Adi and I lived four years in San Francisco, from late 1995 to late 1999, a booming time. All in all, we prefer living in NYC, but SF is a great town. I love going back, and, luckily, being in the Internet industry, I get the chance often. In fact, I’ll be there in less than two weeks and again in June, for Google’s sales conference, around my birthday.
In particular, SF is a great restaurant town, one of the best in the US. NYC has some great restaurants, but it has a whole lot of blah ones, too. It’s much easier to get a mediocre or even bad meal in NYC than in SF, for sure.
A friend is visiting there now, so I wrote these four restaurant recommendations for him, and I figured I should post them here for posterity and more readers:
Shalimar, on Jones and O’Farrell, the Tenderloin. Crappy neighborhood, and it’s a divey looking place, but it’s always busy because the food is amazing. Best to go there with a big group so you can order a lot of dishes and share. I recommend the tandoori chicken and also the saag panir, spinach and homemade cheese. It’s all great. I make a pilgrimage to it on every trip. You order at the counter and they deliver to your table. BYOB.
Zarzuela, on Hyde and Union, (Russian Hill neighborhood). Great Spanish tapas. Very romantic. Our favorite romantic spot. Terrific homemade ice cream parlor kitty corner, Swenson’s, olde-thyme style, like the one that was my first job in high school.
The Grand Cafe, in the Hotel Monaco building, on Geary at Taylor, right off Union Square. Trendy French place, cool, grandiose interior. Not cheap, but the food and service are good.
Front Porch, in Noe Valley/Bernal Heights/The Mission neighborhood. Great nouveau California soul food. Fun atmosphere. Near another fantastic ice cream store with exotic flavors, Mitchell’s.
I’m also accepting recommendations for new discoveries for my upcoming trips.
UPDATE
Ton Kiang is a great dim sum place in the Richmond neighborhood I just discovered today. I’d known before about Yank Sing, another famous SF dim sum (or deem sum, as they write on their web site) place, but Yank Sing, just off the edge of the financial district, is quite expensive. Ton Kiang, in the heavily Chinese (and Russian) residential neighborhood of the Richmond, however, was terrific quality traditional dim sum (Yank Sing gets a bit more contemporary/Californian, if I recall) but for a fraction of the price of Yank Sing: $20 a person to eat to our fill and then some.
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