Need San Francisco recommendations

Someone wrote:

> My wife and I will be vacationing in San Francisco soon. We're
> interested in restaurant recommendations for breakfast, lunch and
> dinner. My wife does not eat beef or pork, so steak houses and such
> are not something we look for. I'm interested in good seafood,
> Chinese, Japanese or other ethnic restaurants, and anything unique
> to the area. We generally eat a moderate breakfast and lunch and try
> to have a nice dinner. Thanks for any advice.

Try Doidges for breakfast, though it may be more than a "Moderate" meal for ya.  Reservations are essential on the weekends, and wouldn't hurt during the week.

A couple of my fave spots when I'm not in the mood for red meat:

Crustacean offers killer upscale Asian seafood, and the room is way cool as well.  They sell hundreds of giant crabs each day...I like the garlic version the best, and their garlic noodles are way yummy.

Swan Oyster Depot is an old school eatery offering a wide variety of seafood dishes.

One of my more recent finds is Fina Estampa, a Peruvian place.  Nice menu with a variety of choices for the seafood/chicken crowd.

Enjoy!

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Todd B. wrote:
> My wife and I will be vacationing in San Francisco soon. We're
> interested in restaurant recommendations for breakfast, lunch and

You might want to check out the Bay Area Restaurant Guide at: http://dine.com/barg/.  They have listings for just about every restaurant in the area along with unsolicited  reviews.

As for specific recomendations, I can make a few.

In the Marina, I like Betelnut.  It is an asian fusion restaurant not typical of SF or any other place I know.  Very unusual and the food is great.  make reservations early and keep to them.  In the marina, places will often give up your reservation if you are late.

In the North Beach area I like Michealangelos on columbus.  This place usually has a line, but the wait is never as long as it looks.  Not the place for a quiet romantic dinner, but if you are up for a nice plate of pasta or gnocci, its the place.  I also like Des Alpes, a Basque restaurant on ? one block off of stockton near the edge of chinatown.

South of market you can go to Lulus. They have a wood oven they cook most of their food in.  The fowl dishes are really nice.

In the mission district there are a couple places.  The slanted door has very nice vietnamese food and I like to go to Esperpento on 26th(?) near the corner of valencia.  There is a really good bar across the street that serves great martinis.  They do not mind if you wait there for a table. This is one of my favorite restaurants in SF.

One other place that serves a truely extraordinary meal is called Four Seasons.  The only serve a fancy japanese pre fixed menu called a Kei Seki (sp?)  When I ate there I think it was about 65 dollars per person with wine and such.  It was the single most fantastic dinner I have had since moving to SF.  This is actually a small portion of a sushi restaurant next door.  As I understand it, it exists to allow the chief chef his artistic expression. I can pretty much promise you a unique experience here.

I hope this helps.  Let me know if I can help you with any other suggestions.  The only other thing I might add is to stay clear of the obvious tourist spot for food.  There are some good places, in these spots, but you can also get some true dreadful food if you do not know where to go. The most obvious of these places is fishermans wharf.  I have heard you can get good food there, I just have never found any good food there.

Have fun on your vacation.

PJs Oysterbed on 9th and Irving for very fresh seafood. Reservations a must. Moderate prices.

Betelnut Pijiu Wu (someone else recommend this too).

Patio Espanol on Alemany (way off the beaten path inside the Spanish Cultural Center)

Ton Kiang (several locations) for Chinese

Mandalay, 6th and California

Taiwan on Clement for Northern Chinese breakfast.

I'm not up on the latest Italian places. We like Cafe Riggio and I've gone there on occasion for the last 15 years or so. It's on Geary around 4th.

As others have pointed out, the good restaurants are out in the neighborhoods. Forget Chinatown and Fishermans Wharf.

Unfortunately at most of the Chinese restaurants a lot of the good items aren't on the English menu. My wife is Chinese so I get to try the good stuff. It makes me mad that this is the case but I guess I need to learn to read Chinese. We were at a new restaurant down in San Bruno and the entire Northern beakfast menu was only in Chinese. Very annoying.

Steve

Todd B. wrote in message ...
>My wife and I will be vacationing in San Francisco soon. We're
>interested in restaurant recommendations for breakfast, lunch and
>dinner. My wife does not eat beef or pork, so steak houses and such
>are not something we look for. I'm interested in good seafood,
>Chinese, Japanese or other ethnic restaurants, and anything unique
>to the area. We generally eat a moderate breakfast and lunch and try
>to have a nice dinner. Thanks for any advice.

Todd B. wrote:

> My wife and I will be vacationing in San Francisco soon. We're
> interested in restaurant recommendations for breakfast, lunch and
> dinner. My wife does not eat beef or pork, so steak houses and such
> are not something we look for. I'm interested in good seafood,
> Chinese, Japanese or other ethnic restaurants, and anything unique
> to the area. We generally eat a moderate breakfast and lunch and try
> to have a nice dinner. Thanks for any advice.

If you're willing to pig out on fabulous dim sum and perhaps forego the substantial dinner, run, don't walk, to Ton Kiang on Geary between 22nd and 23rd Aves.  Dim sum served seven days a week.  Worth the wait on weekends. Once inside, you'll understand why all those people choose to wait out on the sidewalk.  Weekdays you shouldn't have any problem getting in.

Straits Cafe, also on Geary, is great.  Singapore-Malaysian type food.

Mandalay, on California near 6th Ave., has Burmese cuisine and is wonderful.  Try the coconut chicken soup with noodles, Rangoon spiced chicken, salad with tea leaves.

-Scott