Malik

Chocoholic, Since you're coming from Vancouver, I'd say you should skip most asian restaurants, especially Japanese and Chinese, as you'll do better in Vancouver for the most part. I'd say the same for French style high end food, I don't think we have anything significantly better than Ouest or Lumiere. Peruvian is one cuisine we do quite well here which you can't find as readily in Vancouver. There's a very good restaurant a few blocks from Moscone called Mochica (it's at Harrison near 5th), they have excellent ceviches (the ceviche mochica is my favorite) and anticuchos (the beef hearts are the best). Their lomo saltado is not quite as good as Limon's, the other good Peruvian in town, but the ceviches are better and it's a lot closer to you than Limon. We have good Basque food as well, my choice would be Piperade in the Financial district (it's a short cab ride away), though Bocadillos which was mentioned above is by the same owner and also quite good. I have liked Iluna Basque as well in North Beach, though recent reports on the place have been less than stellar. California cuisine is also something worth trying. Chez Panisse in Berkeley is the mother ship, but Zuni in San Francisco is also quite good and is a very short cab ride away from your hotel. I second the Delfina recommendation above, it's a very good restaurant serving Californian style Italian food. Try to make a reservation there as soon as possible, as they get quite booked. I also second the Ti Couz recommendation for crepes, salads and the cheese plate. When my cousin from Vancouver comes down to visit for a weekend, she always insists on going to Ti Couz at least once, occasionally twice. Plus it's in a very interesting neighborhood with lots of bars nearby if you want to get a drink afterwards.

I was trying to be fairly faint in my praise of its food and beer. It is, however, only a half a block from the Moscone Center. Which may be a plus, if you are looking at having to sit through a particularly painful Q & A about Game programming or some such. ← If immediate proximity to the Moscone Center is an important criteria, Pazzia is just as close and I like the food there a lot better. It's a small little Italian restaurant that serves very good pizzas and pastas. My favorite menu items are the Bresaola and the Penne Puttanesca.

Ti Couz is an old favorite. In addition to their big specialty of crepes (ratatouille-fromage is my favorite for savory, plain sugar for sweet) they also have very good salads and a great value cheese plate. Order some French apple cidre to go along with your meal. On the bakery front, you should try both a Bay Bread boulangerie (there's three or four of them around town) for macarons (they're the French kind, nothing in common with the coconut type) and canneles and Tartine (more of a breakfast place) for morning buns and a slice of quiche. While you're out here, I'd recommend trying also one of our Nuevo Latino restaurants. Peruvian is quite popular nowadays (Limon, Mochica and Fresca are all good choices), and we also have some pan-Latin American ones (Alma, Destino, Platanos, Charanga come to mind).

I've tried Goood Frikin' Chicken, though I only had the roasted chicken there which I liked quite a bit. If you like chicken shawarma, Truly Mediterranean has it instead of lamb at least once a week. My favorite shawarma is still the one at Ali Baba, but you should only order it if they actually have the skewer being grilled right there in front of you. Sinbad's in San Mateo is a Lebanese market/restaurant that has a pretty good Shawarma, though I normally order their ground meat kababs for lunch instead.

Sorry, I haven't heard about this place. I rarely ever eat in the Palo Alto/Menlo Park area anymore. There's a sushi place in San Mateo called Sushi Sam's which is OK but not great, I wonder if there's any relation.

Good point, though I usuall call any indian/pakistani/bangladeshi dish that has sauce in it a curry. So what would you call Nihari?

We don't have very many high end sushi restaurants in Northern California (Sawa Sushi in Sunnyvale is the only one I can think of, and I haven't eaten there yet), but I think we have a decent selection of mid-range places. Have you tried Ino, Hama-Ko, Tekka, Ariake in San Francisco and Sakae in Burlingame?

I've eaten at Lahore Karahi a couple of times and thought it was very good, but my personal favorite is still Shalimar. The nice thing with Lahore Karahi is they have a few dishes that none of the other restaurants have, in particular Paya, which is a slow cooked curry made of goat, lamb or beef hooves. But I think the Tandoori meat dishes are still better at Shalimar.

Walnut Creek is not exactly a culinary hot bed. The only other place that sounds interesting around there is Va de Vi, which has gotten decent press, but I haven't gotten around to trying it yet.

If driving is an option for you, that's probably going to be the easiest thing, and parking in Berkeley/Oakland or in the financial district in San Franciso on a Monday night will not be too hard. BART is also really easy, so it would be a good option, check out the links that chaud-froid posted (I recently downloaded the BART planner on my PDA and I think it's one of the best applications on my Palm). As to where to go, it really depends on whether you're going to have other opportunities to be in the Bay Area in the near future or not. If you're not here often, you might be better off going to San Francisco and checking out one of our unique restaurants. Bocadillos (Basque tapas) would be a good choice, Zuni Cafe (California Cuisine) is near the Civic center BART station and is quintescential SF (though one could argue you might as well check out Chez Panisse instead), Limon (modern Peruvian) is very close to the 16th St/Mission BART station, as is Delfina which you mentioned you liked a lot, and which is always worth a second visit. If you are going to be in the Bay Area again, then I'd recommend staying in the East Bay and heading to either Berkeley or nearby Rockridge. In Berkeley, Chez Panisse and Cesar (Spanish tapas) that were already mentioned are good choices, and I also like Fonda (Latin American tapas) and Rivoli (California cuisine) on Solano (though that's harder to access by BART, you'd need to drive). But Rockridge might be a better option, as there is a lot more variety available within a short walking distance from the station. Olivetto and Pearl are right next to the station. I'm not personally a fan of Olivetto, but a lot of people like it, check out the threads discussing it and decide for yourself if you want to go there. I haven't been to Pearl yet but have heard many good things about it. A couple of blocks away, there's A Cote (along with it's older sibling Citron), which is very good and serves French inspired small plates. Grasshopper (Asian inspired small plates) is also close to the BART station. For something really different, skip the Rockridge station and keep going all the way to Walnut Creek stop. Not too far from the station, in downtown Walnut Creek, you'll find Ephesus Kebab Lounge which serves wonderful Turkish food in a very nice decor. Despite the name of the place, I particularly recommend the appetizers, both cold and hot, over the kebabs.

I second the motion on Bocadillo's... ← I third the motion on Bocadillo's.

Count me among the people who have eaten at Gordon Biersch multiple times and who hate it. Mostly it was because friends dragged me there (usually the Palo Alto location, where there aren't exactly a ton of good food places open late anyway), but I absolutely refuse to eat at the SF location again given how many great restaurants there are around. OK, the beer is decent, and if you absolutely have to eat there the pizzas are edible, but then again you could go by BART from Oakland Airport to Berkeley downtown, cross the street and have better beer and better pizza at Jupiter's.

it is a shame about Ino sushi and Sundays. It is well worth it. One of things I love about Ino is that it is open on Mondays, a rarity for good sushi. ← I agree, Ino is my favorite sushi place in San Francisco, the ankimo and aji there are really amazing. Another very good place, but with much less friendly ownership, is Hama Ko in Cole Valley. They are open on Sunday, but some people feel that they have too much attitude when dealing with non-regulars. I've had very good sushi there (including the best saba I've ever had), but I personally prefer Ino.

You're probably thinking of Pearl Oyster Bar, which is right across College from Olivetto. I've heard good things about this place from friends, but haven't had a chance to try them yet. Last time I went by, they couldn't seat our large party, so we ended up all the way up College at Cuvae instead. It was actually quite good, despite the fact that I'm usually weary of restaurants that described their cusine as fusion.

Do you mean filtered sakes served cold? Unfiltered sake (Nigori-zake) is the cloudy one that's sometimes a little sweet. I didn't see any on the Ozumo website other than in the Sweet/Dessert Sake section. As for sake served hot, it's almost always reserved for lower quality sake. Better sakes are normally served either chilled (but not too cold) or room temperature. For more info than you ever wanted to know about Sake, check out John Gauntner's website.

I have eaten at Grasshopper a few times, but I never ordered sake there, always ended up going for wine instead. One of the most unexpected places with a decent Sake list is Memphis Minnies, the barbecue restaurant in the Lower Haight in San Francisco. The owner feels that sake is the perfect match for barbecue.

The House and Cafe Kati are offen mentioned as successful Fusion restaurants. The branch of The House in the Sunset closed down a few months back, they've decided to focus on the original one in North Beach.

I did try both versions side by side at R&G on Saturday, and I definitely liked the salt and pepper version better. And one of my friends who was at dinner was the one who had done the ordering last time I had crab at R&G, and he confirmed that it was indeed the salt and pepper that we had. So I am sure this time. Really.

Actually, I just remembered, the preparation that I really like at R&G is the ginger and scallion stir fried crab, not the salt and pepper deep fried one. ← Wrong again! This time I'm really sure, since I ate there on Saturday night. Their house specialty, and what I would recommend ordering, is the deep fried salt and pepper crab. They do also have a ginger and scallion version that's not deep fried, but I didn't like it as much. I have had a better rendition in other Chinese restaurants, but I cannot remember which ones at this point.

Ozumo is very good, though it can get quite pricey depending on what you order. I find the non-sushi more interesting personally. They also have a very good sake list, most of which can be ordered by the glass. For Southern California board members, it looks like they will be opening another location in Newport Beach soon.

For Northern Californian empanada fans, Tango Gelato on Fillmore is supposed to have good Argentinian style empanadas, but I haven't tried them yet as they only serve them in the day time. Among restaurants above $10, Limon makes a good empanada (they call it Empanada Don Walter), and El Raigon, the Argentinian steak house in North Beach has empanadas on their menu as well.

I hope they participate in Dine About Town again in January, the last couple of years I felt they were the best of all the restaurants on the list.

To be precise, they rock as a sourcer of great hot dog ingredients. Even the buns are not home made, they come from a local bakery (they told me which one once but I forget, it wasn't a famous one). The only thing they make themselves are probably the chopped onions.

Probably Hing Lung on Broadway, which is still very good. They do have some other choices, but congee and fried bread are their specialty.

Does R&G prepare dungeness crab any way other than deep-fried? ← See my next post, the rendition I like is actually the stir fried crab with ginger and scallions.