An Unhelpful Food Guide to San Francisco
Caleb has been waxing poetic for months about how fantastic the food in San Francisco is, which is more than half of the reason why he wanted to take me there for the weekend. He lived there for four years, and during his sojourn, really drank the San Francisco foodie Kool Aid.
I’m always suspicious of people who fetishize food. First of all, it’s a bizarre, expensive, and wasteful way of living life. Secondly, foodies usually spend so much time talking and reading about food that they don’t actually have time to taste any of it. And when they do, their palette is so much shaped by public opinion that they are only 3.5% honest about how they actually feel.
So when Caleb said that San Francisco had the best food in all of the United States, I was pretty doubtful. When he said that it had the best Mexican food, I became openly scornful, for the following reasons:
1. People in San Francisco eat burritos. No one in Mexico, for the six months that I lived there, ever ate burritos. I heard rumors that you could buy them somewhere in Mexico City, but I never saw them with my own eyes. *
*I have been informed since writing this post that many, many, many Mexicans eat burritos, and I am completely wrong.
2. Just because you make a burrito as gigantic as possible, and stuff it with organic rice and beans, does not make it the best. It just means that you are making something that no one in Mexico has ever eaten.
3. There is pretty great Mexican food in other places, like Los Angeles and New York and Austin, and unless the Mexican food in San Francisco is made by fairies, I can’t see how it can be that much better.
4. The quantity of Mexican restaurants in the Mission does not mean that the quality is better.
Anyway, it turns out that the Mexican food was pretty decent in San Francisco, but even Caleb was forced to admit that it was comparable to places like Cafe El Portal and La Superior in New York, and not really at all superior.
(This is the inn where we stayed in The Mission)
As for actual restaurants, here are some brief reviews of some of the places we ate, in case you’re going to San Francisco soon and need some unhelpful advice about where to eat:
Foreign Cinema: Our friend John John founded this restaurant, which is in an old, gutted out theater. While we ate, Terrence Malick’s “The Known World” played on a gigantic screen in the back of the room. Because we know John John, we were treated like royalty. Thus, my opinion is biased, but believe me when I tell you that the “real Pacific cod” was extremely delicious, as was the champagne, the oysters, and the airs that I put on for the other diners whenever I took a break to go to the bathroom.
Dynamo: A donut shop where the donuts are good, but not even nearly as good as the shit that Dough makes in Clinton Hill. For months, Caleb was being competitive with me, and saying that while Dough is delicious, nothing compares to the maple and bacon donuts at Dynamo. On Saturday morning, he was forced to admit that he had been entirely wrong. “Dough donuts taste like bites of heaven,” he said, weeping. “But these just taste like fancy cake.”
Ritual: Stumptown can eat it, because the coffee at Ritual, a cafe in the Mission, is far superior. It’s the kind of place where they don’t “brew” coffee, they individually filter each cup. If only it didn’t cost $4.50, and take 7 minutes to make, I would want it every day. It’s worth a stop, but I assume the coffee at Blue Bottle in Williamsburg is comparable. Caleb used to live next door to it, but I refused to go there on principle, so I cannot report on the difference.
Taqueria Cancun: In my opinion, any tacos that have more than three ingredients are immediately disqualified as a distinct type of food, and the ones from Cancun had at least 6. They were thus some other kind of meal, a taco-burrito hybrid, but they were admittedly delicious. Caleb had a “mojado” burrito, which looked like a newborn baby wrapped in tortilla and smoothered in sauces. It was difficult to eat past all of the rice in it, but I suppose if you think that getting food pregnant is satisfying, it would be a delicious meal.
Nopa: This was by far the best meal that we had in SF, although we had to wait almost 2 hours to eat it at a communal table. It’s a “farm-to-table” “New-American” restaurant, and it’s comparable to places like Franny’s, without the pizza. If you’re in SF, eat there, but make sure to make a reservation before.
The House: An Asian Fusion place where the udon noodles look like earth worms, and taste like Sea Thai Bistro. Don’t go out of your way to eat here.
Boogaloo’s: A brunch place that serves…Mexican-themed food. The eggs were dry, the corn muffin was dry, the only thing I liked about my entire meal was the sour cream. But it was packed, so I guess that makes it worth it, if you are swayed by public opinion.
I’m angry at myself for writing this post, because I think it’s stupid. But I’m going to make it public anyway, because I’m a Content-o-saurus (dumbest thing I’ve ever said?), and someone, somewhere, sometime will read it.
Long story short, food is San Francisco is good, I abhor fetishizing meals, Mexicans don’t eat burritos, and don’t use me as a food guide anywhere, unless you really like eating a lot of sugar.
