111op Visits San Francisco

Priceline for San Francisco, Westin St. Francis and Internet Access in SF

Priceline seems especially convenient for San Francisco. I was able to book Westin St. Francis for about $85 a night (taxes included) just a few days prior to departure. And I didn't do it the most efficiently either. I won't get into the story, but Priceline allows four free rebids for San Francisco if you're trying out for a 4* hotel (well, I think so, anyway). This is not the place to explain the free rebids, but since I didn't exhaust them, it's clear that the lowest possible winning bid must be below where I bid.

I was a little apprehensive about this hotel since it has some questionable reviews on TripAdvisor. And it's true the desk agent reminded me quite a few times that my room had been prepaid on Priceline. However, in reality, there was nothing I could complain about the room (especially for $85).

The location is also especially convenient since Powell & Market is a major transportation hub.

Here's some info that may be useful for people staying at this hotel.

I was given two coffee beverage coupons for Caruso's. I didn't have to redeem them for coffee, however (and I drink little coffee). One I used for juice and another I used for bottled water. I think tea and soda were also acceptable substitutions.

It took me two nights to realize that I could get $5 off coupons if I declined room service. I declined room service for two nights. One coupon I used for breakfast at Caruso's (just a croissant and water). Another I used for a lunch wrap on my day of departure. The wraps and sandwiches (over $10) are overpriced, but my wrap came with a bag of chips, so I figured it was an acceptable way to use my coupon.

No, you can't use the coupons in Michael Mina, but you can use them at Caruso's, the Oak Room and for room service (and maybe some other stuff -- the coupons will tell you).

If you read the fine print, you'll realize that if you decline a delivery of USA Today to your room, you get a credit of 75c. I never tried this, but it was amusing to find that I got the paper only two of the five days I was there. I never read the paper.

I was told not to move things in the minibar as it's sensor-based and I'd be charged if I moved anything.

Another useful tip: Westin St. Francis offered a computer terminal and a printer that you can use to check in online. The screen had links to all major airline websites. I printed out my boarding pass ahead of time this way. This was a free service.

Internet access was 14.95 for 24 hours (yes 24 hours, not a calendar day) and that rate did include taxes.

WiFi in San Francisco

There's supposed to be WiFi in Union Square, but I couldn't get it to work. In any case, if you happen to forget your battery, like I did, and have to plug in your computer, there are outlets in the north and south side of the Square. They are next to some trees (you may have to flip a cover over to discover where you can plug in your computer).

The free "Where" magazine for San Franciso lists the following WiFi hotspots in San Francisco:

--Crocker Galleria, 50 Post Street
--Emporio Rulli, Union Square
--Metreon, 101 Fourth Street
--111 Minna Gallery, 111 Minna Street
--Puccini & Pinetti, 129 Ellis Street

Of these I tried Metreon, as I had researched this ahead of time, and I couldn't get WiFi to work there either. But I did get it to work at the mall diagonally across from Metreon (closer to 3rd Street), at least for a couple of minutes.

And I even managed to access Union Square WiFi from my hotel room very very fleetingly. The webpage took forever to load and then the connection just died on me.

I didn't try Starbucks or Peet's.

I did find one Kinko's and I used it. Interesting, internet access was 25c a minute, 5c cheaper compared to Kinko's in NYC.

Hi 111op, I hope you got to do some serious eating while you were here. Your opinions are always so...unadulterated. In any case, whether it's about food, art, transport, grime or crime, I look forward to the next installment.

FYI, I can barely get consistent wifi in my house and I pay for it.

I think easytraveler should be SF's Ambassador! She's always so generous to other Fodorites.

Yes, hats off to easytraveller, who even insisted on paying for everything (I finally had to put a stop to it). She said that that's what Fodor's is all about, and I'm not sure if I agree. I did say that I'll do my best to get her into museums in NYC when she's here for a visit. It's the least I can do.

Leely, I did collect a few Michelin stars on this trip, and I'll review the restaurants.

I ate at

Chez Panisse (*)
Michael Mina Lounge (**)
Delfina (*)
Range (*)

I also had dim sum at Yank Sing, but it doesn't have a star.

I ate at

Chez Panisse (*)
Michael Mina Lounge (**)
Delfina (*)
Range (*)


Wow!

I'll say this right now before I write further about the meals that I liked Chez Panisse the most. I feel that its reputation is well deserved. The staff is friendly. I had forgotten to take the menu with me when I left. I called them to have them mail me a copy. The menu arrived today. Here's what I ate:

Goat cheese sald with beets and chicories

Alaskan halibut with Chino Ranch leeks and crispy pancetta

Grilled Wolfe Ranch quail al mattone with black trumpet mushrooms, roasted new potatoes, and spring vegetables

Rhubarb tart with muscat sabayon

I took a friend out who recommended that I have their red zinfandel, which I enjoyed.

The same friend took me out to Range later (which I guess sort of defeated the purpose, but well I'll just have to treat him again another time ).

I think that I may do the report thematically rather than chronologically, so let me offer a list of things I actually did, and I'll fill in the details later.

Since I've been to SF before, I skipped some of the standard attractions, such as Fisherman's Wharf and Chinatown. I did walk past them.

Day 1

Dim sum at Yank Sing (Rincon Building)
Ferry Building

Public art:
Maman (Louise Bourgeois)
Cupid's Span (Claes Oldenburg & Coosje van Bruggen)

Afternoon: Berkeley
Musical Offering
Amoeba Records
Strada

Dinner at Chez Panisse

Day 2

easytraveller's driving tour:

Fisherman's Wharf
Marina
Fort Point
Crissy Field
North of GG Bridge (Battery Spencer)
Cliff House + Ocean Beach
Land's End
Presidio -- Letterman Arts Complex (George Lucas)
El Camino del Mar
Broadway near Lyon (Billionaire Row, Getty's House?)
Alamo Square
Golden Gate Park, de Young Museum (tower), Cal Academy of Sciences (Foucault's Pendulum)

Evening in SOMA
Contemporary Jewish Museum (Daniel Libeskind)
SFMOMA

Dinner at Michael Mina (Lounge menu)

Day 3

Cityscapes and Public Spaces Walking Tour
Castro (Harvey Milk camera shop)
Tartine bakery
Valencia Street
Mission Dolores
Art Galleries
Cable car rides and Lombard Street
Dinner at Delfina

Day 4

Wine Country tour with Grayline
Dinner at Range

Day 5 (Half day)

Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption (1111 Gough Street)
Japantown
Walking tour of Haight-Ashbury

Thanks for the useful tips on the Westin St Francis. We will be staying there for 5 nights later this year (unfortunately, not through Priceline!) and your comments are very helpful. I'll try to remember not to put my water bottle in the minibar.

With regard to the restaurants, from sf7307's reaction, I take it that these are notable dining establishments. Is this because they:
a. serve seriously good food (the stars suggest so);
b. are seriously expensive;
c. are seriously hard to get bookings for;
d. seriously, match all of the above?

Rob.

Hey Rob, well I usually try to lower the cost of hotels. Some people care a lot about the hotel and the room they get. I'm not like that. If your reservation is cancellable and you've some flexibility, then Priceline for SF seems like a good bet.

Regarding the chosen restaurants, I think Chez Panisse is the most famous of the lot because of the Alice Waters connection.

Are they difficult to book? My friend and I were talking about this. I said that I couldn't see any evidence of a recession, but he said that the fact that I got in so easily was a sign of the times. I just walked into Delfina at 6:30 (no reservation), and he made a same-day reservation for Range at 10 pm and sent me a text message asking whether I wanted to join him. I booked our reservation at Chez Panisse less than a week before. People have said that CP requires a month to book, but that wasn't my experience. I didn't even have to ask for an alternate day.

Granted, the restaurants were quite packed. Delfina was obviously not completely full. My friend said that in the heyday people would be queuing outside to get in before the restaurant opened (I guess it's a little like Lupa in NYC -- wonder what it's like there these days).

Are they seriously expensive? I usually keep costs down, so they are more expensive than an average dinner, but they are not exorbitant.

Chez Panisse's prix fixe menu ranges in price. The weekend menus are more expensive ($95) but the midweek ones are $75. So we spent $110 a head.

I was at Delfina and Michael Mina alone. $35 for the former, $70 for the latter (that was why I insisted on eating in the Lounge as the main restaurant would easily be over $100).

Range was $60 a head. We each had a glass of wine and shared a dessert. These two things are things I sometimes skipped to save money (as in Delfina).

Actually my friend and I were joking about how expensive Yank Sing was. I think my dim sum was about $25, about twice the price in NYC. And my friend joked that for an additional $10, I ate at Delfina!

Since I live in NYC I expect to spend $50 and up for a moderate establishment. I think that it's possible to eat very well for much less (Chinatown, for example), but it'd just be a different kind of experience.

And normally I don't expect much from these restaurants either. I do think that it's sad that a dinner should cost $50 for something that's a little more interesting and nicer than average. We reached that point when restaurants routinely started to charge over $20 for a main course.

kiwi, my reaction wasn't so much about the quality of the food at the restaurants chosen, but about the fact that 111 planned so well (we almost never make advance dinner reservations when we travel), and went to a bunch of very popular restaurants. Interesting about getting reservations, because I tried to get same-day reservations on a Friday night in early February for both Range and Delfina, and neither was available until 10:30 p.m. I wonder if it's just gotten worse.

Reservations
Could it be that many locals were out of town last weekend, due to the start of Easter vacation week???

Stu Dudley

SF

Prime Time had about half of the normal attendees last night.

Well it may seem that I planned well, but in reality I was really winging it. The only reservation I made was Chez Panisse.

Everything else was more or less spontaneous (I was not expecting to get taken out to Range, for example). I thought about calling Delfina, but I figured that I'd just try to walk in. I'd have wanted to get there at 6 or earlier as a walkin, but because I was stuck on the cable cars, I couldn't get there as early as I wanted. As it turned out, it wasn't an issue anyway.

Stu, do you mean Prime Time as in our gym (as opposed to Prime whatever -- the restaurant on 3rd Avenue)? I was there, too, I'd say between 6 and 7. I'm guessing it was due to the men's NCAA basketball championship.

I rarely call a restaurant more than a day or two in advance and can usually get a table if I'm willing to eat early or late. Hasn't been a problem. I would probably make plans earlier if I were looking to book a four-top or bigger. Or if I were hauling myself all the way over to Berkeley.

I have mixed feelings about Range, so I'm curious to read your review.

Never been to Michael Mina! Fancy.

Leely2, yes, as for Range (where I have not been), my foodie co-workers response was "Why Range?" None of them is particularly impressed. As for Delfina, it's a really good neighborhood restaurant. If I lived nearby, I'd go often. But not a "destination" place.

Since we're talking about food, I'll review the restaurants first then.

Yank Sing

There are two locations. I went to the one on 101 Spear in the Rincon building. From the outside, the Rincon building says "Post Office," so I actually thought that it was a post office and I didn't go inside at first. There are some interesting murals inside this building.

The dim sum at Yank Sing was good, but the prices were steep. I'd not have expected six xiao long bao (little soup dumplings) to cost over $10. They were nice but certainly not as great as the famous ones at Taiwan's Din Tai Fung (now an international chain). I had two other small dim sum dishes. Oolong tea was actually offered to me as a choice, which I picked. Typical dim sum tea would be pu-erh or jasmine (xiang pian). Tea was brewed in a see-through teapot.

It was nice, but I doubt that I'll spend $25 again on dim sum again here (at least not alone).

Yank Sing, 101 Spear Street, 415.957.9300

Chez Panisse

Undoubtedly this was the star of all the restaurants I ate on this trip. As I'd written before, there are two parts to Chez Panisse. The upstairs seating is a more casual a la carte cafe. The more formal restaurant is located downstairs. There's an open kitchen and everyone eats the same prix fixe menu. Well, more or less the same, as I did hear people asking for substitutions. But that'd not be the norm.

The restaurant posts menus a week in advance. The restaurant required a $25 deposit per person for donwstairs, refundable provided the reservation was cancelled at least 24 hours ahead of time.

I'd heard so much about this restaurant that I felt I had to try it. And I had flexibility with my schedule, so the timing was perfect. I've not read much about Alice Waters, but my impression is that she was seminal in a food revolution. With Chez Panisse, you can be assured of simple and stylish cooking with fresh and organic ingredients (not the heavy sauces that one would associate with classic French cooking).

Indeed I was not disappointed. The decor was also tasteful and understated. I think there was a bit of an art deco theme, but the front of the restaurant was quite simple as well. Service was attentive and yet unintrusive, and, as I mentioned, the restaurant sent me a menu by mail when I requested it.

I'd told this story already, but the server asked if we were celebrating a birthday. I said no initially, and then I said, actually yes, it was my friend's birthday. It was an April Fool's joke so I didn't tell you at first.

I wanted 50% off and the waiter said, well, I'll give you 50% off if you give me 25% back.

In the end, they had a candle on my friend's tart.

I'd already posted the menu earlier on this thread.

Chez Panisse, 1517 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley. 510.548.5525 (downstairs). $110 per person ($75 prix fixe menu and one drink).

Michael Mina

This is the restaurant in Westin St. Francis. It's one of three restaurants in San Francisco with two Michelin stars as listed in the 2009 Michelin guide. The other two are Aqua and Coi.

I had researched the menu online prior to leaving and I figured that the lounge would not be too expensive. Also when I checked in at the Westin, the desk agent was raving about the lobster pot pie, which I'd planned on having anyway.

I think what's done in the main restaurant is that the chef prepares various dishes three ways. Also the lobster pot pie would have commanded a $35 supplement in the main restaurant. On the lounge menu, the pot pie costs $20, so this was a no-brainer decision for me.

Unfortunately when I arrived, I hit upon a snafu. The lounge was also the bar, and every seat was taken. I wasn't quite expecting this when I showed up around 9:15 pm. The woman at reception told me that they'd stop serving food quite soon, but I wasn't willing to give up quite so easily. I went back a couple of times to check on things and I asked a server when they'd actually stop serving, and he said 10 pm.

I guess my obsessive behavior and loitering scared them a bit, and someone else took pity on me and came up to me to ask if he could help me. He offered a table in the main restaurant, but obviously it wasn't the best table. And if I didn't feel like having a full dinner, I could order from the lounge menu.

Perfect! I didn't have to spend more money than I wanted. Decor in this restaurant was with muted, neutral colors. It was what one'd expect with a restaurant in a hotel.

Here's the lounge menu:

http://michaelmina.net/mm/pdf/Lounge%20and%20Bar%20menu.pdf

I picked the dungeness crab and lobster pot pie and chocolate for dessert. The lobster pot pie was interesting. It came in a small copper (?) pot. The server expertly removed the pastry crust and laid it on my plate and then proceeded to scoop out all the goodies and lay them on the crust. I usually find that lobster isn't especially flavorful, and I actually found the vegetables to be more flavorful in this dish.

Obviously the cooking and presentation seemed fussier than Chez Panisse, but I preferred Chez Panisse.

The chocolate dessert was delicious.

There was one small problem at the end. I was charged for three savory courses ($55) instead of two savory courses ($20 each) and dessert ($12) for a total of $52. I pointed this out and they of course reduced the bill by $3.

Michael Mina (Lounge) at the Westin St. Francis Hotel, 335 Powell Street, 415.397.9222. Two savory courses ($20 each) and one dessert ($12). Total $70.

Delfina and Range reviews coming up...

Delfina

My friend had mentioned this restaurant to me quite a while ago. it's also easily accessible by public transportation, and earlier in the day I had been wandering about in the Castro and Mission district, so I figured that I'd give this one a try.

I arrived later than I wanted at 6:30, but when I apprehensively asked for seating for one, there was no problem at all. I was led to long counter seating that overlooked the main restaurant. (There was additional seating at the bar, but then I'd be facing the wall instead.)

I had a very attentive server. She noticed that I didn't touch the butter. I rarely use butter on bread, and she asked whether I wanted to have some olive oil on the side. I appreciated her kindness, but I just opted for plain instead.

I had fregnacce with white shrimp and a side of peas and mushrooms in mint butter sauce. I believe the menu at Delfina is supposed to change every day, but evidently, when you do a search online, you'll discover the fregnacce is in fact mentioned quite often. I'm not a big fan of squid, but I believe my friend said that there's a good squid dish that's a mainstay as well.

Dinner was fine, but it wasn't spectacularly good. I didn't feel bad spending $35.

Delfina, 3621 18th Street, 415.552.4055. $35 for one pasta dish and one side dish.

Range

I got out at the 24th Street BART station and started walking, but it turned out that Time Out San Francisco had this location slightly wrong. I think it'd have been better to use the 16th Street BART (the restaurant is close to 19th Street). But my friend said that the walk might have been a little scarier.

In any case, there was a very lively stretch along 22nd Street when I crossed over from Mission to Valencia Street. And on my way I stopped some women to ask for directions, and they insisted that I had to have the roasted chicken at Range.

Then I arrived to discover that the restaurant was actually next to a couple of shops I was visiting earlier on this trip. It was right next to the Arts Cooperative and the pirates store started by Dave Eggers (I'll write about these later). I just didn't notice the restaurant at that time (as my friend said, there was hardly a sign).

My friend was already waiting and we had corner seating. It was great for people watching. I joked that the crowd was quite stylish (I wasn't -- actually having seen this friend a couple of times on this trip, I was thinking whether he was wondering if I brought only one outfit to SF), and this was like dining in a NYC restaurant! Except that people didn't seem as anorexic looking and they seemed quite happy.

The wine list was challenging. It was ironic to be presented with a menu like this one after a Wine Country tour. I guess I didn't learn anything. I think that I had a glass of white wine from Alsace but I'd never heard of the grape (or what I think was the grape) -- the wine I had is not listed on the wine menu online, which features a different wine from Alsace. By the way, is one supposed to order a wine by grape or vineyard? This tells you how little I know about wines.

Online wine list:
http://www.rangesf.com/wine.html

Interestingly, my appetizer is not listed on the menu online either. Instead of asparagus with a poached egg, I had leeks instead. It was interesting, but it was also chilled, and I wasn't expecting it. I had the roasted chicken and it was nice (no one should go to a restaurant that can't properly roast a chicken). As it turned out, the table next to ours ordered the same main dishes (my friend had skate). When the roasted chicken arrived for our neighbor, I was having second thoughts. After all, roasted chicken is really plain. What's the point of having this at a fancy restaurant? Had the pork shoulder from the online menu been offered, I might have chosen it, but we were offered lamb that day if I remember right.

Online dinner menu:
http://www.rangesf.com/dinner.html

But the chicken was fine. Of course nothing could compare with the Hainanese chicken rice I had at Tian Tian in Singapore for a fraction of the price.

We had the last chocolate souffle (with a molten core) for the evening. I think they gave us another dessert for free (certainly we didn't order it).

Range, 842 Valencia (around 19th Street), 415.282.8283. $60 per person (one appetizer, one main course, 0.5 dessert, one glass of wine).

Dinner was fine, but it wasn't spectacularly good. I didn't feel bad spending $35

Yes, I think Delfina is as popular as it is because it's a very good meal (as you said, not spectacularly good, but very good) for a very fair price.

The depth and quality of advice in this forum never ceases to amaze me! Obviously, if we want to be sure of getting reservations at any one or more of the restaurants mentioned, we will need to make these in advance of our arrival in San Francisco.

Sorry for influencing the order of your report, 111op. I'll just sit back and enjoy the rest of it now.

Rob.

No worries. I was going to do things in a random order anyway. It's more interesting that way.

Getting Around San Francisco

It was sunny every day I was there, if a bit chilly sometimes. But in any case, it was very pleasant walking around the city. I'll describe some of the neighborhoods I walked in and the two walking tours later.

It's also possible to drive, but I didn't rent a car. A car would be useful for day trips. The only one I did was the Wine Country tour with Grayline. I'll review this tour as well. I'd not especially recommend it, and now that I've seen what this tour is all about, I think I should have gone with an alternative, smaller tour.

As mentioned, easytraveller drove me around for a couple of hours, including the north of the Golden Gate bridge. I'd been north of the bridge before and had in fact walked across on foot. One of the vista points she chose (Battery Spencer) was new to me. I'd been to another one north that was further up in the hills. With Battery Spencer the bridge seemed so close that you could nearly reach out and touch it. It was quite thrilling. I'll describe more of her route later.

I should mention the Muni passport.

I bought the one-day pass for $11. This was good for one day (until midnight, not 24 hours) and covered all cable car rides (which would have been $5 each) and Muni rides. It's quite a good deal if you plan to ride cable cars. This doesn't cover BART rides.

At one point there was a discussion on the forum about the 7-day pass vs. the weekly pass (I think it was called the weekly pass). The latter was supposed to be $15. Well, I don't think that this is being sold anymore. If memory serves, your options are 3 days for $18 and 7 days for $24, so you can plan accordingly.

There's a San Francisco CityPass, and I think it's probably worthwhile if you plan to visit museums and such. Thanks to easytraveller, I got into the de Young museum and the Cal Academy of Sciences for free (I think admission to the latter is over $20). While we didn't have time to see the exhibits in de Young in detail, I felt that this was sufficient for this visit in that I got to visit the new Herzog and de Meuron building. Currently I think that there's a Warhol exhibition at de Young, which I skipped.

The only museum I paid to go in on this trip was SFMOMA. I was there a Thursday night and used the 1/2 price admission policy that was in place (50% of 12.50 = 6.25). There was also a guided tour at 7, which I joined (this was free after admission). I'll describe this later also.

easytraveller drove by Legion of Honor, but we didn't go in. I still haven't been inside Legion of Honor, but I didn't feel that this was such a tragedy that I had to remedy this during this trip.

So I didn't buy the CityPass during this trip.

I really like Delfina in part due to the service, which, like the service at Chez Panisse, is just the kind of service I appreciate--relaxed and friendly yet highly professional. It's not a destination restaurant, but its location is convenient for tourists visiting the Mission/Castro/Dolores Park. And then you can always have ice cream at BiRite.

I enjoyed the food at Range (have only been once) but there was something about the restaurant that put me off, a faint whiff of let them eat cake, a shade of glitz, of vulgarity. I don't know, I just didn't care for it, especially right in that location. But then again I am exceptionally refined.

Okay, where to next?

I really like Delfina in part due to the service, which, like the service at Chez Panisse, is just the kind of service I appreciate--relaxed and friendly yet highly professional

sorry, had to respond. i absolutely agree about the service at Delfina - it was stellar, and perfectly described by Leely. And Leely, BiRite ice cream is on my agenda, as soon as I decide I've had enough of Weight Watchers LOL!

Well some glitz is nice for someone coming from NYC.

I think Delfina and Range are both pretty easily accessible by public transportation. Gentrification is a bit of a double-edged sword. I don't know what the Mission district was like before (and actually I still don't know how the Mission district is technically defined), but it was interesting to have Range next to an arts cooperative next to Paxton Gate next to a Dave Eggers store (well I could have remembered the order of these places wrong, but this has to be close).

Maybe you want to try Coi if you haven't tried it? I wasn't willing to spend that much, plus some reviews online seemed questionable. I think that this restaurant has the Ferran Adria molecular pedigree.

For what it's worth, I'll list some restaurants covered by the Wallpaper City guide:

Americano
Eddie Rickenbacker's
The Blue Plate
Gary Danko (this one and the following one I've heard of -- I think StuDudley might have written that he liked them)
Farallon
Limon
Boulevard
Quince

That's part of the fun reading something like Wallpaper City guides. They are not very useful to use as a primary guide, but the photos are always nice to look at.

I think I'll move on to art next -- another pretentious topic worthy of attention of sophisticated Fodorites.

I've to remember the BiRite ice-cream tip. Do you guys know Mitchell's Ice Cream? According to Time Out SF, this serves some of the best in SF (688 San Jose Street), but it was too far south for me to go.

I think StuDudley mentioned Incanto in his very comprehensive thread about SF that's also in this area. Time Out likes this too, but surprisingly my friend doesn't know it.

Mitchell's is also an institution.

http://www.mitchellsicecream.com/html/index.htm

I won't even consider Coi because it sounds so pretentious/indulgent to me. Foam and aromatherapy at dinner are not in my vocabulary

Incanto is in the Noe Valley.

Quince is one of my favorites.

I think of the Mission District as Market St to the north, Guerrero to the west, 101 to the east, and Army/Cesar Chavez to the south. It was a lot more "rough & tumble" 25-35 years ago. The dot-com boom brought a lot of gentrification to the area because housing was more affordable there, and the young set liked the Bohemian feel.

Stu Dudley

I'd go to Coi if I were feeling flush. I'll try anything twice.

This thread made me think about where I ate this weekend: Eliza's (18th on Potrero Hill) for takeout on Thursday, Regent Thai (29th and Church) on Friday and Pauline's Pizza (14th and Valencia on Saturday. For everyday food, I almost always go to the same old, regular old places.

Thanks for the Muni info, 111op. When friends visit I never know what to tell them about that kind of stuff. I just say, "Look on Fodor's."

Yes, I'm the same way in NYC. I've never been to Jean Georges or Per Se in NYC, but while on the road it's nice to splurge now and then.

Interestingly, if I use your definition, StuDudley, then Mission Dolores is not in the Mission because it's west of Guerrero.

We did the Cityspaces tour in Feb - did your tour guide have his dog with him? Our guide was great! We also did Victorian house tour with Mrs. Stu Dudley and loved it, in spite of the pouring rain. These tours are so varied and so well done, I highly recommend them.

We did the free City Hall tour too, and we were the only ones on tour, so it was a private tour. It too was well done and informative.

Chez Panisse is our favorite; we also love Zuni Cafe, Tadich Grill. We had lunch at Pizzeria Delfina and it was excellent. Bi Rite Salted Caramel Ice Cream Cones too!

Incanto was excellent as well but that came from the food as well as our dinner companions, Stu and Mrs. Dudley.

San Francisco is a wonderous place, we hope to be back soon.

Enjoyed reading your trip report, it is like being there again.

Deb

Hey Deb, my tour guide for Cityscapes was J who wrote a book. I probably shouldn't mention her name publicly (actually I don't remember her last name, but I think I can look her up if I really want to), but I think those in the know can figure it out.

For Haight-Ashbury I had DM, who lives in the area. Actually his house was on the tour, and he said that it was on the tour even before he started leading tours.

I agree that the tours are quite interesting, but I found the Haight tour to be a slight disappointment. I'll explain why later when I get to it. Since contributions are voluntary, I don't think that I can "complain" about the tour.

I also liked San Francisco a lot. As I've been telling friends, I think that it can be my second most favorite city in the US. For me NYC still beats it. I can't get over the reliance on cars. While technically you don't need one, I think it's nice to have one if you live there. Plus a lot of public transportation shuts down at night. In NYC that'd be inconceivable.

Names of the guides are posted on the City Guides web site - so it's perfectly OK to post them here too. If you want to know a name, let me know what day you took the walk & I can look the name up on the April schedule that my wife has.

Stu Dudley

I consider the Mission Dolores to be in the Mission Dolores neighborhood. It's on Dolores St

Stu Dudley

Yeah I know, but I feel that I should hold myself to a higher standard.

A lot more people probably read Fodor's than the website for the free walks. When the guides agree to have their names posted on that website, they might have not expected that someone like me might mention them by name on this website.

It's not like I've singled them out to award them a cash prize, in which case I'm sure that they'd thank me for it.

Art in San Francisco (Long)

If you care to look, there are always surprises.

Public Art

After dim sum at Yank Sing I walked to the waterfront and the Ferry Building (another culinary destination with fresh produce and buzzy restaurants (such as Slanted Door)). Here I got a magnificent view of the Bay Bridge, and there was a walkway that went out on the water with seats that rotated to give one the best views. It was really wonderful being out on a sunny day.

I noticed Louise Bourgeois's signature spider "Maman" perched nearby. In a distance, there was a piece I surmised was by Claes Oldenburg. It was clearly a big sculpture in the pop art tradition, and Oldenburg was known for this kind of art. As it turned out, the Wine Country coach drove past it, and our driver told us that this was a piece commissioned by one of the Gap founders (if I remember right). A web search reveals that the piece is titled "Cupid's Span" and the artists are Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen.

Link for Cupid's Span:
http://tinyurl.com/cv286e

Certainly it was a surprise to find two significant public art pieces by such important artists.

Clyfford Still

Clyfford Still is typically regarded as an Abstract Expressionist. I don't know much about him, but his pieces are instantly recognizable with bold and perhaps irregular (yet angular?) color patches. It turns out that SFMOMA has a gallery devoted to Still. Even more surprising, we encountered a Still painting during the Cityscapes walking tour. Interestingly, our guide didn't bother pointing it out, but if I remember right, it was in the Merchants Exchange building. (More about this building later.) This Still painting had a white background instead of his customary black.

A web search says that Still taught in the area, which could be why SF sees a significant Still presence. I'd read a while ago that a museum devoted to Clyfford Still will open in Denver in the future. It was a pleasant surprise to encounter Clyfford Still in SF.

SFMOMA

I joined a tour for this museum. We moved pretty slowly, but it was educational.

Kerry James Marshall was the featured artist in the atrium. I'm not familiar with this artist, but the guide said that he was quite well known. In any case, the murals high up in the atrium are apparently not conserved. They are painted over. (Can this really be right?) My Time Out guidebook of the atrium shows Sol LeWitt murals in place of the current Marshall murals.

Next we went to the second floor. We were led to the Matisses, but my eye wandered over to a colorful Frank Stella. Nearby was an Amy Sillman (again an artist I'm not too familiar with, but I know this name). Anyway, back to Matisse. Our guide asked us when we thought the modern art period started and what we thought of a specific painting by Matisse. I was surprised that the guide said that he believed that modern art started in the 1840s at the advent of photography, though he assured us that there must be dissertations written about this specific subject. The oldest painting in SFMOMA dates to 1900 or so.

Again, it was interesting to find that SFMOMA holds a study for "Le bonheur de vivre." This is a Matisse painting in the Barnes Collection that I'd seen before. It's a sister painting of Musee d'Orsay's "Luxe, calme et volupte," a study for which is in the MOMA in NYC.

Our next stop was a gallery devoted to new work by a young artist from Bangalore, India called Ranjani Shettar. Some of the works reminded of Alexander Calder mobiles. According to a museum brochure, "[h]er artistic vocabulary is akin to those of postmodern artists such as Martin Puryear and Eva Hesse...." While I can certainly see the Eva Hesse connection in her piece called "Waiting for June" with many similar objects that were placed in a seemingly haphazard fashion, I'm not sure if I understand the Puryear connection.

Next we went to galleries devoted to winners of the SECA Art Award, which I understand is an award for local rising stars. One artist was Tauba Auerbach. I discovered later that she has a page devoted to her favorites in the Wallpaper City guide (this series asks locals to identify their favorites in the cities they live in). In two paintings I believe were called "Crumple," Auerbach used Polke-like benday dots to depict what looked like crumpled paper. She's represented by Jack Henley in SF, and I think her NYC representation is Deitch Projects, so I think she must indeed be a rising star.

Finally our guide led us to galleries devoted to a show on the South African artist William Kentridge.

After a quick walk through the Kentridge show, I walked through the rest of the museum. The photography collection was noteworthy with several important American masters such as Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham. There was a photo by Paul Caponigro called "Redding, Conneticut," that I liked. The modern art collection is evidently not as strong as NYC's MOMA, but it's still interesting to look at. The only Pollock I saw was a 1943 painting from his Jungian period, prior to his breakthrough with drip painting. A Jasper Johns 1958 flag was on display, but the label said that this was on loan from Jean-Christophe Castelli, who I guess is Leo Castelli's son (Leo Castelli was Johns's long-time dealer).

Last, I should mention a fun work by Katharina Fritsch called "Baby With Poodles." Fritsch has taken the Madonna with Child and Adoration of the Magi themes to the contemporary era.

Link to "Baby With Poodles"
http://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/17435

Three Art Galleries

On the spur of the moment I decided to check out some art galleries. I was wandering about in the Mission earlier that day, and I was heading back downtown, but I decided to get off the street car and go to Jack Hanley (395 Valencia Street), which as you recall I wrote is Auerbach's gallerist. When I arrived, the gallery was closed for inventory (I had terrible luck with the Dave Eggers store earlier also). One neighbor was a bodega, while the other was a place selling 20th century modernist furniture called Farnsworth. Interesting!

My next stop was Crown Point Press in SOMA (20 Hawthorne Street). I've looked at their beautiful prints online, and since I was in San Francisco, why not visit them? On display were some prints by John Cage and a print by Julie Mehretu (very popular lately and the price tag was 10,000). But I was drawn to two prints by Richard Tuttle in a back office.

Last I went to Fraenkel Gallery on 49 Geary Street. Actually there are quite a number of galleries in this building, but I'd heard of this gallery that specializes in photography. I was glad that I stopped by to discover an exhibition called "Edward Hopper and Company," where works by Edward Hopper were interspersed with photographs deemed to have been influenced by him. It was a well curated show. Many significant American photographers were represented. There were a number of photos by Robert Adams and Lee Friedlander, but there were also photos by Diane Arbus, Stephen Shore, William Eggleston, and I'm sure I left out a few names. One Eggleston photo reminded me of set-up photography by Gregory Crewdson. I'm not sure if the connection is tenuous, but certainly it'd not be unreasonable to argue that Eggleston, the father of modern color photography, influenced subsequent generations.

The show at Fraenkel was yet another very pleasant surprise in San Francisco.

The Sol LeWitt murals in the atrium were replaced the week after my visit to SFMOMA last Sept. Our docent-guide mentioned that specifically. Since LeWitt's works (at least, the ones you buy) are his ideas/instructions instead of the actual painting/mural/drawing, I'm not surprised they were simply painted over. However, I don't know if they'll do the same when the current ones get replaced.

Yes, LeWitt's works are conceptual and typically executed by assistants per his instructions, but I got the impression that the Marshall murals will be painted over also. I could be wrong, of course.

Review of Grayline's Wine Country Tour

Of the major day trips out of San Francisco, the one that I'd not done was a tour of Wine Country. So it was something I wanted to remedy for this trip. Since I'm not a comfortable driver, I decided not to rent a car. Instead I'd join a tour. I figured that I'd not care about the wineries I'd visit since I don't know anything about wines, but as it turned out, I didn't think that joining a Grayline coach tour was the best use of $68 (lunch extra and suggested minimum tip of $5 extra).

I opted for hotel pickup, so I was picked up from the hotel and driven to Fisherman's Wharf, where I paid and got on another coach. To my surprise, nearly every seat in the coach was taken. Where's the recession, I wondered?

We visited three wineries in Napa and Sonoma. If I remember right, the guide/driver said that Sonoma is about ten times the size that of Napa. Napa is the more glamorous: Robert Mondavi and the French Laundry are in Napa. Somewhere on the tour, I seemed to have picked up the factoid that an acre of land costs 500,000. Wine business is serious business.

The wineries we visited were Sutter Home, Madonna Estates and Viansa. And that's one problem I had with this tour. Since this was on a big coach tour, we couldn't go anywhere famous (though I kept hearing the names Mondavi, Grgrich, Sebastiani, Chandon, Taittinger, etc. -- it was cruel).

Sutter Home is in Napa. I think this was the winery that came up with the white zinfandel. Madonna Estates is an organic winery in Sonoma. I believe Viansa is connected to Sebastiani, but I'm not sure. Interestingly, this winery is currently ranked #7 in the Tripadvisor list of Sonoma attractions, though there are complaints there that this has gone downhill. The setting is quite stunning. The building is modeled after a Tuscan monastery, and there are picnic chairs and tables overlooking the vineyards. It was nice basking in the sun at the end of the day. While we were there, there was a wedding reception that'd take place later. Viansa wines are not distributed to stores but can be shipped.

At each winery we tasted a few wines, but sometimes to taste more unique wines we had to pay. I never paid for the extra tastings.

Late lunch (not included) was in downtown Sonoma. This area was actually worth visiting since there are an old misson and also old army barracks in a historical park area.

We took the Bay Bridge on the way out and the Golden Gate Bridge on the way in.

In retrospect I should have paid extra and gone with a smaller tour. I had picked up a brochure from a tour company in the Ferry Building that promised a tour that covered Domaine Chandon, Sattui, a picnic lunch, Rutherford Ranch, Andretti and a 50-minute cruise to San Francisco for 50 minutes. (The brochure differs from the website slightly.)

While at Sutter Home, I was browsing the Frommer's guidebook on wine country, and Sattui is recommended for its picnic grounds. Domaine Chandon is related to Moet et Chandon in France and its grounds are supposed to be wonderful. I felt crestfallen that I'd chosen the wrong tour, but well, there's always the next trip, and maybe I can even try to drive next time!

I haven't yet had the time to read up on the 1976 "Judgment of Paris" (no, this wasn't the apple of discord that launched one thousand ships, but it might have launched 1000 wine books). In the 1976 contest, according to our driver/guide, Californian wines were judged (gasp!) to be superior to French wines, and this put the Californian wines on the map. Mike Grgich is remembered as one of those whose wines emerged victorious in the 1976 judgment. Last I learned this somewhere on the tour, but I don't know if it's right either. Supposedly only 4% of the wines from California are from Napa and Sonoma. Central Valley actually dominates wine production.

Website for the wine country tour I should have taken (no, I do not make a commission from this link -- just fyi only):

http://www.winecountrytourshuttle.com/

easytraveler Drives 111op Through San Francisco

So I was fussing with trying to get free internet access in a shopping mall. I had left easytraveler my cellphone number, but I was still really surprised to get a call from her! She gave me a really great driving tour of the city.

We started off in SOMA at the Museum of the African Disapora and she drove on Embarcadero past the Ferry Building, Fisherman's Wharf and the Marina. We got out at Fort Point and Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge. It turned out that I'd been to Crissy Field about two years ago. There are wonderful walking paths in this area.

San Francisco is full of abandoned military outposts. Battery Spencer north of the Bridge is one such area, and it affords amazingly close and postcard worthy views of the Bridge. This was new to me. Then afterwards we returned to San Francisco.

We went to the Cliff House that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. This area reminded me a little of Bondi in Sydney for some reason, but the waves in San Francisco were certainly more savage yet just as beautiful. The Cliff House was rebuilt and it also overlooks the ruins of Sutro Baths, a public bathhouse that was destroyed in a fire (in the 1960s?). We also stopped in Land's End, where there's a memorial to USS San Francisco with ravages of war in the scrap metal that were quite evident, and for the Legion of Honor. All these places were new to me.

In the Presidio, we stopped in the Letterman Arts Complex built by George Lucas, who participated in a renewal project by tearing down a hospital complex. Somewhere here you can spot Yoda from Star Wars.

Then there were the multimillion homes in San Francisco. I think Robin Williams may live somewhere on El Camino del Mar. And if you do a web search for "Obama" and "billionaire row" you'll discover that Obama visited a fundraiser somewhere on Broadway where both Getty and Ellison (from Oracle) have homes and where Obama's infamous quote that involved "bitter" and "clinging" was made. [I mention this not to start a political discussion, just that I found this interesting, so please keep politics off this thread. Thanks.]

We also passed Alamo Square with the couple of Victorians that get featured on postcards and in the TV series "Full House."

Finally we went to the observation tower of de Young Museum and lunch at the Cal Academy of Sciences. The de Young Museum is a newish building by Herzog and de Meuron (of Tate Modern fame). The copper skin was designed to rust and blend in better with the trees of the Park. The new Cal Academy is a building by Renzo Piano. It features an interior rain forest and a green roof. We had lunch in the cafeteria here and then afterwards we checked out the Aquarium and Foucault's Pendulum. Here a series of pins is knocked out by a swinging pendulum to demonstrate that the Earth rotates. Somehow this was new to me too (I'd heard of the Pendulum, but not how it worked).

Anyway, as I wrote before, easytraveler got me into both de Young and Cal Museum of the Sciences for free. Thanks again!

Ok, I'm about done now! I'll write about the two free walking tours and my walks through the city later. Please let me know if there are any questions I can answer.

Looking forward to the walking tours.

Wonderful report, so many ideas and experiences shared with all of us.
I am planning a trip next month, so will use all your inforamtion.
Just curious--did you do any special shopping? Or did you feel same stuff is sold everywhere?
Thanks again.

No, I didn't do any shopping. But to my surprise, I found a Richart in San Francisco. Richart is a chocolate shop from Paris. They used to have a shop in NYC near the St. Regis hotel, but that shop closed. Supposedly the only shops in the US now are in San Francisco and Boston.

I'm not a big fan of chocolates by Richart, but they are quite interesting and beautiful, so if you happen to walk past, do go inside and take a look. According to the web, the address is 393 Sutter (should be near Stockton).

Then there's the Ferry Building. I think that if you like food products, you'll find something to buy there.

Have a great trip!

Shopping

Many shopping areas prohibit chain stores - or at least they don't exist beyond maybe a Starbucks, BofA, Whole Foods, or Walgreens.
- Valencia Corridor - a recent squabble about American Apparel
- Hayes Valley
- Noe Valley
- Haight
- Fillmore in Pacific Heights
- North Beach

Some do allow chains
- Chestnut St
- Union St
- Union Sq/Westerfield Center
- Embarcadero Center

The only typical "shopping mall" is out in the Sunset at Stonestown on 19th ave.

Stu Dudley

If you like music and collect CDs, Amoeba may be a good place. It's quite well known. I tried to go to the one in the Haight, but unfortunately it hadn't opened for the day when I arrived and I had to move on to the Haight walking tour. I did visit the one in Berkeley.

I'm a classical music person, and it was interesting to browse. On the other hand, in terms of classical music, it's not necessarily better than Academy Records in NYC, for example.

I also found the SFMOMA gift shop a nice place. There were things there I don't think I saw anywhere else.

111op-Great report. I just now got back from 4 days in SF myself.
We (a party of 5) had a fantastic meal last night at Delfina. I think the experience was enhanced by an excellent, smart server, and the fact that we were able to order a large selection of food to share and taste.
One question- you listed Delfina among the Michelin starred restaurants at the top of your report. As far as I can tell, it does not have a star. Did I miss something?

Hi Kristina, you're right! Thanks for pointing that out. I'm not sure why I thought that.

I went to the lists I had from 2008 and 2009 (from Michelin's website) and Delfina doesn't have a star. Then I found a list from 2007 (not from Michelin) and it's not listed there either.

Range was on all three lists.

I stand corrected. Sorry about that.

Now I don't feel quite as decadent. And in my opinion, Delfina shouldn't have a star. Whether Range should have one is more debatable, I think. I think Michelin can have strange criteria with awarding stars.

In case anyone is waiting for the rest of the report, it's unlikely that I'll get back to it before the end of the week. I've some stuff I need to complete before the week is over.

For people interested in the Michelin ratings for SF, I've found this article from Michael Bauer written at the end of 2006:

http://tinyurl.com/cvkh2n

You can infer from the article that Delfina didn't have a star. The article mentions Zuni Cafe, which someone else mentioned also on this thread (and probably elsewhere).

I may be in the minority who think that Chez Panisse should get just one star. It was a nice experience, but personally I'd not give it 3 stars. Not that I am an expert, but I think that a 3* star restaurant is a different kind of restaurant from what Chez Panisse is.

111op-thanks, I thought I was going crazy. While our meal at Delfina was excellent on all counts, I agree, it's probably not "star" calliber. I work for a restaurant with a star and I know how hard they can be to get. Still, it was a consitantly good meal from start to finish. I'll be writing a report with all the details soon.

Great. I'll be sure to check your report and let my mouth water!

>>I may be in the minority who think that Chez Panisse should get just one star<<

It's only a 1 star in Michelin. Michael Bauer has a 4 star system.

Stu Dudley

Thanks for the SFMOMA update. I haven't been in quite a while--more than eight-nine months? It's a fun museum. I remember when LeWitt and his team were doing the murals in the musuem; I never got the impression they were to stay up even as long as they have.

Not a big fan of Fraenkel Gallery and will say no more about that. There's reportedly a good restaurant in the Cal. Academy of Sciences, the Moss Room. It's run by the same folks who do Coco500, which I have enjoyed a few times.

How lucky for you to have easytraveler as your guide. You hit all the scenic spots with little hassle.

So, when do we go to Musical Offering?

I'll give Chez Panisse four stars in the Michael Bauer system.

There's not much to say about Musical Offering, but it's always nice to come across a classical music store-cum-cafe with photography (albeit for sale) on the walls. I think it's on Bancroft Avenue. When I walked in there was early music, which I don't really like, but I'll forgive their tastes.

I don't know of a place like that in NYC.

I guess I've to wait until the weekend to finish up. To be honest I'd rather write a trip report than deal with this crap I need to deal with.

Walking in...

Berkeley

I arrived about an hour and a half before my dinner with my friend at Chez Panisse. I walked along Bancroft at the edge of campus and found a music store-cum-cafe called Musical Offering and walked inside and looked at their classical CDs. Some recommendations were interesting. I'd not been browsing record stores all that much in NYC lately as Tower Records had folded, and I don't make it to J&R near City Hall that often. There were a few Messiaen CDs issued in connection with the centennial of his birth, including a recent recital disc by Pierre Laurent-Aimard.

Next I went to Telegraph Avenue and went to Amoeba Records. I was browsing when my friend called to ask me to join him at Strada. There's outdoor seating at Strada, and I was telling him how nice I thought that SF weather had been. It's not always like this, he told me, but the worst of the rain seemed to be over. (I thought one hears of "April Showers"?) Anyway we sat for a while while enjoying the bohemian atmosphere and when it was time we drove to Chez Panisse.

Across the street from Chez Panisse is Cheeseboard Pizza. According to my friend, this pizzeria makes one kind of vegetarian pizza every day, and there are always people sitting on the traffic island/divider in the middle and eating their pizza.

Financial District

From Fodor's I had learned about a series of free walking tours given by volunteers. Based on my schedule I selected two. One was City Scapes and Public Spaces. This tour was interesting because it led visitors to hidden parks and rooftop gardens in a concrete jungle. I won't describe the tour in great detail (we visited about 15 of these places) but I'll mention a couple of things.

Link to Tour:
http://www.sfcityguides.org/desc.html?tour=11

First much of the Financial District was built on reclaimed land. Second many of these hidden places of respite were developed in connection with urban renewal. When taller skyscrapers were built, the city demanded that developers reserve open public spaces. However frequently there were no signs and people didn't know where to look or go. Still it was nice to see that these places exist.

I'd mentioned the Merchants Exchange Building in connection with Clyfford Still. What else made me remember this building was that I believe our guide said that Julia Morgan, who built Hearst Castle, had her offices in this building. So did Ansel Adams, if I remember right.

It's interesting looking up the history of this bulding. It's a sister of "Union Station in Washington, DC, the Reliance Building in Chicago, and the Flatiron Building in New York City." The Reliance Building (1890s) is remembered today as an important proto-skyscraper.

http://www.mxbuilding.com/history/index.php

Then I should mention two things not covered by the tour. One is the Palace Hotel, which actually survived the earthquake of 1906. I popped inside to take a look at the beautiful Garden Court. Speaking of hotels I should also mention the Hyatt Regency. The Wallpaper City guide for San Francisco includes this under the "Architour" section (the other locations, for the sake of completeness, are City Hall, de Young, California Masonic Memorial Temple and St. Mary's Cathedral). I liked the Charles Perry sculpture "Eclipse" and the futuristically bold building. I even had fun riding the elevators enclosed with glass with views of the interior a couple of times.

Garden Court of Place Hotel
http://www.sfpalace.com/Dining

Charles Perry's "Eclipse" sculpture
http://www.charlesperry.com/list/Eclipse.html

Finally as already mentioned, at the end of Market Street is the Ferry Building and there's also a stunning view of the waterfront and the Bay Bridge.

SoMA

There seems to be much active building in the area south of Market Street. Here one finds a few museums (SFMOMA, a new building for the Jewish Museum as designed by Daniel Libeskind, the Museum of African Diaspora (I didn't go there)) and the inviting Yerba Buena Gardens. This is also the site of the planned "Transbay Development" and future tallest building (1200 feet).

Transbay Development
http://tinyurl.com/dzas8c

Castro & Mission

The Castro and the Mission are close to each other. To get to the much praised bakery called Tartine on 18th and Guererro, I decided to visit Castro first. The recent movie on Harvey Milk has put Castro on the map again, but his camera shop (575 Castro) is now overtaken by a store selling home furnishings and decorations. When I went inside, I was surprised by how big it was. On the pavement outside of the store is a commemorative plaque.

I had lunch at Tartine. The sandwiches were quite expensive (over $10), so I settled on quiche, a (big!) cup of chai latte and a (big!!) slice of dark forest (?) chocolate cake that was just decadently rich. Tartine offered some communal tables, so in that sense it was a little like Le Pain Quotidien. But I guess I may be in the minority who can't figure out what the fuss is. But obviously it's a nice bakery.

Then I walked along Valencia Street. There's one particularly interesting stretch with Paxton Gate (this has a taxidermy theme), a pirates supply store purportedly started by Dave Eggers (of literary and McSweeney's fame), an arts cooperative (and as I found out later, the restaurant Range with one Michelin star) all next to one other on one side of the street. On the other side is a shop called Little Otsu that sells cute cards.

Unfortunately there was a sign on the pirates store that it was closed. The sign was actually quite amusing and ran on for a few sentences. I was reading and wondering if the inhabitants had really decamped somewhere to contemplate life (one of the indicated reasons for temporary closure) and thinking "sheesh!" (also noted on the sign). Then some guy just came out and said, "Oh, that's our way of saying that we're closed for inventory."

I also went to 24th Street, and then I went to Mission Dolores. While I hadn't planned on this initially, I had taken the Church Street streetcar, and it had passed Mission Dolores Park, so I jumped out and enjoyed the view. Then I figured that I'd just wander over to Mission Dolores.

It's been a while since I saw Hitchcock's "Vertigo," and I'd forgotten the grave scene, which was shot in Mission Dolores and also the oldest building in San Francisco. There's a $5 admission charge (which I paid) and this lets you inside to tour the basilica and the small cemetery (this may seem small, but supposedly there's a mass grave for 5000 here). Of course no one can forget the final haunting scene of "Vertigo," but alas, that was a different mission, as the woman who tended to the gift shop told me.

Finally, closer to Market is the Jack Hanley gallery (as mentioned).

Cable Cars and Lombard Street

Since the Muni passport gave me unlimited $5 cable car rides, I decided to take advantage of them. There are three cable car lines now. One runs east-west along California and two run north-south with both ending (or I guess starting, depending on your point of view) near Fisherman's Wharf. I took one line to the end and got off and walked to Lombard Street. Unfortunately I was climbing uphill to get to the crookedest street in the world. Then at the other end of Lombard, I waited for another cable car to take me south. The problem was that two cable cars passed me by before I could get on the third, so I got Delfina later than I wanted to. I think that that might have been the only time I actually felt annoyed during the entire trip.

Last installment coming up later... A final day of walking!

But I guess I may be in the minority who can't figure out what the fuss is. But obviously it's a nice bakery.

This trip report is incredible! Regarding Tartine, you didn't eat their bread or their brownies. That's obviously why you don't know what the fuss is about

Regarding the Hyatt Regency, the hotel opened just a few months after I moved here. It was a big big deal -- everyone going during lunch or after work to see what was then such a unique building! (Of course, I've worked next door for 10 years and before that directly across the street for 11 years, and I think I've been inside twice during that time!)

Thanks. Well I guess I'm not a big bread person, but I was thinking about the brownies. In any case, that slice of chocolate cake can feed 10 people!

I think the guide to the Haight Ashbury tour said that the Hyatt Regency (and the elevators) appeared in the movie "Towering Inferno." Supposedly they doubled up a 50+ storey SF building (sorry, I can't recall which one, but I'm sure someone here knows) to create that towering inferno.

I did a web search and Wiki claims the Hyatt Regency appears in the movie "High Anxiety" also (with Mel Brooks).

Too bad I don't use Netflix. Else I'd put all these movies + "Vertigo" on my Netflix queue. I'd seen all of them before, and I actually quite liked "High Anxiety." I guess it's the movie where the final scenes involve a Gilbert and Sullivan work.

Actually, sorry, now that I think about it, maybe the guide to the Haight Ashbury tour didn't say all that.

Might have been the tour guide/driver for the Wine Country Coach tour. Or could have been the guide to the Financial District walking tour.

Someone said it!

Ah faulty memory again. "Foul Play" and "High Anxiety" were fused in my consciousness.

I think the guide to the Haight Ashbury tour said that the Hyatt Regency (and the elevators) appeared in the movie "Towering Inferno." Supposedly they doubled up a 50+ storey SF building (sorry, I can't recall which one, but I'm sure someone here knows) to create that towering inferno.

Nope. The towering inferno in "Towering Inferno" was the 52-story Bank of America building on California Street. I know that because 1) I watched them filming it; and 2) the fire station in the movie was the fire station I lived next door to at the time, also on California Street (5 blocks west of Van Ness Avenue).

You certainly covered a lot of ground in a brief time, but still I'm a little disappointed in you. Wouldn't you typically have hit Seattle, SF and L.A. in this 4.5 days?

While not as pretty as the Garden Court, it's nice to have a drink at the Pied Piper in the Palace. Dark and clubby. Also the Latin American Club on 22nd Street--enormous margaritas (rocks only).

Well, I'm unemployed right now, so I've slowed down.

Plus I was hit with this mystery ailment when I was in SF. My left foot was in pain most of the time. I don't know why. Maybe it was because I had to wear some ill-fitting leather shoes at first. I promptly switched to sandals for the rest of the trip, and I just couldn't walk very well.

Given my (lack of) driving skills, throwing LA into the mix would have been challenging. My flight from SFO was cancelled and I got routed through LAX -- so that counts, right?

I'm going to find something interesting to do for the evening. It's Friday night. I shouldn't be checking Fodor's.

Hi, 111op! Just returned from a quickie trip to LA and ran across this thread! What a terrific report!

You got to see so much within such a short period of time! Very impressive!

It was truly fun for me to drive you around and to show you my most favorite city in the world! I'm just sorry we didn't have time to go out to the Wine Country. That bus tour sounds horrid! Hope it didn't turn you off, but the next time you're out this way, we'll have to do the Wine Country in proper fashion. You missed the best wineries for wine, for history, for view, for everything! Viansa? (Ugh!) - and I'll do the driving, please! [For other Fodorites: I got a bit discombobulated coming out of the Lombard Gate from the Presidio, so I handed the map to 111op and asked him please to guide me to the Golden Gate Park. He promptly turned the map upside - while it's very impressive to be able to read a map upside down and backwards, it didn't really inspire me with a lot of confidence! But we got to the De Young Museum just fine!]

You're also providing me with fresh ammo for my next "guided" tour. I never knew that thingamabob was called "Cupid's Span", not being into modern art. Good to learn new things about San Francisco!

Your mention of Hainanese chicken has me salivating! When to go to SE Asia again just for the chicken?! We'll have to just make do with Nonya cooking in New York!

Great report! Thanks so much for sharing your great trip!

See you soon in NYC!

Hey easy, RW Apple had an article in NYT called "Ten Meals Worth Flying For" (or something like that). He picked fancy restaurants but I think Tian Tian in Singapore deserves a place there (and this is coming from someone who is not really a big fan of what's probably Singapore's national dish).

Unfortunately Nyonya can't compare but we'll have to make do. That *will* have to be my treat!

Hope you had a good trip and thanks for helping make my visit so enjoyable!

And I don't think that people should be in a car with me when I am (a) driving or (b) navigating. Nothing good can come from it.

Good morning, 111op!

You know I was just kidding about your driving, right?

On Hainanese chicken, everyone must have a favorite place in Singapore. One of my friends used to teach at the U of Singapore and she said that the BEST HC was at the faculty dining room at the U of S'pore. I must say it really was wonderful.

"That *will* have to be my treat!" Oh, goodie! Another Chinese food/bill fight in the making!

BTW, do you have any favorite Chinese restaurants in NYC? maybe I ought to start another thread on this topic?

Hey easy, you may want to start another thread, but here are some Chinese restaurants I've been to:

Grand Sichuan

It's a chain, but I'm not sure if the restaurants are actually related. There's one in Chelsea (around 24th and 9th) and one on the East side (Lex and 33rd or so). There's also one in the E Village on St. Mark's but I don't think that one is as good.

Wu Liang Ye

There are two I know about. There's one near Rockefeller (48th near 5th, something like that) and one on Lex near Grand Central (probably around 38th and Lex).

Szechuan Gourmet

It's near 5th Avenue/Bryant Park, I think on 42nd.

These are all Sichuan restaurants, I guess. For Cantonese, there's Ping's in Chinatown on Mott Street.

People tend to go to Golden Unicorn for dim sum, but it's not as fancy as Yank Sing (but it's also half the price). I don't go too often. Sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by it, but I think that the food can be variable. There's also Dim Sum A Go Go, which I like, but some of my friends who are purists dislike it.

I've mentioned Nyonya already, but similar restaurants are the Penang chain. There's one on the Upper West Side, and I think there used to be one in Soho. Penang is more expensive than Nyonya.

Then in the UWS there's Ivy('s?) Cafe on 72nd. If you look at their menu, they claim that they cooked for Jiang Zemin years ago during a state visit at the Waldorf-Astoria. The food isn't fancy at all (at least what they serve in their restaurant).

A few years ago, people were crazy about the xiao long bao at Joe's Shanghai (on Pell Street in Chinatown). I haven't been in a while. I think there's also the related Joe's Ginger.

There are also noodles type places (like the chains Ollie's and Mee that I don't usually go to). There are more authentic ones in Chinatown.

One Last Morning of Walking

I was leaving later that day.

I decided to take another walking tour of the Haight Ashbury, but first I checked out of my hotel and walked west on Geary, a major thoroughfare throught the city, to the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption (1111 Gough Street). This is featured in the Wallpaper City guide, and the photo looked interesting, so I figured that I'd go take a look. There was a service so I didn't walk around, but I did find the architecture quite unique. At the end were side windows with views of San Francisco.

http://www.stmarycathedralsf.org/

I was a little concerned about walking west of my hotel, but it was morning and it was safe. Geary was north of what might be considered problematic areas anyway. Parts were a bit rundown, but I was fine.

After St. Mary's, I walked past Japantown, and then I walked south on Fillmore. Fillmore seems to have undergone some urban renewal. Some buildings looked pretty new. And then I figured that I was pretty close to Alamo Square, so I walked over to take another look.

By this time it was close to the start time of my walking tour, and I was still at least a good 10-15 blocks away. So I took a cab and went to the end of the Haight Street near the start of Golden Gate Park, where Amoeba Records is. Unfortunately the record store isn't yet open, so I walked to the meeting point of my walking tour just about two blocks away on neighboring Page Street.

Website of Haight Tour:
http://www.sfcityguides.org/desc.html?tour=38

It's strange to see this tour described as "somewhat strenuous" as it's not really strenuous at all for someone who is used to a fair amount of walking. I didn't find the tour as interesting as the Cityscapes tour. The tour moved pretty slowly. While I was primarily interested in the Haight's role in the 1960s, the guide spent at least a good 45 minutes describing the history of the neighborhood. We learned that there used to be a few more cable car lines in the city, and one ran in the neighborhood. Even more surprising, there was a water amusement park in the area.

It wasn't until about halfway into the tour when we learned about the tumultuous 1960s. We were standing in the Panhandle, a smallish patch of green in the area, where our guide told us how the Panhandle came to be so small (land squabbles with shrewd developers who encouraged squatters to take over) and then gave us a little history about the 1960s. The culmination of this hippie/free for all/anything goes era could be viewed as the short-lived "Summer of Love" of 1967. Afterwards the scene was declared dead with the "Death of the Hippie" and people moved away.

Our guide mentioned a few names that were not familiar to me. One player was Neal Cassady, who had affairs with the Beats Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac and who later also became a figure in the psychedelic movement. Cassady drove the bus "Furthur" and was a member of the "Merry Pranksters" formed by Ken Kesey, who took LSD in Stanford drug experiments and became a proponent of these drugs (he was also author of "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"). And the actor Danny Glover actually saw his career develop in this period as part of the "San Francisco Mime Troupe."

We didn't actually walk on Haight Street until the tour was close to an end. Just when we were to turn, I had to leave because of my flight later in the afternoon (which was subsequently cancelled).

We walked past the Urban School, an expensive private school where Robin Williams's son went, and a street where any one of four houses might have been where Joan Mitchell had lived. Our guide said that when he was asked to lead this tour, he was also asked to research where Joan Mitchell might have lived. There were then two candidates. After his research, he decided that she could lived in any one of four houses on that street.

End

Thanks for the report! Gave me lots of ideas for my trip next month.

Thanks for finishing your report. I used to hold office hours in Musical Offering back in my grad school (salad) days. Speaking of which, they had a good smoked trout salad.

Where are you going next?

Hey Leely, so I'll assume that you went to Berkeley, and I'm curious about the field. But if these are questions too personal to answer on a public forum, I understand.

Sadly I haven't made any travel plans. I'm interested in going to Asia again, especially China.

Now that I've a lot of free time, I'm not feeling the urge to rush to Europe and spend every day in a different city. But I'd like to go sometime. I'd still like to go to Buenos Aires (a trip I cancelled last fall), but time is working against me because of the reversal of the seasons in the southern hemisphere.

I should make better use of my unemployment time. I've travelled less than I expected, but still I've travelled for a good 9 weeks, which is about 1/3 of six months. So that's not bad.

Question for you about the Westin-

1) Declining "room service" and getting a $5 voucher? What exactly does that mean? Is it having the maid come by to clean the room (ie make the bed; provide fresh towels; empty trash cans)? So when you declined it, basically no one came to clean the room for your duration of stay? How did you even find out about this?

2) Is there an in-room safe? Is it big enough to put in a laptop?

Thanks.

I'm sorry about that typo. Yeah, it wasn't "room service" as in ordering meals. I was referring to the maid/cleaning service.

They hung something on my door about this that I could go green and get the $5 coupon, but I didn't read the fine print until the third or fourth day or so. So I collected two coupons only. Since I was the only one in the room, it really wasn't too bad.

Yes there was a safe and I left my laptop there when I was out. I think I've a 15'' screen.

The ethernet cable and outlet that you may need for the laptop can be found in a silvery metal light that's on the writing desk (lift the top of the base to find them).

Thanks for the info! I don't think we need maid service either since we're not messy people, and getting $20 in vouchers (for 4 nights) would be great!

Sounds great. Plus these are vouchers you can actually use to get something useful (and I think you can actually use them for room service)! You just need to hang something on the door before 2 am every night. Just be on the lookout for it.

I was chatting with a friend visiting from SF about the Dave Eggers store. She told me that there's a superhero store in NYC, so I just looked it up. Surprise, surprise, it's in Park Slope....

http://nymag.com/listings/stores/Brooklyn-Superhero-Co/

She told me that NYC one is actually better. I'll have to remember to check it out.

Postscript on Westin St. Francis...

So I was trying to find my belt today and I couldn't find it. I figured that I might have left it in the hotel, and I called them. To my surprise, they actually do have it. They keep all lost items for 60 days. I told them when I checked out and gave them my name, but I couldn't remember my exact room number (just an approximate one and I got the floor correct), and they were able to track down the belt. There's even an item number associated with it.

I'll call tomorrow to see what the shipping is. They ship via FedEx. It may be cheaper to buy a new one.

Impressive service!

PPS on Westin St. Francis.

I normally don't bother to fill out questionaires that ask about your stay afterwards, but I decided to do this one whose link arrived by e-mail, especially since a reminder just came in a day or two ago.

Q29: Which of the following best describes why you choose to stay at this hotel?

Priceline was not one of the 5 options.

And I wrote this:

"I was very pleased with this hotel. The desk agent (I think her name was [], it was the night of []) was very helpful. I had a pleasant meal at Michael Mina. One of their staff members was very helpful and sat me in the main restaurant when the bar was full.

And to top it off I discovered my belt was missing about two weeks after and I called the Lost and Found at the hotel and they have my belt."

2 more questions:

1) Where is the computer terminal w/the printer? It'll be useful for us to check-in and print out our BPs too.

2) Where did you find the fine print info about declining USA Today? I guess it's not the same place where you found out about declining maid service? Are the #s to call to decline each one, or did you go to front desk to tell them?

Hi, it's hard for me to describe the location of the printer, but it's somewhere "between" the front desk reception and the elevators. There's a set of doors that open out to Union Square (I forget what that street is). As you walk in from those doors, you see the restaurant Michael Mina on the left hand side. (Facing MM on the right is the bar.)

As you keep walking straight, the elevators are on the right side. As you continue, you should see the computer with the printer on the right side, and after that you see the reception on the left side. There's another set of doors past reception.

I forget where I saw the bit about declining USA Today. It could be in one of the numerous "books" about the hotel (like one that lists the the amenities, etc.). I didn't decline delivery so I don't know (but as I mentioned, I didn't end up getting the paper every day anyway). This could be a Priceline issue, I'm not sure.

The info about the maid service is on a small card, if I remember right. There's a standard "Please make up room/Do not disturb" thing you can hang on your door knob. I think there's a slit or something on that thing, and you can just put the small card in that slit.

The info will tell you what to do. When I was there the info said that the card should be placed outside your room by 2 am.

There's no need to call anyone regarding this.

By the way, I forgot to point out the obvious -- if you can't find the printer for whatever reason, you can just ask them whether they can help you check in and print your boarding pass (at which point they will most likely direct you to the printer, if it still exists).

It's the Westin after all!

Have a great trip.

Hey thanks. I know I probably sound really petty sweating over a few bucks here and there.... but every penny helps in this economy!

Well I'm the same, but as they say, "don't sweat the small things."

I do think that skipping maid service to save $5 is worth it -- esp. when it's $5 you can actually use! Just bear in mind that you may not have enough soap or toiletries after a few days, so you may want to plan accordingly.

Great TR! Thanks for directing me here YK -

So am I reading this right? If I decline maid service I get 5.00 coupons? I have never heard of that!

Hey MomDDTravel, yep you got that right! I suspect will be posting her report soon so she can let us know if it's still true.

And the coupons can *actually be used* (not in Michael Mina)! I think that's the more important part.

Sorry, I suspect *yk* will be posting.... Sorry for leaving out the name.