We finally have our hotel and air booked, so now I get to plan our itinerary! We are staying in a cannery/park view room at the Argonaut with a AAA rate, which I joined just to get the rate. It still saved me money. Thanks to everyone for your tips and insights!

We'll be there in the middle of January from a Tuesday afternoon through Saturday morning, so we'll have about 3.5 days there. I was thinking about whale watching. Is it worth it? Which company/tour group is a good one? What else should we see? We decided not to stay in Sonoma at all, so we may rent a car one day to visit a couple wineries, and I'm dying to see the Redwoods. Anything else you can recommend?

Also, where do we HAVE to eat while in town? And who has good sushi? TIA!

There is a very nice seafood restaurant right in your hotel. "The Blue Mermaid".

I wouldn't eat at any restaurant around the Wharf - unless you want to be surrounded by other tourists and dine on mostly mediocre food. Exceptions are Gary Danko and Ana Mandara.

You should eat in North Beach at least 1 night. Perhaps North Beach restaurant or Mooses. Tadich on a weekday to get a Financial District buzz. Get there by 11:00 to get a booth, or 11:30 for a counter seat (which I prefer).

For Thai, dine at Thep Phanom. If you don't mind a lot of noise, try Slanted Door at the Ferry Bldg for Vietnamese - it's one of our top restaurants.

For a good neighborhood restaurant, try A16 for Italian or Delfina - also (modern) Italian.

Take a free SF City Guides walking tour - they are sponsored by the public library & there are over 30 different tours. See:

www.sfcityguides.org

For a description & schedule. In January, they will start to offer special earthquake walks to commemorate the 100th annivserary of the quake.

Click on my name & read all the past USA posts to get some ideas of other things to do.

Stu Dudley

i would take the ferry over to sausalito for lunch or drinks. the view is great.

i have always enjoyed the california culinary academy on polk and turk for meals.
has been awhile since i went. maybe a local can comment.

Where do you "HAVE" to eat? What kind of food: French? Italian? Chinese? Mexican? American? Steak? Seafood?What's the budget range? Young, old - food only or food and mood?

As for sushi, try looking on

sanfrancisco.citysearch.com

which has a list of the "best" sushi places (I'd disagree with Ebisu being #1, but food is sooo subjective!)

or any one of numerous foodie websites.

If you can't wait - once you land you'll find a branch of Ebisu right at San Francisco Airport.

There are some great sushi restaurants in out of the way places, you will need a car, so check the citysearch website if you want something close to your hotel.

Japantown also has sushi places. There is one where the sushi is served in little boats. Ate there about a year ago and it's not bad, so if you're touring Japantown, you might want to find a sushi place there which strikes your fancy.

Happy dining!

If you take the ferry to Sausalito and decide to stay for dinner (sundown ride on the ferry could be a highlight of your trip!), you could have sushi at Sushi Ran in Sausalito.

In San Francisco near the Ferry Building, there are two restaurants which have good sushi - Ozumo and Chaya. The first is a bustling, hip Japanese restaurant (not strictly a sushi bar) and the latter serves an Asian/French fusion menu but also surprisingly good and authentic sushi assortment.

My favorite sushi place in Japantown is Ino. Be warned that it's small and the chef-san is sometimes a real primadonna.

Note to easytraveler - so good to hear someone else say that Ebisu is NOT ichi-ban. It faded long ago, IMO. I certainly would not wait in line for an hour at Ebisu the way I used to years ago.