SF trip report
 

this weekend I took the wife to SF this weekend for a surprise birthday present. I have to say that SFO is one of the most convenient airports I've been to as far as getting from the terminal to the city with minimal hassle/time. My saying this may be colored by the fact jetblue flies into the international terminal, so all you have to do is hop on BART and boom, you're in SF in no time. much easier than JFK, LGA, EWR etc.

We stayed at the Sir Francis Drake hotel on powell near Union Square. for the price range, this hotel was a pretty great deal. right around 120/night, it has a lot of character and our room was small but nice (and newly renovated). Also, the bar upstairs (harry denton's starlight room) is a great place for a before dinner cocktail.

as soon as we checked in we walked down to the mission to check out the legendary el farolito. both of us got the super burrito and an agua fresca. my pineapple agua fresca was great, my wife had strawberry which was good but not great. The burritos were truly excellent, and had sliced avocados instead of guacamole. I ate mine and felt like I was going to die afterwards, my wife couldn't come close to finishing hers and still felt like she was going to die.

we then walked over to guerrero and walked up to alamo park, where we checked out the houses and sat on the grass. after this, walked back to the hotel and had a pre-dinner drink at the hotel's bar. I had an uptown manhattan which was good but a little too sweet for me, wife had a margarita which was great.

dinner was at the slanted door in the ferry building, so we walked down market to the ferry building. walking everywhere was a very common theme to our trip, we only took muni twice [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. the slanted door was packed but we got a table quickly, and started with the imperial spring rolls and grilled squash fritter thing I am forgetting the name of. the imperial rolls were just ok, squash was amazing. shared a bottle of riesling off their gigantic-list-of-rieslings, and for dinner we split the vegetarian glass noodles, spicy japanese eggplant and halibut (3 dishes total). I thought all 3 were excellent, wife wasn't so into the eggplant but thought the glass noodles were amazing. The halibut was really excellent, I don't eat fish all that often but to me it was very light, flaky and had a lot of flavor. no room for dessert, the bill including wine was 107.

the next day we walked over to tartine for breakfast, both of us got egg and cheese on a baguette. we then walked over to haight st and over to golden gate park, and had tea at the japanese tea garden. japanese tea garden was nice, but I enjoyed the rest of the botanic gardens a lot more, particularly the fragrant garden. at this point we hopped on the muni and went to the park on the west side of fisherman's wharf. this was a really nice park, and we walked from here down through the wharf and over to check out the sea lions. only 2 sea lions, kind of dissapointing.

from the wharf we decided to walk down to north beach and visit city lights bookstore. a few hills later, and we stop at molinari's italian deli for lunch and had a GREAT sandwich with roasted peppers, pesto, sundried tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella. then went to city lights (picked up leonard bernstein's "the joy of music", great book!) and had several beers at vesuvio. this is a really great bar, def has an old school sf kind of vibe.

we had dinner at greens with some friends, really great restaurant. started with the corn griddle cakes, and then the vegetable enchiladas with chili beans and creme fraiche. for dessert we split the peach tart with buttermilk ice cream.

saturday we got up at 8, bought a picnic lunch at the farmer's market in preparation for angel island. bread from acme, 3 kinds of cheese from cowgirl creamery, and the most overpriced organic peaches ever (3.75/lb, 2 peaches were 5 bucks!). still, great market and surprisingly packed even that early.

once we got to angel island we decided to rent bikes, and rode the 5 mile loop. after getting back we went to hotel buena vista for irish coffee, and then back to the hotel. after some cocktails we headed to sushi groove south for dinner. this place is awesome and has a great vibe. the sushi was good but not mind blowing, but the great vibe, music and large bottles of asahi more than made up for that.

ok, that's probably long enough, the next day was uneventful as we spent most of it travelling.

Re: SF trip report
 

turnip,

SFD is pretty much the standard for "traditional quaint SF hotel room w/ character." Read: small! Nice SF hotels are pretty much either like that, modern boutiques (same as anywhere else), or business hotels (Hyatt, Sheraton etc).

I guess you must have gotten the vegetarian imperial rolls. No idea what those are like, but I love the regular ones! I'm also not a fan of eggplant. Was the vegetarian noodles the one w/ lemongrass tofu? That stuff is great.

I really like Vesuvio as well.

Now that you've tried Greens, you'll have to hit Millenium next time.

"the most overpriced organic peaches" - hahahahha, that's pretty much the story of the Ferry Building farmer's market. You definitely pay for that location. Most expensive farmer's market in the area for sure.

" the sushi was good but not mind blowing" - totally agree w/ that re: SGS. That place is solid sushi, but moreso I just like it for the overall experience, especially for getting a touch of SF-style ambience.

Re: SF trip report
 

Nice report.

I was in San Fran on Wednesday & Thursday (for work sadly) and stayed on at the Synxis Orchard Hotel a couple of blocks from Union Square. Sounds very similar to the place you stayed at.

Re: SF trip report
 

[ QUOTE ]

Now that you've tried Greens, you'll have to hit Millenium next time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I forgot to mention this but have been to millenium several years ago. really great restaurant, but decided against it for this trip since my wife isn't a vegetarian. I love both places, although I think greens may be a little less scary for non-vegetarians [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. also the view is great.

Re: SF trip report
 

Turnip - nice trip report, good read, sounds like you had a great time.

Re: Slanted Door - good to know, for some reason I trust your palette. Sounds excellent and actually not too pricey. We used to take clients there alot when I lived in SF (2000-2003), and I was always a bit underwhelmed by the food (well more accurately, it could be very good but was very inconsistent) and thought it was overpriced. I will remember to check it out next time in SF.

-Al

Re: SF trip report
 

el d,
veg imperial rolls were good, but squash dish was truly excellent and probably overshadowed the rolls. I did like the "wrap in lettuce then dip in sauce" as a way to eat them though.

glass noodles had tree ear and some other kind of mushrooms. really nice, deep flavor.

forgot to mention service was excellent at slanted door, our waiter really steered us right as far as wine and a good mix of entrees.

Re: SF trip report
 

I have to be in SF in early September for job interviews, and I planned on bringing the girlfriend and making a mini 3-day vacation out of it.

I could probably do the math, but if you don't mind sharing, could you let us know what the budget for this trip was?

I feel like just printing this out and using it and the other El D thread as my guide to SF.


Also, if anyone happens to read this that works for any big law firms in SF, please PM me. Thanks [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: SF trip report
 

I've stayed at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. I believe Sir Francis Drake himself was the last person to have the room I had. The guy at the front desk asked me how many in my party, and when I told him "one," he told me the room was too small. When I opened the door, it broke the window. We're talking small.

That said, it is in a great location. I note that most of your report is about food and walking in great neighborhoods, which are indeed two of the great attractions of San Francisco.

Re: SF trip report
 

noah, here's a very rough breakdown:

hotel: 120/night

food: obv this varies wildly, but for us maybe 100/person or so? we ate pretty cheap breakfast/lunches and nice dinners.

activities: ferry to angel island was 15/person round trip, bikes were 20/person.

it really depends on what you want to do for most of the day. we really like to walk (obviously), but if you don't then it is easy to spend more on cabs and other activities. really easy to spend less or more if you so desire, SF has a big range of stuff to do. I made a google map of a lot of the stuff recommended in the SF thread, pm me your email and I will send it to you.

Re: SF trip report
 

Al, slanted door was a great value. I was very surprised at the bill when it came, I thought it would have been at least 150.