Bay To Bay

From Bay Ridge to the Bay Area and back again.

That’s kind of how I feel. Dazzled and sun-burnt. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that much sunshine in my life. And yes, we were in San Francisco!

Before the trip I had picked up Patricia Unterman‘s food guide which turned out to be a good move. We hit the ground starving. We sat one row away from business class and were therefore tortured for the entire flight by the aromas of real food and warm cookies and the tantalizing trays of champers. Stupid airlines. Couldn’t even spare me a cookie? Bah.

This little book is really quite indispensable to any food lover heading to San Fran. By no means comprehensive it is however a good guide to what sorts of food you can find in and around the city by the bay. We headed straight for Chinatown to ABC Bakery & Restaurant. I was promised soup dumplings. What I got were amazing dumplings and wontons with soup. I’m cool with that.

From there we puttered around Telegraph Hill and the Embarcadero, saw City Lights bookshop and the Ferry Terminal Market and had tapas at B44. I was promised fish cheeks, but had to settle on dungeness crab stuffed piquillo peppers. I was cool with that too.

The next day we did what we do best. We walked. 11 miles in total if our memories and gmaps pedometer are to be believed! We turned right out of our hotel (such a deal if you don’t mind sharing a bathroom and shower) and headed up Mission, breakfasting on some truly excellent street tacos.

I know it is cliche, but seriously, those Victorian painted ladies are stunning! I’d be so intimidated if I owned one. You have to have such a good eye to pick out all those complimentary colors.

Real estate porn can work up a mighty hunger so the Boy and I popped into Palacio Latino. We’ve settled on a new rule for eating. If a restaurant is packed with locals and showing a football (soccer) match in the native tongue, the food is probably solid. This rule has never led us wrong and boy did it serve us well with this joint.

The menu at Palacio Latino is crazy and the food so good I broke my cardinal rule of restaurant eating and took a picture. It’s South American, to be sure, but there’s an odd Eastern European twist to it. I mean, they’ve got borscht! Even though I know I should have, I didn’t try it. I wasn’t that hungry unfortunately. But we did try the tamales (eh), the Pupusas and the Enchiladas Chapiunas, the Technicolor dish you see above.

The pupusas, little masa pancakes stuffed with cheese and beans, came with a cabbage salad that would have been perfectly at home served beside a plate of pierogis at Polonica. (By the way, the world needs more pupusa places, you hear that world!) And the enchiladas? Amazing. Sublime even. Dilled beets and red cabbage dressed with vinegar and chiles on top of a meat sauce that would have been at home with my grandmother’s galumpkies topped with cheese, raw onion and hard boiled egg? What could possibly be wrong with that? Nothing! It was awesome.

We left the Mission and headed to the Noe Valley, and then the Hayes Valley, and finally up to the top of Russian Hill.

Why? I have no idea! Our feet felt light and it was a beautiful day. By the time we hit Fisherman’s Wharf I was a little cranky, but, at mile 9 or so, I’d say that’s to be expected.

And so we turned home-wards. The only problem is, there was this giant hill in between us and our hotel. We originally started to go over it, but damn, no way. Those are some serious hills to tackle after a serious walk, so we went around it.

After much walking a big dinner is called for. Unfortunately we didn’t know where to go. If I had just listened to the good book we would have ended up at Original Joe’s without tacking on an extra couple of miles, but no, I had to grumble and grouse and come to the place by my own path.

There are no pictures of dinner or the restaurant. Why? Because while Original Joe’s may be awesome and the steaks delicious and perfectly cooked, it happens to sit on a rather sad, downtrodden and sketchy block in the Tenderloin and, well, I just didn’t feel right whipping out my camera to take a picture while trying to fend off beggars and junkies, especially with a belly full of incredibly perfect T-bone. So, you’ll just have to imagine a scene from Mad Men where they’re all in an at-that-time classy steak and cocktails joint and then re-imagine it in 2007. Nothing’s changed except there’s no crinoline.

The next day, with sore feet and owie knees we decided to go easy on ourselves and take the ferry to Alameda and the Hangar One distillery and tasting room. The ferry conveniently leaves from the Ferry Terminal Market, so we breakfasted on Acme Bread and Cowgirl Creamery sandwiches, checked in with the wine merchants to be sure we knew where we were heading and set out to taste us some vodka in the afternoon. But alas, to no avail.

I’d like to air my frustration with Hangar One at this point in time. Anyone who doesn’t want to listen to me rant should move on. *ahem* Dear Hangar One; My boyfriend and I decided to spend our last day in San Francisco with you. We did our due diligence, we checked websites and schedules, we paid $22 for ferry tickets, we walked 20 minutes in the beating sun to arrive at your tasting room where there were 20 people sitting outside laughing and drinking. We tried the door, it was locked. We noticed the sign, it said, “Open Wednesday-Sunday.” It was Monday, and yet, there was a door open and people carousing, so I stuck my head in and said to the guy behind the counter, “Are you open?” to which he replied, “No.” I stuck my head back out of the door to make sure I hadn’t hallucinated the 20 or so people and said to him, “Really?” to which he said, “YES.” I replied, “But your website said you were open 7 days…” to which he replied, “Then you looked at the wrong one,” and turned back to the guy to whom he was giving samples of the wares. The conversation was obviously over.

Rather pissed, I stomped back to the ferry terminal, 20 minutes in blazing sun, to find that we had just missed a ferry and another would not arrive for over an hour. So thank you Hangar One, thank you for your hospitality and understanding. I know if I owned a business and a sweaty, dusty person popped her head in, that I would treat her in just the same way. Really, honest. I wouldn’t offer her a taste of something, just to make her feel special, after spending a nice chunk of money and 3 hours simply to come visit my establishment. Nope, I sure wouldn’t do that.

And just so I don’t sound incredibly crazy, yes I do know they were closed and that they had every right to treat me that way. But, this one experience has transformed me from someone who enjoyed drinking, purchasing and recommending Hagar One to friends and strangers alike into someone who will now steer people away from delicious mandarin blossom and kaffir lime vodkas. This makes me rather sad. I really loved their stuff.

Incredibly frustrated and frankly pissed, I boarded the ferry back to San Fran (the Boy was less pissed and frustrated than I was and was a really good sport to listen to my rantings and ravings). I was dejected, and sad. Even arriving back in the market and purchasing some chocolates and cookies couldn’t help, so the Boy took pity on me, bought some bread and cheese and we headed back to the hotel and had an impromptu nosh in Yerba Buena on truly great bread and exceptional cheese.

After that, I was ready to leave San Fran and head for the hills, but there was one thing left I needed to do. I had to dip my toes in the Pacific. Baker Beach was on the way to the Golden Gate Bridge so we stopped there. The Boy loved the old embattlements, I loved the fog.

I did not love the naked guy doing yoga on the beach. I later learned that Baker Beach is the naked beach. Oh well, I suppose this prudish East Coaster should learn to loosen up from time to time!

So San Francisco, thank you. You were a lovely host and I can’t wait to come back and visit again as soon as I can.

More to come: Crab sandwiches and Napa and Sonoma and wine and barbecue and tacos oh my! Stay tuned.