Today, as it often is, was a tale of two restaurants and a bar.
(And, kind readers, just in case in case you are beginning to
wonder, I do not only spend my time eating and drinking. I have spared you the
mostly boring details of the more tourist-y things I do in my travels. For
example, today, I walked the Embarcadero, ended up at Fisherman's Wharf and
went to Lombard Street. As proof, here is a cool pic I took from the bottom of
the serpentining section of Lombard:
Ah, heck, here is the picture that every tourist visiting San
Francisco takes:
Also, I could bore you with other details. Where I am staying has
access to Netflix. [US Netflix has about three times the amount of programming
that we get in Canada, for the same monthly rate. There will be a strongly
worded e-mail sent when I get back to Podunk.] Over the past three days, I have
watched the first two seasons of Bob's Burgers. How H. Jon Benjamin ended up
voicing the main character in not just the second and third best animated shows
on TV, but quite possibly the top two comedies is beyond me, but, heck, I am
enjoying both. [Of course, the best animated TV show, and possibly the best
overall, is Phineas and Ferb.]
And those of you who know me are no doubt right now thinking:
'Bullshit, I don't believe you; just admit all you've been doing is sitting in
bars drinking beer'...)
Dim Sum
Eater.com has, for the first time on the trip, has let me down. With
the proviso that it was expensive, Yank Sing was on their Top 38 list for San
Francisco on the strength of their dim sum. When I got there, their entrance
features repeated Zagat honours as well as some sort of Michelin accreditation,
all of which had sharpened my expectations. The food was remarkably ordinary.
Now, mind you, I may have ordered some ordinary items (e.g., potstickers,
sasu-pao [sp?]), but I have been in restaurants known for their dim sum that
make those everyday items something special. Yank Sing did not. Only one of the
five dishes I had (eggplant with garlic sauce) had any real or interesting
taste to it. I did not even notice any potential signature dishes being offered
around, other than some deep fried morsels of fish and tofu.
Eater.com was right about one thing: the cost. The overall bill,
with tip, for five mostly ordinary dim sum plates: $47.
To top it off, this was one of the most single dinner-unfriendly
restaurants I have frequented: I was sat next to a pillar near a service area.
The pillar was mostly obstructing me to the servers, as many carts went right
by me without stopping.
On the plus side, the place is very clean and fancy-looking. That
must be what Michelin was looking for. Yippee.
International Sports Club
On Monday night at the Triple Rock, I overheard a patron mention the
International Sports Club near North Beach in San Francisco. I figured what
better place to watch Game Four of the Stanley Cup Finals than a sports bar,
with sundry large screens, pool tables, maybe a wing special...
It turns out that the International Sports Club (oh, let's call it
the ISC) was completely the opposite. It did have a pool table and two large
screens (the accommodating barmaid turned one to the hockey game at my
request), but was a smallish local, 'lived-in' bar not frequented by many
suit-and-tie types and probably not listed in any tourist guide. It was great!
It was also happy hour: $2.50 for a (16 oz) pint. The tab for a 3 hour+ hockey
game: $21! As an added bonus, a woman
got kicked out for doing crack in the washroom. Plus, the bar, on Columbia
Street, near the North Beach neighbourhood, is situated at one of those weird
intersections where two streets that are perpendicular meet a street that is on
a diagonal. This makes the ISC not quite a triangle, but at least a pointy
trapezoid. Heck, let's include the smoking patio in front and call it a
triangle, which is a new first for me: drinking in a triangular bar.
Who could ask for a better Stanley Cup Finals viewing experience...
Tony's Pizza Napoletona
And eater.com redeems itself. Tony's Pizza Napoletona (an upper scale restaurant on Stockton
Street, near Washington Square) has evidently won some kind of World Pizza Cup prize (yes, there is a World Pizza Cup). There was a fairly long waiting list when I got there, but I just hung around the bar, until I vultured a seat. (I am getting pretty good at that.)
Tony's has different types of pizzas on their menu, depending on the oven in which they are cooked: wood-burning, gas-fired, electric or coal-fired. I ordered the California-styled (wood burning oven) Wild Robiola, which was covered with a mix of mozzarella, stracciatella, and robiola cheese, as well as wild mushrooms,
truffle oil and speck (smoked cured pork). Now I am not generally a fan of thin crust, 'gourmet' pizzas, but there was something about the crust: light, airy with a hint of herbs (basil, I thought). They have both a cheese and tomato sauce pizza on the menu; I thought that weird, but after tasting the crust, I could see why.
Random Comment:
- This has been the coolest weather I have encountered since New York
City, as the highs are in the high 70s and the lows in the mid- to high- 60s,
due to the cool air coming in off the Bay.
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