Day 2: Eating on the Dock of the Bay

In the shadow of the Bay Bridge, steps from downtown SF, sits the San Francisco Ferry Terminal. Ferries to Sausalito and Larkspur come and go, and people gather -- including a lot of people who really like and care about food.

Inside, all the time, is some great stuff: the Cowgirl Creamery, selling their own award winning cheeses, and lots of other great cheeses and accoutrements, for instance. Some bigger names like Scharffen-Berger Chocolates. A citified version of Taylor's Automatic Refresher, which you'll meet later on in this trip. The Slanted Door, Charles Phan's well-known and highly-regarded South East Asian-ish restaurant.

Lucky for us, we made it to the Ferry Terminal on a Thursday. You see, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, all the tasty stuff inside is complemented by lots of vendors outside. Fresh produce, sure, but also meats and prepared food and other great local artisanal treats.

So as interested as we were in keeping our lunch reservation at the Slanted Door, you hopefully understand that once we got there, the though of one meal in one place quickly was replaced by lots of bites from all over the inside and outside of the Ferry Terminal.

Since we hadn't eaten anything yet, how's about for breakfast: local tangy sourdough, topped with fresh cream cheese, smoked sockeye salmon, some red onion, and uber-fresh tomatoes, topped with a pinch of sea salt?


And then, well, we went to an incredible place. Boccalone. Although we didn't make it to Chris Cosentino's Italian ode to offal, Incanto, we did make it to his salumeria. There are all sorts of sausages, and other Tasty Salty Pig Parts (their motto, and a good one at that), and it's awfully hard to choose. We'll be looking for their nduja, a spreadable sausage filled with porcine oopmh, at Murray's. But, for a (small?) bite, we settled on La Cicciolina: testa, lonza, pickled veggies, chillies, and mint.

We washed it down with a couple agua frescas from the Mexican cart outside -- one yellow watermelon, and one plum.


Running low on room, we figured there was space for a "Korean taco" for each of us -- the "tortilla" is seaweed, filled with marinated short rib, some spicy mayo, and other stuff. Ok, but nothing revelatory here.

And to wash it all down: a scoop of pistachio sorbet and one of coconut milk lemongrass sorbet.


We didn't get to, among other things, the truck roasting and selling beautiful porchetta, the (non-Korean) tacos, or the brisket sandwich. We'll have to go back for those on our next visit.

Later in the day, taking a circuitous route to visit some friends in Russian Hill, we made a stop at the Swan Oyster Depot. No pictures, but just imagine: oysters. Crab. Anchor Steam. Sourdough. Clam chowder. Is there a better mid-afternoon snack?

Then some more walking, until we found Ina Coolbrith Park. Learn about Ms. Coolbrith here. Her namesake park is comprised primarily of a series of terraces on a hill, with lots of secluded nooks. A nice place to sit on a bench with the woman you love; maybe not the best place to hacky sack (due to the hills and all), which the other folks in the park learned the hard way.

Then, to finish off a great day, we saw some good friends who moved out west at the beginning of the year. Some Cowgirl Creamery Inverness and Sally Jackson Eclipse cheeses, wild fennel and orange salami from Boccalone, sourdough baguette from Acme, and wine to start. Then off to Range, for tasty cocktails, locally sourced duck and halibut, and good times for all.

Day One: A beautiful day for a ballgame

We figure it's best to show you our vacation one day at a time. Some days there'll be more to see than others, some days we didn't take too many pictures, and some days are a little hazy in our memories perhaps. But this way, you won't get too sick of us too quickly, and we don't have to try to get it all out at once.

We landed in San Francisco, flowers in our hair and ready for vacation, at 9:30 in the morning on Wednesday the 12th. We'd been up since about 4:00 NY time, so even though it was 9:30 in the morning, it was really mid-day for our stomachs. After a short trip on the BART to our hotel, we ambled over into the seedy Tenderloin, not really where you want to hang out unless you want a banh mi.

For those of you who've been living under a rock since the French colonized Vietnam, a banh mi is what happens when the French colonizers try to make a baguette using Vietnamese rice flour, and then fill it up with meat, pate, pickled veggies, and various other items. In a perfect world, the bread is crusty yet with a nice tender crumb, and the fillings hit all the hot, sour, sweet and salty notes that southeast Asian cuisines cover so well. And since San Francisco is in some sense a perfect world, the banh mi you'll get there will knock your socks off. Inside: Vietnamese bbq pork, pickled carrots and daikon, jalapenos, cilantro, some mayo.

Also, since it was still breakfast time, a steamed bun with egg, onions, and to be honest, I don't know what else.



And on to some baseball! I know the Giants and Dodgers, and their fans, hate each other. Really. But wow. This is hatred that goes back deep, and far, and spans two coasts, and many generations of haters.

First, if you ever get a chance to go to AT&T Park (or whatever phone company it's named after at the moment), the beautiful park right on the Bay, do yourself a favor and do so. An ideal spot for a ballgame on a sunny afternoon for sure.

Second, if you ever get a chance to see reigning Cy Young Award winner (and perhaps this year's as well) Tim Lincecum, who looks like he's 12 years old but pitches like a beast, throw heat by the Dodgers' juicing slugger Manny Ramirez while the sold-out crowd gets drunker and rowdier each moment, you should do that too.

Third, if you get standing room tickets, stand as close as you can to home plate. But be aware that it means you won't leave that spot for most of the game, unless you want to lose it. So by the time you do leave the spot to get some of the park's famed garlic fries, the fries may be soggy and disappointing. Which we would remedy later on our trip, but you'll hear more about that when we get to Napa.

But, after a manager gets ejected, benches clear, the bench coach/acting manager gets ejected, Lincecum pitches a gem but gets victimized by a bad call and a hit with two outs and two strikes in the ninth, and the Giants win it on a walk-off home run in the tenth, I recommend high-tailing it a few blocks away to the 21st Amendment brewery, where you'll have their delicious beer and be surrounded by lots of drunk Giants fans, only getting drunker.

For the ladies: the Hell or High Watermelon Wheat beer, garnished of course with some watermelon and refreshing on a hot summer afternoon. For the fellas, I recommend the Back in Black, a dark, chocolately, but hoppy American IPA.


A few watermelon slices later, we went back to the hotel, checked in, relaxed for a bit, but then felt that familiar stomach rumble that can only mean one thing: get up, go to the Mission, most likely to Pancho Villa's Taqueria, and get a burrito.

Now, and I apologize, we did not get a good shot of the gargantuan carnitas burrito, but trust me, it was an excellent choice. We did get good shots of the torta ahogada (more or less, "drowned sandwich", filled with pork and spices and succulence, and the chile relleno that I thought I was ordering as a small side dish but as you can see offered a bit more. Don't worry, we didn't finish this all, and distributed leftovers to some folks who hopefully enjoyed them as much as we did.


Oh -- make sure you wash it all down with some horchata. To call it mexican rice milk flavored with cinnamon really doesn't do it justice. To say that the missus would drink it by the bucketful gives you some idea.


And that, ladies and gentlemen, is day one of our trip. Up next: we walk all over SF, see some old friends, and oysters!!

10 days of lots of eating, some drinking as well, and a bit of sightseeing

Many of you know that we recently spent 10 days eating our way through San Francisco, wine country, and Chicago. Coming up shortly: stories, pictures, and good times. Stay tuned for Tim Lincecum dazzling the Dodgers at AT&T Park, foie gras on sausages, and a meal at Alinea, not to mention our ridiculous rental car.

Pizza, other food, and again, more pizza

It's no secret that we love pizza. So we had our recent houseguest get in on the pizza making fun. One with arugula and prosciutto,


and one with tomato sauce, mozzarella and basil.

But, you say, what's with all the pizzas? You're right, things are getting a bit tired. How about we freshen it up this burger?

Would you like freshly ground chuck, a mix of maytag blue cheese and gruyere, caramelized onions mixed with bacon, some arugula, on an English muffin?



Yeah, that's what I thought. And yes, it was delicious.

But for something a bit more summery, and a bit lighter, corn salad with shrimp and watercress should hit the spot. Light, refreshing, clean flavors.

And then, of course, more pizzas. But this time with our own sourdough! The starter is a little stinky, and the dough was different to work with, but the flavor was great and we're looking forward to playing with the sourdough and seeing what comes out of it. This time: a pie with tomatoes, smoked mozzarella, a great raw milk swiss cheese called scharfe maxx, and speck. The fat from the speck renders, the meat gets nice and crispy, and the whole pie is lathered in its porky essence.


And then wash things down with that same sourdough crust covered in caramelized onions, ashy goat cheese, and fresh figs. And we put some lardo on top of the dough so that it baked into the crust, essentially infusing the dough with flavored pork fat. Straight from those nice folks at La Quercia in Iowa.