Restaurants in San Francisco

My brother just moved to San Francisco and i'll be visiting him all of next week. I've hear that San Francisco is an awesome city for eating out (The restaurant capital of the US", if you will). I'm looking for restaurant suggstions within San Francisco. Thanks all!

Your question is waaaaay too broad: what KIND of restaurants? where? price? etc.

Geo

always-

I highly recommend using the "search" function, selecting the "Beyond Chicagoland" forum. To narrow the results somewhat, also select "topic titles only". Here are three threads out of several that came up:

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=15334
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=24948
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=22456

I'm a fan of the "site:lthforum.com" trick in Google. Here are my results for San Francisco.

Khaopaat--pls tell me the trick again! I never ever write it down, and then promptly forget it. Promise: THIS time I'll write it down!

TIA!

Geo

Geo wrote:Your question is waaaaay too broad: what KIND of restaurants? where? price? etc.

Geo

Sorry about that. I'm looking for casual lunch spots and few nice sit down dinner options. I believe his apartment is located South of Market Street near the Embarcadero. Price isn't too much of a concern.

Two absolutely classic S.F. lunch places are Tadich Grill and Sam's Grill. No visit to S.F. is complete without visiting at least one of them. Preferably both.

Geo

alwayshungry wrote:Sorry about that. I'm looking for casual lunch spots and few nice sit down dinner options. I believe his apartment is located South of Market Street near the Embarcadero. Price isn't too much of a concern.

If I was near there and wanted a casual lunch, I would just go to the Ferry Building and eat at Boccalone every day. Come to think of it, that's exactly what I did.

Burma Super Star is a bus ride away and amazing.

Geo wrote:Khaopaat--pls tell me the trick again! I never ever write it down, and then promptly forget it. Promise: THIS time I'll write it down!

TIA!

Geo

No problemo! I used to forget it all the time too, but then I started using it a lot specifically for searching LTH posts.

The trick is, in the Google search field, you type in whatever you're looking for, then follow it with site:lthforum.com. So for this SF search, I typed in exactly this:

"san francisco" site:lthforum.com

The "site:" feature is now a regular part of my "Google-fu"

Gotcha. It works. TNX!

Geo

You could do a week in SF and not run out of excellent Cal-Ital restaurants to try: quince, a16, incanto, oliveto, flour and water, et al. Heck, most of what I've had in North Beach is light years better than the Italian in Chicago.

Also: Koi Palace in Daly City for Chinese. Koi or Ame for high-end fusion. Hog's Island Oysters at the Ferry Market. Burma Superstar.

We just returned from a weekend in San Francisco and had a great meal at Coi, which is their answer to Alinea. It's not quite as molecular but the meal was outstanding. We also dined at Piperade, which is modern Basque cuisine and very enjoyable. Anchor and Hope, near Union Square, has pristine seafood. Epic Roasthouse is a terrific steak house on the water with great views of the Bay Bridge. The Ferry Building is disneyland for foodies.

This is just scratching the surface.

http://coirestaurant.com/
http://www.piperade.com/
http://www.anchorandhopesf.com/
http://www.epicroasthousesf.com/

Here is a trip report from my recent trip to SF. Tadich Grill, Canteen, Swan Oyster Depot and The Slanted Door were the highlights.

Made 2 trips to SF last year - http://uhockey.blogspot.com/search/labe ... 0Francisco

STRONGLY recommend La Folie for dinner, Boulevard for Lunch, Dottie's True Blue Cafe and Brenda's French Soulfood for Breakfast. Canteen also does an excellent Brunch. Tartine and Butler and the Chef are also superb.

I just wanted to add my two cents about Coi --just ate there a few weeks ago and loved it. Ate out in the lounge instead of the main dining room; my party was the only one there and I think we liked it better than the main room. The food was quite good -- I know it keeps getting compared to Alinea, but I found it much more tradtional. It reminded me much more of L20 (not in any seafood emphasis, but in their general approach).

We spent a weekend there and had a range of extraordinary food, but the three highlights, on divergent ends of the haute spectrum:

El Farolito's al pastor taco, at 2779 Mission Street. Explosively flavored, overportioned, perfect. Necessarily regresses you to a grinning kid.

Tartine Bakery's - well - anything. I closed my eyes and pointed arbitrarily, got two tarts and a croissant, felt none could be improved upon. That is also an extraordinary eating block, worth a trip in itself - Tartine, Delfina, Bi-Rite. If you manage to eat your way through all three, there is a splendid park is across the street, where, speaking from experience, you can lie comatose amidst many other cheerful, comatose eaters.

And the entire meal at Canteen, which is something like San Francisco's Mado - but more intimate, decidedly Californian, and, in our experience, more inventive. (That might be synonymous with modern Californian - but I don't know the cuisine well enough to make the conceptual leap.)

http://www.sfcanteen.com/. An added bonus is that if you go with four people, it is entirely justifiable to order the entire menu.

edit: Added address.

And our experience with Burma Superstar was worthy, but not destination worthy like the other places mentioned in this thread. I think its cache lies in its novel flavor profile and unusual balance of textures and cool/spicy components - but if you've had Tac Quick or Spoon Thai, the flavor profile will be familiar, and I don't think they balance their components with the same complexity.

It's a good meal, but a hike to get to, not a great walking neighborhood, and you're guaranteed upwards of an hour wait.