Friday Favorites: SFO Sights and Eats

I’m going to skip the big tourist attractions—even though I do enjoy a lot of them—and try to point you toward a few more out-of-the-way spots.

• Japantown: Really, all of it. I could do a whole post just on this neighborhood (Hey, I might next month after I get back from a spa weekend with some girlfriends). But starting with the Mall of Japan isn’t a bad idea.
• South San Francisco: The main drag (Grand Ave.) has a number of spectacular little hole-in-the-wall Mexican delis. I’m particularly fond of La Torta Sabrosa.
• Outer Sunset: If it weren’t for the arctic breeze, you would think you were in a beach town in SoCal, ca. 1927. This neighborhood just has such a different vibe than the rest of SFO. I’m a big fan of Toyose for late-night Korean, and I used to love Trouble coffee for the coconuts and cinnamon toast (now sadly defunct), but Thanh Long is still serving up great black-pepper crab and their famous garlic noodles.
• Hagiwara Tea Garden, Golden Gate Park: Touristy, yes, but I rarely go to SFO without coming here. Get a spot in the tea house overlooking the pond for your cup of hot green tea and wagashi.
• Asian Art Museum: One of a very few in the U.S. and probably the best. I’m a member here and make it in most times I’m in the city.
• City Hall: Pop in and take a gander at the jaw-dropping murals and painted ceilings.
• Roadworks Steamroller Printing Festival: This sight is a bit time-dependent—it takes place usually the 3rd weekend in September at the San Francisco Center for the Book in the Do.Re.Mi Arts district. But if you’re there then, it’s well worth watching a steamroller press an enormous linoleum block print in the middle of the street.
• Minamoto Kitchoan: Japanese sweets in a jewel-box shop on Market St.
• Tartine: Everyone already knows about this bakery in the Mission, but that’s no excuse not to go. It’s probably the best croissant in America.
• B. Patisserie: Probably the best kouign amann in America—on Divisidero at the edge of Pacific Heights.
• La Trappe: Belgian beer bar complete with a brick-arch “cave” downstairs and excellent moules frites in North Beach.
• Restaurant Nisei: Chef David Yoshimura just pulled in his first Michelin star for his washoku (Japanese home-style cooking) prix fixe, and it’s well deserved.
• Benu: There are like two 3-Michelin-star restaurants I’ve eaten at that I would go back to a second time, and Benu is one: Korean/French fusion where you can’t taste the fusion, and that’s saying something.
• Kokkari Estiatorio: I really wanted to dislike this high-end Greek restaurant in the FiDi and couldn’t—that’s how good the food and service are. I would eat there 100 times and have the giant red sea urchin in a bowl of ice all of those times.
• Maiden Lane: I love the little jewelry and perfume shops studding this tiny alley off Union Square.
• Sanraku: On Sutter in the Tenderloin—no-frills sushi, but I’ve never been disappointed eating there.