Where to eat in San Francisco

As a tour guide, people are always asking me where to eat in San Francisco, but my list of great places is so long that it's hard for people to remember all of my favorite local spots. So I've put together a list online of some of the places I would go if I just had a few days to explore this wonderful and unique city.

The Mission
Tartine Bakery - 600 Guerrero Street - http://www.tartinebakery.com
* Probably the best bakery in the whole Bay Area. It's a must visit! The line only takes 15 minutes at the most. They even serve Four Barrel Coffee. Remember, the bread comes out of the oven at 5pm.


Pizza Delfina - 3621 18th Street - http://www.delfinasf.com
* Next door to Tartine, it's my favorite pizza place in SF. Sooooo good! I like the Panna pizza and I have them add arugula to it. Trust me, it's good.

Bi-Rite Creamery - 3692 18th Street - http://biritecreamery.com
* On the same block, some of the best ice cream in San Francisco, for sure. If you want to skip the line, you can go in and buy something out of the cooler. Their ice cream sandwiches and pies are great too.

Mexican Food - Everywhere in the Mission
* Some of the best in the world. You can't go wrong just walking into any place in this neighborhood. Actually since we're talking about 18th street, Taqueria El Buen Sabor is great and its right there on the corner at Valencia Street. I love that place (but really, every mexican place in the mission is good).Flour + Water - 2401 Harrison Street - http://www.flourandwater.com
* Really good hand-made fresh pasta. This place is perfect for a nice night out. You might want to call for a reservation though 1-415-826-7000 ‎(they can get kinda busy).
Aslam's Rasoi - 1037 Valencia Street - http://www.aslamsrasoi.com
* There are 3 great Indian food places in a row across the street from Ritual Coffee (another great local coffee roster), and although most people swear by DOSA, I really like this place too.

Big Lantern - 3170 16th Street - http://biglantern.com
* Looking for dim sum at 10pm? Kind of a hard thing to find isn't it. Well, here's a pretty great Chinese food place that also happens to serve dim sum all the way up until they close. If I'm not eating over at Sam Wo in China Town, Big Lantern is my go to spot.

AND... While you're over here, check out 5 & Diamond (510 Valencia Street), Paxton Gate (824 Valencia Street), The Pirate Store (826 Valencia Street), and The Curiosity Shoppe (855 Valencia Street). The bar Amnesia (853 Valencia Street) always has great local bands playing in the evenings, and Dolores Park (Delores Street between 18th and 20th) is my favorite place to hang out during the day when the sun is out!

Hayes ValleyBlue Bottle Coffee - 315 Linden Street - http://www.bluebottlecoffee.net
* Some of the best coffee in San Francisco. Between Ritual Coffee, Four Barrel, Sight Glass, and Philz, I think I might like Blue Bottle the best. Oh, what a horrible life we live in SF trying to choose between so much amazing, best in the world coffee!Smitten Ice Cream - 432 Octavia Street - http://smittenicecream.com
* My new favorite ice cream in San Francisco. Everything I've tried on the menu thus far has been truly amazing (except the Summer Herb which was fucken gross).

Suppenkueche - 525 Laguna Street - http://www.suppenkuche.com
* German food + Northern California + Beer the size of your head = Amazing! Expect to wait. This place is popular!

Smuggler's Cove - 650 Gough Street - http://smugglerscovesf.com
* Probably the best tiki bar in the fricken world. The drinks here are truly amazing, high quality, and a little pricey (but not over priced for what you're getting). If you enjoy Rum, you'll love this bar!

Boxing Room - 399 Grove Street - http://boxingroomsf.com
* Oh good, a great new Cajun food place! I've been looking for a yummy Cajun place ever since Cajun Pacific changed to such selective hours of operation. Woohoo!

AND... While you're over here, check out Flight 001 (525 Hayes Street), Timbuk2 (506 Hayes Street), and Dark Garden Corsetry (321 Linden Street).

Haight StreetCha Cha Cha - 1801 Haight Street - http://www.cha3.com
* Great Tapas! Great Sangria! This place is one of my favorites, for sure.

Zazie - 941 Cole Street - http://www.zaziesf.com
* Technically Zazie isn't in the Haight, it's in Cole Valley, but it's an easy walk and it's my favorite breakfast place in San Francisco (8am - 2:30pm). I've never been there for dinner. I should go sometime.Ice Cream Bar - 815 Cole Street - http://www.theicecreambarsf.com
* If you're gonna get over to Cole Valley, you have to check this place out! This might be my new favorite spot in the City. Hand made ice cream and hand made soda. Yes that's right, soda! It's like you're at at fancy mixologist bar only they're making you milk shakes and sodas. Apparently, they make milk shakes like they did back in the '50s: pre-refrigeration and without ice cream! It's really neat. Just by chance we skipped the line, went to the back, and sat down at the soda fountain. The bartenders, um I mean soda jerks, really are amazing.

Little Chihuahua - 292 Divisadero Street - http://thelittlechihuahua.com
* The best horchata I've had in SF. When this mexican rice drink is done right, it's amazing. The food here is all free range and high quality. This is my roommates' favorite mexican place in the city.

Toronado - 547 Haight Street - http://www.toronado.com
* Looking for great beer? You've found your mecca in San Francisco here, my friend. They have an astonishingly large selection of beer on tap from all over the Bay Area and around the world. Try something from the Russian River Brewing Company. They're my favorite local beer.

Rosamunde Sausage Grill - 545 Haight Street - http://rosamundesausagegrill.com
* This is how Northern California does hot dogs. Wow, even their vegi-dog is amazing!

AND... While you're over here, check out every single used clothing store on upper Haight. There's like 7 of them or something, and they're all really good. And when you get to the end, there's Amoeba Music (1855 Haight Street). It's like you've died and gone to record store heaven!

Inner Sunset
Park Chow - 1240 9th Avenue - http://www.chowfoodbar.com
* Aaahhh, real dinner. You know, pork chops with grilled asparagus. Ginger cake with pumpkin ice cream. The kind of food you grew up with if you were born and raised in Northern California.

Soi Gow Thai - 1319 9th Ave - http://www.soigowthai.com
* This is one of my favorite Thai places in San Francisco. Not the fanciest or most expensive Thai place either. Just good Thai food.
Pluto's - 627 Irving Street - http://www.plutosfreshfood.com
* I always forget to recommend this place. If you're looking for a kick ass salad or a Thanksgiving dinner, this is the place to go!Thanh Long - 4101 Judah Street - http://goo.gl/PbrmX
* Not at all in the Inner Sunset. Thanh Long is in the Outer Sunset almost at the beach. Just hop on an N-Judah outbound train and you'll be there in no time. Apparently it's the best place to get crab in San Francisco.

Under Dog Sports Bar & Grill - 1824 Irving Street - http://www.tacoshopsf.com
* Again, not really in the Inner Sunset, but as long as you're hopping N-Judah trains, just get off at 19th. Nick's Crispy Tacos was home to some of the yummiest salsa and tacos in San Francisco, and this noisy inconveniently-located sports bar is one of the new shops Nick Fasanella has opened to continue selling his awesome tacos. And if you're drunk and tired, they'll drip you a fresh cup of Blue Bottle Coffee!

COMING SOON
Union Square and Fisherman's Warf
No, there aren't a lot of great places in both of these areas, but that's where all the hotels are and there are some gems to be found within walking distance to your bed. If you're in Union Square, though, check out the Half-Priced Ticket Booth (336 Powell Street - http://www.tixbayarea.com) for theater tickets. The Un-Scripted Theater Company always has tickets on sale there, every time we have a show.

PS: I haven't gotten around to it yet, but here's a list that I've been wanting to work my way through as a vegetarian. http://www.7x7.com/the-big-veg I've only tried something like 5 things off this list and they've all been great, and some of these veggie burgers look amazing. They've also got a nice list of fancy brunches that I want to check out. http://www.7x7.com/eat-drink/rise-and-dine-brunch-comes-citys-best-restaurants Man, I'm getting hungry!

Rolling Stop Law for Bicycles

Bicycles, Rolling Stops, and the Idaho Stop from Spencer Boomhower on Vimeo.

I would love to see Rolling Stops decriminalized for bicyclists. Bike routes in San Francisco run through areas that have less car traffic, but the reason they have almost no cars on them is that there's a stop sign on every single corner. Cars like to drive where there are stop lights that are timed for the speed limit, which is why there isn't a lot of car traffic on say, Page Street. Keeping the cars and bicycles in separate traffic routes is a great way to keep both car drivers and bike riders happy and safe. Wouldn't it be nice if bicycles enjoyed the same ease of through way on Page Street as cars did on Fell Street and Oak Street? It wouldn't hardly effect car drivers to allow bikes on bike routes to yield at stop signs and it would decriminalize what 93% of bicyclists are doing already. Yet I hear from car drivers all the time that it wouldn't be "fair" if bikes were allowed to yield when cars are required to stop.

Fairness is not about what is even, it's about choosing rules based on what people need. It wouldn't be "fair" to say to people in wheelchairs "if I have to walk up the stairs to get to work, so do you", even though that would be even. This comes up a lot in schools when kids with learning disabilities get extra time on tests. Often times we mistake fairness with sameness. "It's not "fair" that they get more time on a test than I do." Yet, kids with learning disabilities need more time to be able to process the exact same data as normal kids, so intelligent caring teachers find ways to give it to them. Some teachers see that some kids don't have the legs to walk up the stairs the same way as everyone else in the class does and they make the rules to be actually fair as opposed to even. Every time I bring up granting bicyclists' better rights I hear very similar cries of "it's not fair" against these ideas from car drivers as I heard from the other kids in my classes against me as the one kid in class with learning disabilities growing up. I guess it's human nature to automatically misperceive that "fair" is always equivalent to equal.

The rules of driving are based on the needs of cars. However, cars and bikes don't have the same needs. Yet many feel it's "fair" to criminalize the needs of bikes based on the sameness to the needs of cars. Cars have been the dominate user of the public spaces that we've designated for use as our roads for so long, most of us who only use cars for transportation have come to believe that the rules for the car should be the same rules for everybody else who also wishes to use our roads because sameness is "fair". But I would like to live in a world where we are governed by not what is the same for everyone, but rather by the needs of the people being governed. I want to see taxes higher on people who make a billion dollars a year, than on the struggling poor. I want to see kids with learning disabilities get un-timed SAT tests. And I want to see the laws for bicyclists' use of our roads changed so that they take into account their needs specifically. Fairness isn't about what is the same, it's about giving everyone an equal chance based on different people's needs.

Every time I'm stuck in traffic I wish that the person in front of me had ridden their bike instead of clogging my way to work with their car. Every time I can't find a parking spot I wish someone on the block had ridden their bike and not taken up the last parking space with their car. Every time I put $20 worth of gas into my car I wish that someone more had chosen to ride their bike rather than waste gas driving so that their extra supply of gas would have brought down the price of my gas by another penny. A change in the traffic laws for bicycles would make me want to bike more and it would make driving my car easier and more fun as well. I'm thankful for the bicycles in my city. I would like our laws to take into account their needs when traveling around my city too.

Un-Scripted Theater Company Bike part 2

My first adult bike when I was a kid was a 1984 Schwinn High Sierra mountain bike. I loved that bike! I kept it in great condition, added slick tires to it when I wanted a commuter bike, and basically rode it as my only bike for most of my life. Eventually, however, I decided it was time to upgrade to a bike which was actually my size, but when I started putting my Un-Scripted Theater Company bike together, there were certin aspects of my old bike I wanted to bring to my new bike. Namely an all-steel no-suspension frame and thumb shifters. Steel lasts forever, has a nice flex to it, and coming from my old bike (and the amount of locks I carry), I didn't care at all about wight. And with the shifters, I've never had index shifters, so I've never come to rely on them, and I love the feel of keeping your hands on the center of the handle bars and shifting with your thumbs. I don't know when the last time you've gone out to buy a new bike with an all steel frame and thumb shifters, but let me tell you, they didn't exist anywhere I looked. Thankfully, Surly makes a great selection of bikes all made with good old fashioned steel frames. From fixies to stretched frame bikes for Xtracycle parts, no matter how little or how much you want to bolt onto your frame, Surly not only has the bike for you, but they're well made, well priced, and have a real nice geometry. I chose a Cross-Check, a super-versatile short-frame touring-lite type bike, with every single braze-on you could ever want on a frame. There's nothing not to love about this frame. It's agile, it's sturdy, it takes front and rear racks, with a shorter headstock it's can give you an upright sitting position, and it's fun to ride. The thumb shifters, on the other hand were a bit harder to come by. Fortunately, Paul Components makes adapters just for this situation. Paul Components Thumbies takes standard bar end shifters and turns them sideways allowing you to mount them right in the middle of your handle bars. They work great! I even got to keep my index shifting on my rear gears. I would have been able to keep the index shifting on my front gears too, but we added a granny gear to my front chainrings and my shifters weren't designed for 3 chainrings on the front so I just use it as an old tension shifter and it works perfectly. It was pretty easy to add a third gear to a two gear setup. Bryce from MT Tam Bikes just busted out a dremmel tool and carved down the gear stop a little on my front derailer and the bike easily slid into a lower gear no problem. So many people in San Francisco ride fixed gears, but I love having 27 gears. I can tackle hills yet still bust ass on long flats, and having a wide range of gears allows me to ride in a pack with my bike loaded up with cargo and still keep up. It was a lot effort to put together a bike that fit my style and my riding style, but in the end it really worked out great.

Surly Cross-Check
http://surlybikes.com/bikes/cross_check_complete/

Paul Components Thumbies
http://www.paulcomp.com/thumbies.html

MT. Tam Bikes
http://www.mttambikes.com/

Un-Scripted Theater Company Bike part 1

Probably the most distinctive feature of my bike are the red and black the front and rear wood slat racks. Not only can I carry 5 bags of groceries, or deliver a cooler and a case of beer to the theater, or load-up a giant picnic basket and a blanket and a couple of coats for a day in Dolores Park, but the racks make my Un-Scripted Theater Company bike look amazingly beautiful! People are always asking me where I got them, but unfortunately nobody ever has a pen when we're stopped at a light riding down Market Street (not that I could spell Ahearne even if they did have a pen). So here's all the information online and I'll just start handing out my business card with my blog link on it (nice meeting you today, fellow bike guy or cute bike girl). The front rack is called a Flatbed. Made by Paul Components in Chico CA, the Flatbed doesn't come in black and red. I called them up and had them send it to me with un-varnished wood so I could paint it my self. I had a similar conversation with the guys from Ahearne Cycles in Portland Or, when I ordered my rear rack from them. Normally the wood comes pretreated, but everyone was super cool about sending me wood ready for paint. The rear rack turned out really nice. It's designed around a 24 case of beer and even has a built in bottle opener. It was a pretty standard rack for them. If I had to order one again I would have them add the u-lock holder and I would have chosen to have them make it a little lower to the wheel. I was worried that I would want to put fenders on my bike so I had them leave room, but it puts the weight of the stuff in the rack too high on the bike making it top heavy and hard to manage when full of heavy stuff (which it always seems to be). I've repainted both racks several times as the paint gets scuffed from normal use, and they still look amazing. The Ahearne rack came in a black powder coat and the Paul Components rack I had to spray paint myself using that super-hard glossy black refrigerator spray-paint. It was a pain to use, and chips way easier that that powder coat one does, but at least it looks good. The racks on the Un-Scripted Theater Company bike are probably my two favorite bike purchases ever!

Ahearne Cycles Bike Racks

http://www.ahearnecycles.com/pages/racksgallery.html

Paul Components Flatbed Bike Rack

http://www.paulcomp.com/flatbed.html