville,” maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible.) Your best hotel deals will be in Union Square, with its shopping and theaters. Take them. Despite its drawbacks, it is central.
If you can swing it, book a place on the south side of Market Street (the W, the Intercontinental) so you’re not smack on the side of a hill (which is a totally impractical novelty, so pull yourself together) and bunking with all the other tourists. If you’ve got some extra change, get a place on the Embarcadero, like the Vitale, which fronts on the bay, but keep that south of Market too or you’ll end up too close to the surreally schlocky Fisherman’s Wharf area.
Alternatively, check for an apartment rental or trade on Craigslist. This will almost certainly kick you into one of the more residential neighborhoods. To stay fairly central, I’d stick to the Mission, Potrero Hill, SoMa, the Marina or North Beach. Bernal Heights, Noe Valley, Sunset, and the Richmond are a little far for comfortable touristing. Chinatown and the Financial District are crowded and deserted respectively.
Getting Around
Get a car. San Francisco is a town masquerading as a city. The BART (subway) and rail lines do not provide comprehensive coverage of the city and the busses, which do, are inconsistent. Your chances of ending up with a crazed meth addict next to you are about even with your chances of scoring a banker. As a result, with the exception of some of the nice-neighborhood-to-business district lines, I find that riding buses in San Francisco depresses my optimism about the human race. Hence, get a car.
(Related, the city is crawling with the drug-addled and the homeless - don’t ask: yes, it should be solvable, no they’re not solving it - so car break-ins are routine. Never, ever leave anything in your vehicle that you aren’t OK with having stolen, even in broad daylight. Conversely, if you have some bags of stuff you were going to drop off at Goodwill, you can leave them in your car and there’s a good chance someone will break in and save you the trip.)
What You Should Do
The de Young Museum. It re-opened in its spectacular new form in 2005 and you should go. It’s a great building, inside and out and just wandering around in it is calming. Their special exhibits run to the popular - Nan Kempner’s clothes, a Vivienne Westwood retrospective - and, whether or not that’s your cup of tea, the standing collections are worth the visit. Climb to the top of the tower and have a look out over Golden Gate Park and the rest of the city. On Friday nights, they usually have music and late hours. The café is pleasant and the food’s good, although predictably pricey. If the current exhbition is popular, book tickets ahead through their web site.
The Legion of Honor. The Legion of Honor and the de Young are sibling museums, so a ticket to one will get you in (on the same day) to the other. This is a truly beautiful museum, a hidden gem, and home to the largest collection of Rodin sculptures outside Paris. Walking out the front and towards the water, you’ll find miles of paths along the cliffs with stunning views of the ocean, the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Napa/Sonoma. Even if you’re not a wine connoisseur, you should go. The countryside is beautiful, the tasting rooms friendly and casual, and, if you time it right, it can be a relaxing day trip. If at all possible, go during the week when the roads and vineyards are so much less crowded. There are plenty of guides to the area that can provide details, but here are a couple of my personal highlights and recommendations:
- Unless you’re bent on visiting a specific vineyard in Napa (along Route 29, the most common wine route), the Russian River Valley is altogether more charming. It’s a nicer drive to get there (up 101 through Marin instead of out 80 to the East Bay), less crowded once you are there, and the small vineyards tucked into the hillsides are less commercial and have more personality than the high-traffic wineries like Mondavi.
- Among my favorites: Iron Horse, a tiny place with a killer view that specializes in champagnes; White Oak, in Healdsburg; Cakebread, if you are venturing over towards Napa; and St. Supéry (just up the road), which has an antiseptic feel but makes the most lovely moscato that will win over even the most jaded non-moscato drinker.
- I am a huge fan of Mom’s Pies outside Sebastopol in the Russian River Valley. If you’re passing by, get a pie to eat in the car or one to bring home frozen. If it’s lunchtime, their sandwiches are top notch, particularly the meatloaf. Also in Sebastopol, Screaming Mimi’s homemade ice cream which is breathtakingly good. None of that whipped bullshit. Cream, nuts, fruit, done.
Driving circuit of the city. In a sort of circular order, starting from somewhere around Union Square.
- The Painted Ladies. Classicly painted Victorian homes along Alamo Square (actual address: Steiner Street between Hayes and Grove). Continue on down Fell Street into the Haight for more Victorian action.
- The Presidio. Windy roads through what used to be an army post but is now a huge park with views of the water. End up in the Marina, San Francisco’s trendiest (read: typical nouveau riche) neighborhood and revel in the absence of homeless people. (It’s amazing what a pile of money and political clout can achieve!)
- The Golden Gate Bridge. You have to at least drive across it. If you’re a masochist and a cyclist, you can save this for your bike trip up into the Marin Headlands.
- Presidio Heights. Home to massive homes that have no business inside a real city’s city limits, but what are you gonna do? These are the places you see in movies about San Francisco. If you want more of the same head east towards Pacific Heights.
Eat. San Francisco is famous for its restaurants. Partially this is because we are California and can get a diversity of fresh produce year round. The other part is because we all eat out enough that a lot of very good chefs have touched down here and made themselves at home. See the restaurants section below.
What You Could Do
Giants game at AT&T Park. This is a really nice park. And I’m saying this as someone who is bored out of her skull by baseball. For one, the park’s on the water which is - literally - cool. For another, you can get lattes and sushi so if you’re not part of the hot dogs and churros crowd, there’s something for you too. A Giants game with the family is a pleasant way to spend a sunny afternoon. (If it’s not sunny, bring blankets, ‘cause it is seriously chilly on the water.)
Marin Headlands. If you like hiking or biking, the Marin Headlands are a great place to do this. They have spectacular views of the Bay and are often, but not always, sunnier than the San Francisco side of the Golden Gate Bridge. As a non-hiker, I’m not a good resource, but there are a ton of guides that are more than happy to help.
Drive south down Route 1 along the coast. It is a stunningly beautiful drive, as long as you’re not doing it in the frustrating traffic of a weekend. I personally don’t think Carmel (rich, small), Santa Cruz (hippies, hemp), and Monterey (killer aquarium) are worth spending one of your precious days in northern California, but if you’re here for a while, have a free weekday to mosey, or are a surfer, go for it. Make sure you stop at the winery with the best labels ever (also some quite good wines: try the Big House Red and Cardinal Zin), Bonny Doon, and do not - DO NOT - fail to go to Vasili’s Greek Restaurant at any hour for the best souvlaki I’ve ever had. (Please note: I have not yet been to Greece so don’t get all huffy if you have been, OK?) Both of those just north of Santa Cruz.
What You Can Totally Miss
Fisherman’s Wharf / Ghirardelli Square. If you have never, ever been to a city before and you would like to meet other people who also do not have the good sense they were born with, by all means, head over to Fisherman’s Wharf. If you think Branson, Missouri, is a gem, Ghiradelli Square will make you feel at home. If not, don’t go. The place is packed with tourists and all the things that tourists live for: overpriced garbagey clothing with logos and pictures of landmarks drawn in glitter; sub-par food for exhorbitant prices; pennies flattened with sea lions on them. Trust me: there is nothing there for you except pain. Fisherman’s Wharf is to San Francisco what Disneyworld is to the planet Earth.
The only exception is if you feel you must take a ferry somewhere or if you are a big fan of sea lions. If either of those is the case, go early or go late and, in the case of your ferry trip, pre-buy your tickets, get in and get out as quickly as possible.
Alcatraz. I’m claustrophobic and it’s crowded, so I’ve avoided it. The only reason anyone goes to visit Alcatraz - and the only reason this prison was noteworthy in the first place - is because it’s on an island. It’s a prison, people. Come on. If you’re dead set on going to an island, you can hit Angel Island and get the ferry ride and the exercise without all the hassle, tourists and nightmares. (They don’t lock you in the cells as part of the tour anymore because there was an incident a few years ago when they couldn’t get people back out again. I’m telling you: nightmare central.)
Lombard Street. If you took my advice and got a car, you can drive down it at some point in your driving tour of the city. If you didn’t get a car, let it go. It’s really not that interesting. It’s a curvy street and you’re going to schlep out of your way to see it. The only exception to this recommendation is if it’s the weekend of the races down Lombard. I wouldn’t recommend participating, but if you like X-Games, you’ll like this. (Note: they moved the race this year to Potrero Hill, maybe permanently.)
Coit Tower. It’s a tower. If you haven’t ever been in a tower, you probably don’t need to spend the money to come all the way out here to see one.
The Ferry Building. I’m not saying the bakeries and cheese shops and olive oil kiosks here are not top-knotch. I just know you could spend half as much money finding these goods elsewhere in the city and spend half as much time finding parking in the process. Much is made of the farmer’s market set up in the alcoves on Tuesdays and Saturdays but it’s no different from other farmer’s markets except that it’s way more expensive.
Shopping
If you want young designers, go to the Mission. There are also a ton of vintage stores stretching up Valencia Street from 15th out to 24th. Amongst them are all manner of quirky offerings, from high-end Japanese luggage (Hideo Wakamatsu) to small designers collected at places like Candy Store (on 16th between Valencia and Guerrero) and Sunshee Moon (same block). There’s even a pirate supply shop at 826 Valencia, the front entrance of the writing workshop concern founded by Dave Eggers of McSweeney’s fame. If you want to pick up some sex toys, books or porn, you can get them at the well-lit Good Vibrations store where the staff will be happy to answer your questions. Be aware that the Mission is not your mom’s tourist destination: the streets are dirty and there are a lot of crackheads and homeless wandering around. Not dangerous, just grimy.
If you want expensive young designers, go to Hayes Valley. Uko has great, pricey offerings from France. Scandinavian Details has Swedish housewares, and jewelry. Bulo has shoes from everywhere. There are art galleries and cafes interspersed among the shops. If you’re over there, stop at Frjtz for an excellent crepe or salad or Suppenkuche for the best spaetzle outside of Switzerland (early dinner is best to miss the crowd). Blue Bottle Coffee, in Linden alley, is supposed to be the best coffee in San Francisco, if not anywhere.
Your kids will want to go to the Haight. When rents skyrocketed all over the city, the Haight lost a lot of its character, but the grungy potheads still hang out on the sidewalks and there are still a lot of shops hawking bongs and tattoos. I don’t go over there much anymore, not since I stopped going to Burning Man (and needing corsets, tutus and other oddities) and the little design shops got priced out of their real estate, but it’s still a landmark destination. Just don’t expect to walk away with anything super-cool. (If you know St. Mark’s Place in New York, Haight Street is just a longer version of that).
The Marina is a pretty, expensive neighborhood that’s home to professional moms who spend their days getting manicures, doing yoga and looking for the perfect throw pillow. Their husbands are post-frat boys made good and the bars and shops reflect that demographic. If you live and die by Daily Candy, this is the place for you and your wallet. For a quick and excellent lunch, hit Blue Barn Gourmet.
North Beach has a scattering of cutie places to shop on Grant Street as does Fillmore Street (between, say, Bush and Pacific) but, like the Marina, you’ll pay quite a bit for that adorable dress that will make you look just like everyone else. While we’re on the subject, I wouldn’t look for dinner in North Beach if I were you. Yeah, there are good places, but there are way more places serving sub-par, over-garlicked Italian food to tourists. Get an espresso at Cafe Greco or any of the other places rated here and head to the other side of town for your evening meal.
Where to Eat
This is San Francisco’s claim to fame. Below are some of my current favorites. These are mid-range places (dinner for about $80 - $150 for two people, depending on how much you like wine) that serve great, fresh, usually local food.
Breakfast
Mama’s in North Beach, on the southeast corner of Washington Park has a killer breakfast. Fair warning: everyone knows this. So don’t plan on going on the weekend unless you want to wait.
Lunch
Get a burrito from one of the Tonyanese burrito trucks scattered around the Mission. Carnitas with everything. It will weigh more than your infant. It will taste the way a burrito’s supposed to.
Burma Superstar. It’s like Indian food only different. And worth the trip out to the avenues for their Rainbow Salad, Tea Leaf Salad and Samosa Soup. If you get there for lunch around noon or 12:30, the wait won’t be long. A great place for lunch after a morning at the de Young.
Ti Couz, no question. Breton crepes of all kinds (the daily special is invariably the best), truly excellent salads, the Ti Couz 10 (a cocktail of champagne, muddled blackberries and vodka), and a central location on 16th St. at Valencia make this a medium-priced must.
Dinner
Range. My current favorite of favorites. The menu is hard to pin down - don’t bother. Everything is perfect. You will definitely need reservations at least a week ahead of time, unless you go during the week. But go. The lamb is worth it. I love the space, the service. And the lamb. Even the standards - like a Lyonnaise salad - are better here.
Firefly. Off the beaten track in Noe Valley, Firefly serves rich, perfect food in a laid back atmosphere. It’s small, so you’ll need reservations. Lovely for a date or for a not-too-loud party of 4-6.
Blowfish Sushi. If you like sushi and are down for a trendy evening at the same time, reserve at Blowfish. It’s noisy - definitely not a romantic dinner for two - but the sushi is top-notch and they’ve build a substantial menu of offerings you can’t find anywhere else.
For a business dinner, if you want to eat on the water, or if you want good, albeit pricey, Vietnamese food, the wildly popular Slanted Door is for you. You have to reserve a couple of weeks in advance or you can show up on the day-of at 5:30 and they’ll sort you out if you’re lucky. I know a lot of people who Love This Place. The businessmen put me off a bit. But there’s no doubt that the food is top-notch Asian.
Culture (ish)
- The San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas, and the San Francisco Ballet are world-class. If you’re into dance, also check out ODC, a modern dance company in the Mission with great studio spaces, open classes and regular performances.
- There are a lot of theater groups in San Francisco, ranging from the experimental (Killing My Lobster) to the established (American Conservatory Theater), but…how do I say this? Um. I am not attached to any of them and have been disappointed by most of them. If you want theater, go to New York or Chicago.
- Through the fall, winter and spring, City Arts & Lectures brings in everyone from Madeline Albright to Amy Sedaris to talk about what they do.
- Cal Performances series in Berkeley hosts everyone from Ira Glass to Chinese acrobats to Renee Fleming.
- Cobb’s Comedy Club in North Beach and the Punchline downtown usually have good rosters of comedians in pretty friendly spaces.
- The Bay area is home to some serious literary talent. In any given week, some event or other is sure to have Dave Eggers, Michael Chabon, Tobias Wolff, Amy Tan or any of the other over-exposed literary lights reading or fundraising. Weekly round-up here.
- Literary-type standout events include the Porchlight Storytelling series and Mortified, a monthly-ish night of (curated, thank God) people reading about their worst embarassing experiences, usually from adolescence.
- There are a ton of sporty options in the general vicinity of SF: hiking, biking, surfing, camping, skiing, and so on. But since a.) I am not outdoorsy, and b.) if you are, you are probably planning those pieces of your trip west as their own little adventure, I’ll stick to what I know. The San Francisco Circus Center offers group flying trapeze classes under controlled and safe circumstances on Saturday or Sunday morning classes. No fitness required.
I’m standing squarely in the middle of the media consumer road. I like print media but I’m not a Luddite: I get the Sunday New York Times delivered and I read the online edition every day. I read blogs, the New Yorker and The Morning News. If it’s long, I print it. If it’s short, I read it on the screen. It’s not a complicated system, but it does rely on both on- and offline media outlets staying in business and, no matter how much I read on the subject, that’s a problem I can’t seem to solve.
Online media is great for a lot of things, but two of them aren’t 1.) paying writers well and regularly, and 2.) in-depth, long-term, investigative reporting on international events.
Let’s take the second point first. The truth of the matter is that the Times and the Post and the Wall Street Journal, as media giants, were capable of keeping global offices staffed and running. Online outlets don’t have that kind of infrastructure in place. (All you media conspiracy wing nuts can put your hands down: I know the mainstream media is biased, but you’re delusional if you think there’s such a thing as absolute objectivity.) If they all go out of business, who is going to provide general reporting on what’s up in Myanmar?
There are absolutely some kick-ass online media outlets that uncover major stories through investigative reporting, but almost all of those stories are domestic. Which is a problem. Sure, I can seek out local media in Myanmar (provided it’s online, which is a substantial provision in the developing world), but how will I have any idea if it’s remotely accurate and not propaganda? I won’t, unless I do all the research on it myself. And that’s more than I am willing to take on to find out what’s up in every region of the world every week.
This is the route that medicine has gone in the last 20 years: you’re the “consumer”, so it’s on you to figure out if a particular treatment is cutting edge or dangerously untested. Doctors have abdicated their positions of authority. While this is a good thing - in cases where the doctor is unhinged, undereducated or just wrong, in most cases it leaves me in a terrible position - namely, having to make educated decisions in an area in which I am not educated.
The same will be true of media consumption if the major outlets - the voices of authority - go under. I don’t believe everything I read, but I read fairly widely and, since I’m familiar with the particular focus and bias of steady news sources, I can pull together an opinion with some hope of having some of the facts straight. I have no such hope for my ability to sift through the millions of online voices, most of whom have no recognizable credentials. And by “credentials” I mean meaningful access to and contacts in the region that would help assemble an educated perspective. A track record of consistently even-handed reporting wouldn’t hurt either. A loud voice and blazing marketing don’t count as credentials. (Which is why I don’t watch Fox News or Perez Hilton.)
So what’s going to replace the New York Times if it goes out of business? Who’s going to cover Africa and South Asia? The Drudge Report? The Huffington Post? New media aggregates old media at low cost. Are new media companies going to cover old media’s reporting costs if old media goes under?
We need to find a hybrid model where old and new media can both make money because they both need to exist. Maybe it’s OK if the print Times declines in circulation, but we can’t expect them to give their expensive product away for free online. Who’s going to foot the bill for their correspondent in the foothills of Pakistan? Click-through ads for finding your high school classmates aren’t going to cover those costs. (Maybe new media should pay for feeds from old media?)
Which brings me back to my self-centered first point, which is that if the offline media outlets go out of business, the number of writers who can survive on their earnings is going to decrease. And then we’ll all have to go back to second jobs as e-commerce consultants and waiters. God help us if journalism goes the way that teaching has: the only good ones who stay at the available wages have got to be saints.
Charging for online content didn’t work. Revenue generation from ads offline was plenty but online ads are different and insufficient. Newspapers aren’t like the banking industry: sure, there were paid lunches and car service boondoggles, but it wasn’t a profligate industry of wealth and waste. All that got cut ages ago and it hasn’t made the difference.
I’ve been thinking about this problem for ten years, ever since I took my first online editorial job, and I still can’t see a way through. (The Times can’t seem to sort out a long-term revenue model either, even with their killer New Media Group.)
Which brings me back to the Chronicle. The Chronicle’s been terrible for a long time and even though I’m not behind 100% free markets, I do think that the market should have a say when a company refuses to improve. Case in point per this morning’s news: the American auto industry, which is being forced to re-plan and re-staff as it should have done under its own steam years ago.
Why should we let the media industry stagger while we bolster up the banks and cars, both of which have had much longer to sort themselves out? Why not take over and rip and replace, the way we’re doing with AIG and GM? We subsidize the industries and endeavors that are of national value and I would argue that print media is one of those things, at least for now.
I still pay $27 a month for the Times to show up every Sunday even though I often read the online version instead and, until the new media model sorts itself out, I’ll continue to do that as an act of principle and charity because I don’t think we can do without the Times anymore than we can do without the banks.
In New York and Boston, I got up in the morning, got myself out the door and stepped into the flow of a real city. A city with people on the street who have places to go and things to do. San Francisco? Two people have been sitting in my eye line for half an hour doing NOTHING. Nothing. Staring. Sitting. Nothing. Yesterday I stood behind a guy writing a check at the supermarket. Do you know where people think it’s OK to write checks at the supermarket in 2009? Small towns, that’s where. The middle of nowhere. Fine. A place masquerading as an actual city? NO!!!
San Francisco, you have got to stop. Pink hair is not cool on an overweight 35-year-old. (I don’t really think it’s cool ever unless it’s 2AM in a club in 1999.) Dawdling is not cool. Homeless people are not cool. Having to walk five blocks through urban blight to get to the nearest cafe is not cool when you live in one of the nicest neighborhoods in the city. Especially when that cafe is a #$(*#! Starbucks. What is wrong with you, SF? Why can’t you get yourself together to have some ambition, some drive, a little get up and go?
I think I must be missing the point. People come here to step out of the river current, I guess, not to gain momentum. San Francisco is the lukewarm pool of water off to the side where people paddle around in the eddies and surf and smoke weed and have kids and go out to eat a lot of vegetables and worry about their hemp pants. SF is like the stoner teen who is happy to get C’s and be self-righteous about “the man.” The northeast is the driven over-achiever kid who has things to do and places to go. San Francisco is like the retirement community of cities where people dye their hair blue and self-entertainment passes for self-actualization. New York is where the old ladies knock down muggers with their handbags, look better than I do and schlep around on the subway to 75 events a week.
I just don’t get this place. Maybe if it ever snowed here, it would brace up and get its rush on. Bring me my snow already then and let’s get moving!!! Geez.
It’s the second day of summer and Midsummer’s Eve and hot as blazes in San Francisco. Even if you didn’t know how hot it is, you’d know something was off because the tourists have come out of their hovel hotels and are crawling all over the place. Go home silly people blocking my bike’s path! Go home! This city is not for visiting.
Our place is usually lovely and breezy but since we’re on the third floor, beneath the black tarpaper roof, we bake in the heat. I make spa water - charcoal filtered water with oranges or lemons - so we stay hydrated. Glasses of spa water are everywhere. Our studio has begun to resemble the house in Signs. Remember that movie? The last good one Shyamalan did?
The little girl is always asking for a glass of water and leaving half-full glasses all over the house. And it turns out that the aliens are burned by water. Remember? And the brother is a former baseball star. And just before the wife died years earlier, she tells Mel Gibson to tell him - the brother - , “Swing away, Merrilll. Swing away!” And Mel Gibson doesn’t know what she means, thinks she’s delirious from pain, until the aliens are there in the house and the water glasses are everywhere and Merrill’s bat is above him on the wall. And Mel Gibson says, “Swing away, Merrill! Swing away!” And he does, breaking the bat and the alien and shattering glasses and glasses of water onto the otherwise invincible alien. Remember?
That’s what our apartment looks like, minus the alien.
Here’s how 4/15 rolled for me this year.
- Let’s set the stage. I didn’t get my taxes done last week because I was rushing to get to New York. I decided that wouldn’t be a problem I would get back on the 14th, so I had that evening to get them sorted. That was my first miscalculation: since I was up at 2AM PST to catch my plane back from New York, by the time I got home from work that night, I was running into walls I was so tired. Scratch getting them done Monday night.
- Panic: how was I going to get my taxes done and to the post office on Tuesday by 5PM when I had to be at work all day?
- Relief: e-file, that’s how. I’d start ‘em over lunch and e-file by midnight.
- Panic: I got to work on Tuesday and realized I’ve left my W-2 at home so I could only load TaxCut on my laptop at work but not actually do any of the tax entry. Deep breath.
- Relief: Got home early, got sorted out, ready to roll.
- Panic: After getting through my federal taxes and moving on to my state returns, it turns out I’m married. Even though I have never been married, the status has not generally struck me as something that creeps up on you so I do a little light research. R and I are Registered Domestic Partners (or RDP, in the catchy parlance of our government) in the state of California. As of last year, that means that in the eyes of the (state) law, we are effectively married and have to file as such. Aside from the emotional repercussions - what did I wear? did I register? - I now have a problem at 8PM. TaxCut populates my state taxes using my federal tax info and my federal tax info says I’m single. But in California, I’m not. While I appreciate the health insurance being an RDP entitles me to, it’s annoying that my crunchy granola state and my fascist (for now) national government can’t get on the same page. Especially at 8PM on the 15th.
- Relief (tiny). It appears there is a workaround. If I save a copy of my accurate federal return (the one I will file that says I’m single), I can create an inaccurate one saying I’m married that can be used as the basis of the state one. This strikes me as encouraging lying and criminality on the part of H&R Block but whatever. It’s getting late.
- Panic. I do as I’m told, re-do everything, save my screwy second version of my tax returns and am all set to file. But no. What was I thinking? Of course, no. I cannot e-file a federal return that says I’m single (accurate) and a state return that says I’m married (also accurate). This is the software’s way of encouraging me to get with the conservative agenda and pick a lane.
- Relief. I’m wily. The software wants me to e-file both state and federal in one transaction. I decide to e-file my federal and state separately using the two separate but equally accurate files. Clever, right? Right hand doesn’t know what left hand’s doing, right? So far so good: I make it to the e-file screen on the federal taxes.
- Panic. I can no longer locate the Key Code that came with my tax software and that is required to get through the e-file screens. Where is it? Printed on the sleeve that the software came in. The software that I installed at the office. The sleeve that I stacked with some other papers to come home with me from said office but which, after a thorough search of the home premises, I cannot locate at 9PM.
- Resignation. I get in the car in my pajamas and head to the office.
- Relief. I find the sleeve, drive home and e-file my federal return without further glitches. The finish line in sight, I get some ice cream and start on the state filing.
- Panic. Not so fast: for reasons passing understanding, you can’t e-file your state taxes separately from your federal until the federales approve your federal ones. And I’m guessing that won’t happen at 10PM on the 15th. I give up. I start Googling penalties for late filing.
- Resurrection. I’m nothing if not stubborn and I’ll be damned if the IRS and H&R Block are going to both get the better of me in one night. That’d be a bit much for anyone, I’d think. I find the California State Franchise Tax Board web site which looks like it was put together in 1982 by a bunch of seven-year-olds with an Etch-a-Sketch and one orange crayon. Using my print-out of the un-file-able TaxCut state return, a spoon and some cunning, I manage to get through all the screens and get within $50 of the result TaxCut spit out. This site requires no oversight by the federales and lets me submit my state taxes. I do not have a warm fuzzy feeling because the site is so amateur it feels like I’ve just sent the Crown Jewels overnight using a plain envelope, some twine and the post office, but whatever: I am a tax-filing, law-abiding, married/single citizen once more.
I hate to do this but I’ve got to give the new Sundance Cinema a thumbs down. I wanted to like you, Sundance Kabuki Cinema, I really, really did. But you disappointed me and now I am crestfallen and slightly angry and feel a little bit dirty for wanting to go out with you at all.
Maybe it’s because I had such high hopes for our first date. Maybe it’s because I dressed all hip in my black turtleneck and it turns out you cater to middle-aged annoying people. Maybe it’s because I thought you were going to be a taste of home, a little slice of Manhattan on the west coast, a hipster haunt with your over-priced tickets ($27 for two) and your cocktail lounge and your upscale snacks (Izzy sodas!) But no. It turns out your forty-foot bamboo plants are just a screen for you to hide your mediocrity.
Let me offer you some constructive criticism so you can do better.
- When new visitors ask where they should eat - the upstairs cafe or the restaurant you opened next door that replaced Pasta Pomodoro, you should not tell them to go next door. The place next door is trying very hard to look upscale in a downscale neighborhood. The food is trying to be upscale too but it fails. Green Goddess salad with tempura avocado? Nice try but it’s an avocado. Pecorino mac and cheese ($9)? It’s covered with breadcrumbs like something from Stouffers and has less flavor than the boxed version. I liked Pasta Pomodoro better. (Speaking of which, try their prosciutto tortellini in pink sauce as take-out comfort food sometime.)
- Three bathroom stalls in the women’s bathroom? I don’t think so.
- Reserved seating is so yesterday. Just stop it. Even the Ziegfeld in New York doesn’t do that anymore. I would rather have to show up half an hour early to get a prime location and sit next to other committed viewers than show up two minutes ahead of time and sit next to a couple of baby boomers who ordered their seats online four days ago because their lives just aren’t interesting enough to have anything better to do.
- Tickets for $13.50. Do I really need to say anything else on the subject? I know you’ve got to pay off the remodel, but find another way.
- The Sundance Catalog is displayed on the side tables in the hall. This is shameless but predictable cross-marketing. The Sundance Catalog, for anyone flirting with checking it out, is on a par with the cinema: some interesting things but wildly pricey and of inconsistent quality.
What was good about it? The movie. The seats. The fact that I can get a drink on-site to take the edge off my annoyance. Would I go again? Only if I were desperate to see a first-run indie film. But I’d try the Lumiere first. Or the Embarcadero. And no, you can’t have my phone number. And I’m not free Thursday.
R, that’s what. R spent twelve hours today cutting over my old Movable Type platform to the new Movable Type platform and cleaning up categories, spacing, widgets and other things that wake me up in the middle of the night. Hooray R! You are officially da man.
A frighteningly familiar take on 30-something weekends in San Francisco. Hmmm. It might be time to make some changes.
I’m back from New York. It snowed. I loved it. That’s what February’s supposed to be like.You know what February’s not supposed to be like? Flowering tress, that’s what. What is wrong with California?
Oh. My. God. If you live in San Francisco, you have got to venture over to the land of Gucci babies, Pucci mamas, over-bred puppies and post-frat bankers and get yourself a grilled cheese sandwich at the Blue Barn on Chestnut Street in the Marina. Holy Lord but they are good. They make me want to move into their storefront. In the mornings, they would give me cups of their famous Blue Bottle coffee to cleanse my palate. After that, I could help them fill up their organized, shiny containers with quantities of perfect, colorful vegetables for their custom-made salads. I wouldn’t have any salad though. I would eat only cheese.
They have six kinds of grilled cheese sandwiches. Goat, Sheep, Cheddar and three other kinds which I barely looked at because I snagged on the sheep’s milk cheese with jambon serrano and fig jam. The jam caramelizes in tiny chewy pockets in the bread. It is the best - the BEST - sandwich I have had in a long time. And I love me some sandwiches. I am a grilled cheese fanatic. For the record, I am also nutty for BLTs but that’s not what we’re talking about right now.
In addition to their grilled cheese menu, they have other sandwiches (which, I am sure, are of a lesser breed since they don’t include grilled cheese), macaroni and cheese and salads (fresh and packaged). They also have a mini cheese counter and Acme baguettes if you feel like you need to go home and have DIY grilled cheese. Oh - they also sell the jammy figginess that makes me swoon.
The place only has a couple of tables, so it’s mostly a take-out thing. If you have to take-out, don’t wait until you get home to open up your toasty warm packet of cheesy goodness. Eat it immediately. Go back often.
How do you honk at the guy in front of the guy in front of you?
Twice in the last two weeks I have been irritated at the car in front of the car in front of me. In New York, everyone behind that front car would be honking, creating a chorus of justified displeasure. I admit that the tenth cabbie in the line doesn’t know anything about what’s going on except that he’s not moving, but who cares? Not moving in New York is bad.
In San Francisco, no one honks except to be annoying. The justifiable honk is almost unknown. So when I honk as the second car up from me sits at a green light, the driver in front of me - who should also be honking but isn’t - glares at ME. Like I’m the one making the mistake. Where’s their sense of civic duty? The greater good? Come on people, get it together. We all have to live in this town.
Anyone in the path of the tour of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? should go. It stars Kathleen Turner, who is predictably at home in the boozy, buxom Martha and Bill Irwin who is fluid and excellent as George. (Am I the only one who read the books about the hippos when I was a kid?) It is a rare opportunity to see Mr. Irwin, who trained, as I did, at the Circus Center in San Francisco. His rubbery and precise physicality serves George well. I saw this same production last year in New York with Nicole Kidman and it was exactly as painful as it should be and just a little more brilliant than that.
No, that’s not right. I didn’t see it “with Nicole Kidman” as in, “she was in the show.” I saw it “with Nicole Kidman” in that we went to see it together. I mean, I didn’t actually see it with Ms. Kidman per se. We were both there. We both stood in line for the bathroom. We sat a couple of rows away from each other, which I’ve done with people I do know, so it might have been like we were together. Except for her not knowing my name. And being there with other people. Except for that, we were there together. Just like me and Mats Wilander were dating when I was 11. Like that kind of “together.” You know what I mean.
Like a good New Yorker, I studiously avoided granting her any special attention, unlike the middle-aged woman from Omaha or Debuque or Tampa or who cares where because it was clearly Not New York in front of me, who chattered relentlessly at Ms. Kidman. I do not do this with celebrities. I feel that it would bring shame upon me and upon my family, although I’m unclear on what form that might take, since I do not usually offer both attention and my home address in the same breath.
For the record, I do not enjoy Ms. Kidman’s work. If you knew me, you would know this because I can’t stop myself from saying something cutting and personal every time she wafts onto a screen. I find her brittle. I also wish she would acknowledge the fact that she’s gay instead of continuing to marry men as if she weren’t. (I have third-hand confirmation on this, but I can’t tell you from who because I promised I wouldn’t, even though my source is notoriously indiscreet. And a psychiatrist, which, now that I’m thinking about it, is a little disturbing.)
On the other hand, I am in love with Edward Albee. In an unfortunate turn, I am taken and he is gay, but who’s counting? I have loved him since I read The Zoo Story when I was sixteen and seeing this production renews my love.
The tour will be in San Francisco for now and then move to Tucson in mid-May.
Not being able to remember how I found out about Annabelle Verhoye is an annoying lapse. I was rattling around New York for several years so it’s probably inevitable that I would cross paths with a lot of intriguing people and forget how I met most of them.
Beginnings be damned, I tracked her down once I did see her work, inviting myself, with my nonexistent art-buying budget into her studio on the west side on a bitterly cold winter day five years ago. I can’t explain why I loved her pieces. I do not usually like overtly feminine work. It must be the combination of the alien shapes of her delicate women and flowers combined with the layers of materials - paint, plastic, glass - that attracts me.
If you are in New York this week, go and see her first solo show at the Opera Gallery. Annabelle herself is warm and welcoming and her work is worth a trip.
The day our young landlady’s wild-haired and insane parents told me and my ex-boyfriend that we could not have our dog or any plants whatsoever on the half acre deck was the day we suspected we were doomed to leave our newly rented apartment in the tony Marina neighborhood. They were ‘concerned about the weight’ of my ficus and, apparently, window boxes. I lived resentfully with the barren expanse for three months before I left both the apartment and the boyfriend. When I drove by a year later, after the crazies had reclaimed the apartment for themselves, I saw that they had installed a large stone fountain on the deck. I’m sure it didn’t weigh nearly as much as my ficus.
Since then, things have been looking up. My next place was owned by the wonderful Jose and Bob. Bob is an all-American George Clooney type with a superhero profile and Jose is a gentle, smiling and boyish Asian. The two of them handed over their beautifully renovated Victorian flat to me and two friends and cheerfully made improvements at the slightest suggestion over the next three years. They didn’t even blanch when they saw the state of their pristine palace under the reign of my roommates.
The current living situation is even better. The studio is too small for two people but R and I stay for the deck and the landlady. The building is owned and managed by a woman who a.) knows how to build and fix things, and b.) does. Since R moved in and I joined him a year later, she’s put in a dishwasher, a new garden downstairs complete with goldfish, and built our deck, which is now a redwood expanse home to flourishing roses, lavender, iris, herbs and the happy ficus tree. Her boyfriend is an electrician, which is very handy. He blows leaves, washes our cars and has installed prison-grade floodlights that discourage the scary vagrants who used to sleep in the doorways.
Also, a big plus, she only rents to interesting people, like the photographer in the studio downstairs who specializes in pregnancy portraits. The other live-work space is rented to another photographer and his slim, Rollerderbying writer girlfriend. In the storefront, there’s a quiet and accommodating guy who repairs guitars and racing bicycles. The apartment across from us has seen more turnover. Amanda and her beautiful photographs used to live there in splendid organization. When she left - we were very sad - we got a recent divorcee who lasted three months before retreating back to the suburbs. Now, we have a hip and private technology girl who has a cool job at a travel site that takes her off to Belize and other places extraordinary.
It’s all very trendy and integrated into the community. Which is to say, I guess, Californian. Right?
My grandmother spent about a billion hours a year mulching, hydrating, feeding, clipping and worrying over several spiky rose plants. In return, she got back six or seven blooms per summer. I, on the other hand, have profusions of blossoms that appear as early as April and continue into the fall. I spend about 15 minutes every two weeks cutting them back and watering them.
There is no killing a rose bush in San Francisco. They will bloom no matter what horrible mold or evil bug attacks them. As far as I can tell, roses will thrive even if you only water them once a week in the summer and not at all in the winter.
The difference between me and my grandmother is zones. I am in Zone 9. She is in Zone 4. Apparently, so the web tells me, the country is divided into gardening zones. Greenhouses categorize and sell plants by zone. Much like raising children, it is bad form to compare them and worse to imply that one is superior to another, but it is impossible not to notice that Zone 9 supports the flowering plants that everyone wants in the garden and Zone 4 supports mostly fir trees.
So, this week, thorny points go to San Francisco. Keep up the good work.
Amendment: Since this review was published, I have been asked by the owner not to use some of the tables during lunchtime. As there were other readers/writers at similar tables, I assume this has to do with the frequency with which I visit the cafe and the duration of my visits (usually around two hours). I stand by my general comments below but retract my recommendation of the place as friendly to writers and hanging out. They are clearly more concerned about one-time spenders on busy days than steady repeat business, so I’m striking Momi’s from my list of regular haunts.
The most hospitable café in the Hayes Valley neighborhood for a warm cup of tea, low-end food and a place to take your laptop or the Sunday paper. There are other cafes but they are on busier corners or have odd clientele that make me nervous or annoyed. (Prime example, the otherwise serviceable café on the corner of Page and Laguna where you are likely to be overwhelmed by a crowd who have just had to sit quietly at the Zen Center across the street for God only knows how many hours. Beware.)
Momi Tobys serves excellent bagels (for San Francisco) which are toasted right up to the edge of burning and are not swamped by cream cheese (see Noah’s Bagels). Try onion or multi-seed, both happily salty. Their coffee is pretty bad, sitting in pots on burners as it does, but they have espresso drinks and a great selection of teas, some juices and both wine and beer, nice options in the evening. The menu is basic lunch stuff - chicken Caesar, soup, baguette crostini with pesto and a small selection of sandwiches - none of it superb but all of it solid. (If a tasty lunch is your sole object, head around the corner to Frjtz or a couple blocks down Hayes to Arlequin. Neither place is conducive to hanging out, but the food is superior to Momi’s.)
The main reason to stop by Momi Toby’s is to read for a while, to write for a bit or to hook up with friends for a coffee. (Don’t go overboard with the friends: none of the tables will accommodate more than three people comfortably.) Depending on who’s working, the music varies in quality and volume, but it’s generally interestingly circus-y alternative. (The chick who used to crank up the insane metal-meets-Muzak tunes has disappeared from the staff rotation, thank God.)
I write there regularly. The crowd’s there studying or reading themselves, so you get the friendly atmosphere without a lot of distracting, jerks who have something to prove on cellphones, the reason for abandoning a café closer to my apartment.
This town encourages defection, at least of my high-powered, ambitious friends. In the last three years, I have lost two friends to Dallas, one to Florida, one to L.A. and, as of this morning, two to London. They have all left to move on with their lives, lives which were in sleepy limbo while in San Francisco.
I know that there are many defenders of San Francisco, but none that I have met are ambitious. Some are opportunistic (there is money here, after all, if you are willing to wait for it) and some are energetic, but none are ambitious. This city is the geographical equivalent of molasses. If you are seeking a place away from the madding crowd because you want to recover, raise a family, write a book without interruption or are a student, a stoner or a surfer, or even because you are famous and want to hide out, this is the place for you.
Nothing will push you here. The customer service is slow. The traffic is cautious. Even the ubiquitous homeless are slow-moving and under-motivated. It is a city that hopes for sun, basking when it’s out, huddling in restaurants when it’s not. It hikes and hangs out, it skis and sips wine, but it does not drive for the finish line. It’s about changing the world through hemp rather than heft. It encourages contemplation - yoga, therapy, knitting, Buddhism, hallucinogenic drugs - but it does not have any particular aim in mind besides live and let live, man.
It is a city of slow principles and slow growth and slow change. This is no place for those on a mission and moving fast. Hence the defectors. Someday, I will be among them. This town is no place for a New Yorker. For now, I’m running as lightly as I can over the surface of the molasses. Come visit for the views but don’t stay for the ambition.
Cole Valley Bakery, corner of Cole and Parnassus, open 7-7, closed Monday
Cole Valley Bakery has a full range of tarts and pastries and breads for breakfast or pick-up. They also serve sandwiches, salads and soups to a lunchtime crowd.
Their croissants are, in all respects, real French croissants. This means that they are light, flaky and NOT the size of my head. They have a slightly crunchy exterior and plenty of room between the million interior layers of butter and magic dough. This would be reason enough to head to Cole Valley, but it’s not the only one. Their coffee is first-rate. It’s not stale or boiled or overheated or pumped full of Starbucks steroids. It is rich, straightforward coffee and the perfect base for their perfect café au lait.
Other highlights include their canelés, which I have seen nowhere else, and their panniers (or elephant ears, as we American’s have thuddingly dubbed them) put all others to shame.
Lunches are bigger than you would expect, so don’t over-order. Even their small garden salad is sufficient for a light lunch. The only flaw in their superior bakery line-up is their baguettes, which are tough. The mini-baguettes are the base for their numerous, pre-wrapped sandwiches, which are still worth getting. Be prepared to chew fiercely. Selections include Gruyere and ham, saucisson and cornichon, aoili turkey and cranberry and a superb tuna salad complete with bits of apple.
Their soups range from the very bland to the truly excellent, so make sure to ask for a sample before ordering.
I went early, eager to get to the produce and beat a retreat before the yuppies had strapped their offspring into their Audis and started their weekend errands. I didn’t beat anyone. Yuppies are early risers. I was going for oranges and tomatoes and lobster, oh my. Little did I know that even Whole Foods does not stock cooked lobster meat. Crab, yes. Shrimp, yes. But their pincered brethren are kept alive in a tank and you have to buy them as such. I am a Boston born and bred hypocrite as far as lobster is concerned: I’ll eat ‘em but I won’t kill ‘em.
Saturday was my day: the bearded young fellow behind the counter said that not only would they steam one for me, they’d crack it and pack up the meat as if the nasty murder had never happened. Excellent. We made an appointment that I’d be back for my magic in two hours and I trotted home to brag of my good fortune to R.
Skip to three and half hours later. I approach. The bearded guy goes into the back and returns to say that he, “Hadn’t gotten to it yet.” What could he have possibly been checking on? His crack team of lobster gnomes?
At this point, I should have cut my losses and left the shellfish slaughter for a less busy day but Beardy says if I can wait fifteen minutes, he’ll do it immediately. Fifteen minutes is no big deal, so I go get some sushi and read the paper. I return in twenty minutes. Nothing doing. I return twenty minutes after that. Still nothing doing. I would leave but I’ve already paid for the lobster, by the pound, pre-steaming.
A full hour after I arrived, the lobster appears. I am furious and Beardy can tell. Perhaps it’s the foam at the corners of my mouth. He looks scared. I open my mouth to say that I will take it and crack it myself but Beardy starts his work. Three hours after it was supposed to be done, I am at home with, as far as I can judge, half the meat the lobster should have yielded for the bargain price of $26. The handful of fresh shrimp he has thrown in and his assurance that this is a “bad day” do little to make me feel better about the chunk of my Saturday that will not be recovered.
Appalling, stoned-out San Francisco customer service strikes again.
1. No snow. Seriously, it’s Christmas people. Where’s the weather???
2. Union Square. (SF, not NYC.) Always crowded. Mostly tourists. Like the Times Square of San Francisco except it’s dark and doesn’t even have a Dunkin’ Donuts. I would never go there if I could avoid it. And while we’re on it…
3….SF has the highest pedestrian death rate of any American city. It’s not hard to see why: a combination of the poor drivers and poor planning. Why doesn’t this city get it together (like New York did in the 60s) to make their main thoroughfares one way so you can make a left when you need to and, while they’re sorting that out, time the crosswalk lights so that drivers can actually turn onto those streets sometimes without waiting on the herds of slow-moving out-of-towners and backing traffic up for ages? The drivers here are already operating at some subterranean levels of skill and intelligence and the poor transit planning only makes it worse. It took me 20 minutes to drive around one block the other day in the middle of a weekday. 20 minutes.
Home. And a damn hot home it is too. It’s a testament to this city that, as much as I hate heat, and I do, I love New York more. When I was a kid, I had heatstroke three times, all of them terrifying, so I kind of lost interest in all things hot, including beach vacations (which also tax my patience with lying still - I would have made a really bad Victorian bride) and summer in general. Give me spring or autumn.
Living in San Francisco has changed - or at least moved - my opinion of hot weather. The uniformity of the weather in California freaks me out. Endless days of the same half sunshine/half overcast weather grate on my nerves the way I imagine endless daylight drags on the Scandinavians. It’s like eating the same thing day after day: no matter how pleasant it seemed in the beginning, after 300 times, it’s lost all appeal.
New York in August is usually about 85 degrees and 70% humidity which make it feel like a warm bath. With your clothes on. Oddly, this adversity rarely bothers me. It’s inconvenient and you have to plan around it - don’t wear a suit to work, plan on being sticky - but I prefer it to the suffocating uniformity of San Francisco’s non-seasons which make me feel like I’m being pacified for nefarious alien purpose. (If they come, they could take California without a glitch. Seriously. No one out there?s paying any attention. Go for it.)
Not to be religious, but I think there’s something about the adversity of seasons that keeps you alert. Snow for a few months, sweltering for a little while, a few thunderstorms, falling leaves, budding leaves. They remind you that mobility and rejuvenation are essential. Mild heat and clear skies convey a sense of suspicious well-being, encouraging you to believe that all?s well, that there’s no need to press forward. Blech.
Fog. Again. F’ing freezing cold and fog again this morning. I keep saying it: it’s August. What is wrong with this place?
Lines at Tartine. Their croissants bear about as much resemblance to French croissants as an H3 does to a Mini, but they’re still the best bakery in town. If it weighs more than 2 lbs. with its clothes off, it’s not from France.
Gravity.
Circolo had every chance of success with us. It had cool lights and an, um, water feature outside and it’s in our neighborhood. “What more could you want?” we thought and off we tripped in our Saturday finest to drop $140 on dinner and 2 drinks each. What we want is a decent chef and Circolo’s not the place to find one. Before we get to the sad food though, let’s discuss the ambience. They’re doing a club/restaurant thing that is only moderately successful, although I’ll admit that my frustration with the surroundings was likely enhanced by the dismal food. The dining area clearly converts to a dancefloor and while they’ve done a tasteful job of masking this fact and separating it from a lounge area in the forward part of the room, the space is not intimate.
We started with the dumplings, a predictable but almost inevitable choice for me. They were crispy and yummy, as were the mojito and a specialty margerita that accompanied them. So far so good. R. had the most expensive item on the menu, Kobe beef and foie gras, because he loves the combination and is willing to risk his arteries for it. I had the special, a whole, semi-pre-cracked crab, with parsley and lemon marinade. It was awful, awful, awful. It was a strange, offputting temperature, not chilled, not warm. It turns out that “marinade” means absolutely sodden. The crab was overwhelmed with an ultra-sweet broth that seemed to be made up of liquid nastiness and masses of diced parsley which wholly obscured any flavor the crab would have brought to the table and almost obscured the crab itself. The helpful idea of pre-cracking it was also poorly executed and saved no trouble. It was accompanied by “garlic toasts” which were equally cheaply over-flavored and half of which were inedible, having become saturated with the crab’s unfortunate parsley soak. R. fared slightly better with his dish but only because it wasn’t entirely unacceptable. The pairing of the interesting texture of Kobe beef and foie gras is a mistake. Foie gras smooth, rich density should be reserved for pairing with only the finest meat of like nature. That is clearly not Kobe beef, which has a unique, masculine flavor all its own which was ill-matched to the liver. To round out the meal, our second round of mojitos was overloaded with mint, one of them to the point of being almost undrinkable. Must have been the same guy who came up the parsley marinade.
Circolo: full of promise but very disappointing and expensively so.
Espetus is at 1686 Market at the intersection with Gough. Definitely make reservations: 415-552-8792
Espetus is all man. And when I say “man”, I mean an overly tan, front heavy man with a mustache who may or may not have been indicted for that thing that happened on the docks that certain night in 1986. The kind of man who, when he shrugs, turns up both hands, flattens his mouth and pulls his neck back as he says, “Whaaat? Fuggedaboudit.” The kind of man who enjoys having heart-attack-inducing quantities of meat cut at his table and dropped directly onto his plate. Yes, we are in the land of Brazil where hotties in bikinis and rampant fraud abound. Welcome to San Francisco’s one and only churrascaria.
Churascaria, for the uninitiated, are dining establishments focused on meats of all kinds. The chefs cook them on 2-foot metal skewers and, when you turn the little dial on your table to green, the servers descend with the entire skewer and a huge knife, slicing off pieces of each specialty for anyone at the table who has not passed out from Atkins overload. The meats are, for the most part, excellent. They range from pork with parmesan (a little dry) to sausages (outstanding) to chicken with garlic (tasty) to an entire rib cage of an unfortunate cow (stringy meat but impressive visual).
The overall experience is surreal and not a little overwhelming. The decor is upscale and subdued and the price (a flat $45 per person) is equally trendy. The essence of the place though is very Denny’s: eat far more than you should, salad bar’s in the back. (Literally. There’s nothing exceptional there, with the possible exception of the corn and cilantro melange.) It had the air of a restaurant you find on the side of the road in the Midwest where your Uncle Milt always loves to go and the desserts are all Jell-O based. The waiters descend one after another and create a kind of bizarre meat race. (They would do well to train with the subtler dim sum cart jockeys at Yank Sing.) Frankly, when I’m paying $45 for dinner, I prefer to order my meal already composed. I gauge my appetite at the outset, order accordingly and negotiate the meal at a reasonable pace. Espetus is not about that. They’re about speed and quantity and, without careful and early resistance, you will end the evening feeling nauseated and distinctly unhealthy, a fate I barely escaped.
Overall rating: Strange. (Good meat. Bad concept.)
Had everything we could get our hands on in the first 10 minutes of passing carts, with a heavy stress on dumpling-like items. The best being the shrimp ones. The satay is also well-sauced instead of the usual tandoori-esque treatment. The sweet rice dumplings get me every time. First, it’s not just rice. Second, while sweet, they are not the most excellent thing I seem to believe them to be. Beware a roving eye: the servers are very, very good at zoning in on you, which makes this a great place for a large party where there are more people to run defense. Or a greater chance of totally over-ordering. Still the best dim sum I’ve had in SF.
In the W Hotel on the corner below SFMOMA. Get it? “WXYZ”? The restaurant, like the hotel, is shooting for a very sleek, minimalist look which it achieves but which does not usually wear well. This translates into hip, high-backed curved booths with uneven pillowed seating. No matter: I’m sure the filling has failed under hipper bottoms than mine. The food was excellent. The special appetizer was a really stunning chicken pate, excellently smooth after the rough Provencal version we have been working our way through at home and which bears a striking resemblance in consistency to cat food. The salads were standard greens but large, well-chopped and well-dressed, a great version of a classic. I had a white fish special served on a bed of surprising pureed sweet potatoes. V. tasty. He had a pulled pork and pasta dish which was original but wrongly seasoned. Interesting but not as good. Dessert was superfluous after all the preceding.
Still overrated. I had a bizarre scallops dish. I love scallops, so it’s hard to hurt them, but they gave it their best, surrounding them with chanterelle mushrooms and what appeared to be sauerkraut. Thank God they change the menu every day: at least this sort of thing doesn’t hang around for long. The chocolate pot de creme was fine but served on a promo business card. Let me hear you say, “Tacky!” Let me hear you say, “Resting on its laurels.” To top it off, the movie was that entertaining and upbeat classic Das Boot. Give me a break.
Eliza’s in Potrero Hill is a solid, local Chinese place that I’m glad we finally found. Good service and presentation. Apparently very popular and very cheap. Local favorite. While bright, the decor is not the usual take-out genre of open spaces, empty tables and extreme lighting. I think I still prefer Eric’s, but the walnut prawns were crisp, the potstickers yummy (if not exceptionally so) and the standard Kung Pao chicken solid. The most original bit was the Mongolian Beef, which was served on a raised dish (inexplicably in an painted Italian pattern) and bedded on crispy, puffed rice twirls.
R had a strange root-vegetable salad and pork loin. I had risotto pancakes and salad. I also had rose petal creme brulee. Citizen Cake has wonderful pastries, in the great tradition of sculpted meringue and perfect paper rings around the tarts. They are not as good as City Bakery’s in New York, but they are stellar. Their scones are excellent. Their chocolates look excellent. (I have never had them.) That said, I cannot see paying their prices again for dinner. The food was a tad strange and left the impression of disorganization, but perhaps that was the server who was a little officious and “we” oriented. In sum, I wanted to steal the art and the flowers (short-cut lilies in a square candle vase) from the bathroom but the food was, as my grandmother would say, nothing extra.
One nice thing about California that I have to concede: typing in “C” in a pulldown box for “State” yields “California” whereas typing in “N” yields, ahem, Nebraska.
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On "To The Mean Lady in the Bathroom",
em commented: What a lovely sentiment and so kindly worded. I, too, have been on the receiving end of such nonsense - though in a som... (continues)