San Francisco wasn’t a place I had ever thought about visiting before this trip, and in some ways we only planned to stay there because it was on the way to the Pacific Northwest. All I really knew about San Francisco was that it’s extremely expensive to live there, and it’s foggy and hilly. I hadn’t remembered that Tartine Bakery – arguably the best in the country – was in the Mission District. Victor hadn’t remembered that one of his academic heroes taught at UC Berkeley. Listen to this while you read this post and imagine it stuck in my head the entire time we were exploring San Francisco.
We arrived in SF in the early afternoon and couldn’t check into our AirBnB in the East Bay for a couple of hours, so after a quick visit to Golden Gate Park, we headed to Chinatown and got dim sum at what claimed to be the oldest continually operating dim sum house in America, tucked down a back alley at the top of a monstrous San Francisco hill. I pretty much consider dumplings to be their own food group, and these did not disappoint. We had steamed pork buns, spareribs, bok choy, a scallion pancake, crispy shrimp balls, and, of course, soup dumplings. The novelty of a bite of meatball soup wrapped in a delicate dumpling skin will never fade, and these xiao long bao were head and shoulders above any I’d ever had in the DC area. It was Victor’s first ever encounter with them, though. He’s ruined for life.
After lunch we walked down the hill and back up the other side, by rows of shops and men busking with one-stringed erhus. The whole time we were in the city, I kept thinking of that scene in the Princess Diaries where Anne Hathaway is attempting to put on tights in the backseat of the limo. Clearly I saw that movie at a very formative time in my life; the San Francisco hills, it has to be said, are no joke.
That evening, we bummed around Berkeley. It was a relief to have a quiet escape from the city. We visited Amoeba Music and Revolution Books, where we perused a hilarious range of titles (microwave cooking to Alexis de Tocqueville) and overheard a staff member attempt to convince some other patrons that the Chinese revolution wasn’t that bad after all. They invited us to come back the next night for a screening of a social justice-themed documentary. Is there a more Berkeley way to spend an evening?
The next morning we had an excellent brunch in Oakland (Actual Cafe, the best “California” food we had) and then drove across the Bay Bridge to San Francisco proper. For better or worse, we missed Pride by literally one day, but Dolores Park was miraculously clean. The weather was beautiful and there were so many people out with their dogs enjoying the sunshine.
At some point, I realized that we were a mere block from Tartine, and so began the long wait for baguettes. We sampled a little bit of everything else Tartine offers (shatteringly flaky croissants, mini tarts, scones, shortbread) but ultimately decided to camp out in the Mission District until 3:30, when the day’s baguettes came out of the oven.
We had hours to kill. Mission Dolores, the District’s namesake, took up a good chunk of it. We went back to Dolores park to watch the dogs for a little longer. We talked to a couple of street corner activists raising money for a good cause (you can’t walk past someone who asks if you “have a minute to talk about racism” – check out http://www.hiphopforchange.org/). It was all we could do to keep from standing outside Tartine with our noses pressed up to the window, Christmas Story style.
It was worth the wait. Tartine’s baguettes are ever so slightly sour, with a crackly crust and a deeply satisfying crumb. We got some weird looks as we sat devouring bread plain and drinking a beer, but who cares. They are that good.
After a day in the Mission, we felt obligated to visit Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s not that I wish we hadn’t, but suffice it to say I’ve been there and don’t feel like I have to re-visit it if I ever make it back to SF. It was crowded and overly touristy, like every beach boardwalk, complete with Ripley’s and airbrush tee shirts. We did have good beers at Jack’s Cannery Bar, but everything in the area was overpriced and resting on longtime laurels. We missed what turned out to be our last opportunity for In-N-Out, which honestly would have been better food than most of what was on offer, if Yelp reviews are to be believed. To top it off, the famous Pier 39 sea lions were on summer vacation – only about a dozen passed on migrating south to the Channel Islands to hold down the fort.
We couldn’t end the evening on that note, so we drove back into the city to find the Painted Ladies, and hit them just as the golden light of late afternoon made them glow.
We continued north the next morning. Our time in the Bay Area made it obvious why so many people want to live there – great weather, good food, and a beautiful city. If only the Powerball odds weren’t one in almost 300 million…
The Indigents Abroad 