Bai Thong (“banana leaf”) is a new Thai restaurant on Gough St. (at Fell) in Hayes Valley. It specializes in northeastern Thai dishes (which tend to include lime juice), although they also serve southern Thai dishes such as red and green curries, and a few Northern Thai noodle soups. We tried the following dishes [...]

Bar Agricole opened this evening (officially, that is) to a rather fashionable crowd intent on sampling as many of their cocktails ($8) and small plates. We started with a glass of cava and a dolcetto then ordered a few small plates, all of which were very delicious and fresh:

courgette fritters ($6)
grilled sardines with avocado ($14), [...]

Skool is a new fish restaurant that opened three weeks ago in the Potrero Hill neighborhood (not up in the hills but on the flats, near Grand Pu Bah). Skool consists of two husband and wife pairs, Toshihoro and Hiroko Nagano and Andy and Olia Mirabell.
The first thing you notice when you arrive at Skool is [...]

Eating out in San Francisco is very expensive. Many restaurants charge $15 for an appetizer, $28 for a main dish, and $10 for dessert, but what do you get for that? Most of the time, nothing special. Multiply that by two and you’re spending $106 only for food. Now, add wine and you’re up to [...]

Last night I had a chance to visit Ruchi, a restaurant serving homestyle south Indian food, in the south of Market (SOMA) neighborhood of San Francisco. I have dined at other restaurants serving south Indian food (see my review of Dosa) and I love the dosas and piquant vegetable dishes from a region whose cuisine [...]

If you are visiting Napa Valley, make sure you stop by the town of Yountville, the culinary capital of the region and home to several famous restaurants like The French Laundry, Bistro Jeanty and Bouchon. This week, I went to Bouchon Bistro for lunch after an exhausting hike up to Bald Mountain in the Sugar [...]

Marlowe, a bistro on Townsend Street across the Caltrain station in San Francisco’s south of Market (SOMA) district, has just opened in the space formerly occupied by South Food & Wine Bar. Anna Weinberg (one of the founders of South) is behind Marlowe, but there is a different menu and wine list. Where South F&WB [...]

I will be adding Manora to my list of favorite Thai restaurants in San Francisco (Basil Thai, Grand PuBah). The menu is smaller than at other Thai places with fewer curry dishes which leads me to believe that the owners are from Northern Thailand. The sour seafood soup (tom yum) is very spicy and savoury. [...]

I have to highlight these three recently opened restaurants in San Francisco that serve outstanding food and have very good service:
(1) Nombe: Japanese izakaya on Mission Street at 21st which serves Japanese small plates and an dazzling array of sake. I went back last night with friends because the last time I was there, they [...]

I had a chance to go to the newly opened Credo in San Francisco’s Financial District last night. Although the restaurant has been open for only a week, it is already very busy. When you enter the restaurant the first thing you notice is how light and airy it is. High ceilings, white walls with [...]

The economic crisis has not been kind to the restaurant business in San Francisco. Many places have closed after more than a decade in the city. But street food became very popular in 2009 and found its own cult following. Perhaps because of belt-tightening, SF foodies flocked in large numbers to food carts and trendy taco [...]

Since the coming of a new year is always an occasion for lists, here is my list of top restaurants that have recently opened in SF (recently being 2008 and 2009). They are restaurants I have visited and reviewed. If you click on the links below, they will take you to my review. I will [...]

Frances is chef Melissa Perello’s latest venture. Perello was the celebrated chef at Fifth Floor who earned 3 stars from the SF Chronicle. But like many young chefs, she decided to strike out on her own. The result, Frances, is impressive precisely because it is small, intimate, and seemingly effortless in serving the kind of [...]

Here’s a wonderful restaurant in the Mission District of San Francisco you should check out: Nombe, a Japanese izakaya, has just opened on Mission Street at 21st. An izakaya is a Japanese drinking place where food (small plates to be shared among friends) is served alongside drinks (at least more substantial food than in a [...]

If you find yourself in San Francisco’s Japantown or Pacific Heights on a cold day, make sure you stop by Suzu House for delicious ramen, soba and udon noodle soups. Suzu House is located inside one of the Japantown malls on Post Street below my favorite Japanese bookstore, Kinokuniya. It gets very crowded and there [...]

I’m such a fan of San Francisco’s street food scene, exemplified by Adobo Hobo, Carte 415, and now Lumpia Cart. The name says it all: they sell Filipino lumpia. This evening I sampled the lumpia shanghai which is made of savoury ground pork mixed with minced carrots and spices, stuffed inside a very crispy lumpia [...]

If you are looking for a cozy, informal Italian-style bistro in the Mission district of San Francisco, make sure you check out The Corner, located two doors down from sister restaurant, Weird Fish. What I like about The Corner is that it’s exactly the kind of place you would go for a glass (or two) [...]

I finally had a chance to sample Adobo Hobo’s famous chicken adobo, one of the most popular dishes in the Philippines. The Adobo Hobo food cart happened to be in South Park today and since I live just ten minutes away, I went there for lunch. And it was  . . . excellent! My Filipino [...]

I had to try out RN74, the latest venture by Michael Mina and sommelier Rajat Parr, located in the south of Market (SOMA) district of San Francisco, if only because the opening has been the buzz of the town and I’ve been walking past it every day while it was under construction (it is located [...]

If it seems to you that I’m doing a gastronomic tour of Italian restaurants in San Francisco, I assure you that is not accidental. I love Italian food (or rather, food from the various regions of Italy). It’s hard to define the term “Italian food” because the country’s cuisine is so varied. I like restaurants [...]

I love Sicilian food so when I heard that a Sicilian restaurant had just opened on Mint Plaza (close to Chez Papa), I had visions of spaghetti alla Norma, pasta con le sarde and cuscusu, dishes I loved during a visit to island of Sicily several years ago. Sicily has always been at the crossroads [...]

Sunflower, one of my favorite Vietnamese restaurants in the Mission, has opened a second location on Potrero Hill where Baraka used to be. I went on opening night last Saturday and was shocked to see how packed it was. Nothing whatsoever has changed from the interior. It looks exactly like the old Baraka.

Vibe: neighborhood gem, [...]

I’ve complained frequently about the dire state of the lunch menu in San Francisco. Because many people care only about large portions and low prices, chains such as Subway and  several sub-standard “Asian” food joints have taken over downtown San Francisco and SOMA.
Thank heavens for a food cart called Carte 415 located in the atrium [...]

Taco trucks are the rage in San Francisco. I’ve written about Los Compadres at the corner of Folsom and Spear, and Tanguito (serving Argentine empanadas) in Fisherman’s Wharf. Both serve delicious, inexpensive food to the lunchtime crowd. Now that people are accustomed to eating good food out of a truck, why not expand the concept [...]

I love empanadas. In the Philippines, empanadas are filled with savoury beef or chicken, peas, and finely chopped red paprikas and onions. Argentines make fabulous empanadas, very similar to what we have in the Philippines. Because I have no easy access to Philippine empanadas, I was thrilled to find the Argentine variety served out of [...]

I am reluctant to give away my taco truck secret, but I suspect it’s not a secret anymore judging from the queues that seem to be getting longer every week. The taco truck in question is Los Compadres, which is parked at the corner of Folsom and Spear close to the Embarcadero. It is in [...]

The Embarcadero has long been San Francisco’s culinary Bermuda Triangle: overpriced-touristy-bad food. So when Plant Organic Cafe (which I keep calling Planet Organic, after the London-based organic grocery, not affiliated with the SF restaurant) opened two weeks ago, I thought it was too good to be true. Plant Organic joins La Mar Cebicheria, Epic Roast [...]

There are many Italian restaurants in San Francisco, but only a handful serve food that competes with what you find in a very good restaurant in Italy. So, I was thrilled to find Farina which serves Ligurian (and Italian) cuisine. I dare say it may just be the best Italian restaurant in the city. Here’s [...]

If you are looking for very good, reasonably priced sushi in San Francisco, make sure you check out Otoro Sushi on Oak Street and Gough. I went with two other people last week and ordered four starters, sashimi dishes (lost track of how many), several large sushi rolls, and beer: the cost was $139. The [...]

As reluctant as I was to write this week about Cento, a tiny cafe in San Francisco that serves very good coffee and until now, known only to those who live and work in SOMA, I am even more hesitant to reveal one of my favorite places to eat French food in San Francisco — [...]

I hate giving away my secret favorites in San Francisco, but at some point, readers of this site expect me to disclose the hidden places that have good food or coffee. In this case it’s coffee — Blue Bottle Coffee. You don’t need to get into the long awful queue at the Ferry Building if [...]

Residents of Potrero Hill can now rejoice: an excellent new pizza place has opened on De Haro Street between 16th and 17th. Owned by the same people who run Chez Papa, they serve Napoli-style pizza, which means thin, crispy crust pizzas with toppings such as real prosciutto di parma. Unlike the gooey mess they serve [...]

The weather is getting better and San Franciscans are looking to dine outdoors again after a rainy winter. But where does one find a restaurant with outdoor seating shielded from the chilly evening winds AND good food plus a great dining atmosphere?
Plouf is one place I frequently visit when I want to eat a large [...]

We’re all looking for inexpensive meals, but we don’t want to compromise on flavor. Where to go in San Francisco? I know at least one place: Pho Clement, a Vietnamese restaurant in the inner Richmond neighborhood which specializes in pho (Vietnamese noodle soup). For $6.95, you get a large bowl of steaming soup, noodles, vegetables [...]

When I feel like eating classic French dishes such as steamed mussels with pommes frites, duck confit and French onion soup, one of the places in San Francisco that immediately comes to my mind is Garçon, a cozy French bistro on Valencia street in the Mission district. It’s no surprise that Garçon does the French [...]

Add another cafe in SOMA to your list of coffee houses in San Francisco that serve good espresso (in real cups and saucers). Epicenter Cafe is located next to Whole Foods on Harrison Street between 3rd and 4th Streets, an area that isn’t exactly bursting with good coffeehouses unlike the Mission. Epicenter serves salads and [...]

*UPDATE: South has closed. It will reopen under a different name, with a different formula.
South Food and Wine Bar has been rolling out these great recession specials lately. The most recent is the Aussie dollar happy hour where you get to celebrate (or commiserate with others, depending on which currency your portfolio is denominated in) [...]

The Guardian has posted an article I wrote about my favorite San Francisco restaurants and cafes. I am thrilled about being in the Guardian because it is my favorite newspaper. Aside from their excellent travel section, they have the best book review supplement of any English language newspaper. The Guardian’s book review supplement appears every [...]

A new cafe called The Creamery has opened in the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood of San Francisco, at the corner of 4th Street and Townsend. They serve good espresso and coffee (from Ritual Coffee), and excellent mocha (unlike most cafes, the mocha is not so sweet and it has a lot of espresso). The [...]

Last night I went to the newly opened Tsunami in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, a district that has been lacking in culinary delights. This neighborhood’s proximity to the ball park means its residents can choose from variety of establishments serving “ball park area cuisine” (burger joints, soggy pizza, sub-standard sushi, lousy ice [...]

San Francisco boasts of dozens of Italian restaurants, but most of them are Italian in name only. Not Beretta. This has become my favorite Italian restaurant in San Francisco. It serves the crispiest thin-crust pizza just as they do in Naples (indeed, the pizza at Beretta rivals those at Local Kitchen & Wine Merchant) and [...]

I managed finally to pay a visit to Gitane, a recently opened Mediterranean restaurant in the financial district of San Francisco. It is located on the tiny alley called Claude Lane between Sutter and Bush streets.
I’ve seen photos of the wild, 1970s glam decor but when you get there, it’s even more overwhelming (in a [...]

Heaven’s Dog is the latest trendy Asian food place to open in San Francisco. It is owned by Charles Phan (Slanted Door). Indeed, it shares many of the same dishes as Slanted Door: daikon rice cakes and pea shoots, to name but two. There are several differences. First, the prices are much lower at Heaven’s [...]

After my wonderful lunch at Burma Superstar, friends told me to check out their sister location, B Star Bar, which is not a bar but a restaurant serving “an eclectic mix of traditional and contemporary Asian fare.” (quote from the website).
B Star is located down the street from Burma Superstar and it has a different [...]

I am always on the lookout for delicious Indian food in San Francisco. My favorite right now is Mehfil on Folsom at 2nd Street in SOMA. What do I like about it? The samosas are very good and they come with three sauces, two of which are spicy. They’re gigantic and at $3.50 per dish, [...]

I love Mediterranean food. I realize that the term “Mediterranean” encompasses the cuisines of many regions around the Med but that’s exactly what many restaurants are cooking these days, including The Flytrap which is back in action after Hoss Zaré took over the kitchen. What makes Zaré at Flytrap one of my favorites in San [...]

I love Vietnamese food so when a friend suggested Pagolac, I wasted no time in going there. It is located in the Tenderloin, an unpleasant area in San Francisco which is frequented by bums. Don’t let that deter you from going to the Tenderloin as there are good ethnic restaurants (Vietnamese, Pakistani and Indian) that [...]

It’s not easy to find an authentic French bistro in San Francisco. When I say authentic, I mean not just the food but also the service. Restaurants in France (and other parts of Europe) serve the coffee after the dessert and bring you the bill only after you ask for it. I have a pet [...]

The US is officially in a recession but people have not completely stopped eating out. In San Francisco, foodies have become more budget-conscious so they are going to places that serve good ethnic food at reasonable prices. I decided to hunt down the neighborhood gems where you can get a fabulous meal without breaking the [...]

Dosa had just opened a second restaurant on Fillmore Street (at Post) in Pacific Heights. The original Dosa is on Valencia Street in the Mission and it has become one of my favorite restaurants in SF. Dosa serves south Indian cuisine, which is very different from nearly all of the Indian food you find in [...]

After posting my review of Old Jerusalem (a Middle Eastern restaurant in the Mission that serves the best hummus in the city), I decided to post one of Good Frikin Chicken, a restaurant close to Old Jerusalem, that serves, in my opinion, the best kenafeh in San Francisco. Kenafeh is a Middle Eastern dessert that [...]

If you are looking for the best hummus, musabacha (hummus with chick peas, cilantro-parsley-olive oil sauce, paprika) and baba ghannoush in San Francisco, stop by Old Jerusalem in the Mission. I’ve been to Old Jerusalem many times and it is always very good: the falafel is delicious (not greasy at all) and the shish kabob [...]

Open Table Stimulus plan
$35 dinners, $24 lunches between November 17-21, 2008 plus 200 OpenTable Dining Rewards Points at participating restaurants in San Francisco.
All You can Eat Pizza at Local for $12.95
One of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco, Local Kitchen and Wine Merchant, on 1st Street between Folsom and Harrison, has an all you [...]

*UPDATE: South has closed. It will reopen in a few months under a different name, with a different formula.
One of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco, South Food and Wine Bar, is offering a recession special: three-course prix fixe menu for $24 (lunch) and $34 (dinner), including one glass of bubbly — at lunch time [...]

I love dim sum, but the best dim sum I’ve had lately has been in restaurants just south of San Francisco. I go early on Sundays (usually before 11:30 when there are no queues). There are dozens of dim sum restaurants in and around SF, so I’m sure you know of places I’ve missed. There [...]

SF Bay Area residents like to brag about how much better their espresso is than in other cities. The reality is that most espresso in SF is terrible and the cafe experience is equally dismal. There are but two places that I can rely on for very good espresso (high quality that have not been [...]

If you are looking for a wine bar in San Francisco that does not have a “meat market” atmosphere, go to Yield in Dogpatch. It’s a tiny place across Serpentine, but they have a good selection of wine (organic, biodynamic) and delicious small plates. Because it’s not in downtown, Embarcardero, Financial District or the Marina, [...]

Axis Cafe, a popular lunch and afternoon coffee spot in the Potrero Hill neigbhorhood, is an excellent place to have lunch in San Francisco not only because the patio in the back is perfect for those gorgeous warm San Francisco days when summer seems to linger forever, but also because the food is good, unpretentious [...]

I came across Eiji, a Japanese restaurant on Sanchez Street in the Castro the other day quite by accident. It’s easy to miss: hidden behind trees, in a residential neighborhood, why would one expect to find good soup noodles and sushi here of all places? But I was impressed. For lunch I had the kitsune [...]

This is one of the restaurant openings I’ve been waiting for in a long time. La Mar Cebicheria, a Peruvian restaurant and ceviche bar, has just opened on the Embarcadero next to the Ferry Building. It is part of the La Mar Cebicheria group of restaurants in Lima, which includes La Mar and Punto Azul, [...]

As I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, lunching in downtown SF can be a nightmare. But slowly I’ve been posting my favorite lunch places so you no longer have to waste time choosing between office worker food pits (fast, huge portions) and tourist traps (fake Italian eateries and “child friendly” burger joints), both of which have [...]

I was about to post another “lunch in San Francisco” article, but I got sidetracked yesterday by a wonderful breakfast outdoors in the sun at Boulette’s Larder in the Ferry Building: poached eggs with heirloom tomatoes, freshly shelled white beans and parmesan reggiano. The white beans were divine, the tomatoes ripe and luscious, and the [...]

Lunchtime is always such a gamble in San Francisco if you find yourself along the Embarcadero or in the Financial District. There are few good places to eat because most restaurants cater to the office crowd who put a premium on speed and large portions. As a result you find a lot of submarine sandwich [...]

Last night I went to Velo Rouge, a cafe on Arguello Boulevard (corner McAllister) just north of Golden Gate Park, for the weekly (Thursday) four-course prix fixe dinner hosted by Melissa Axelrod, a chef who runs a catering business. I signed up for the dinner because I like the idea of dining on communal tables. [...]

While there’s no shortage of lunch and brunch places in San Francisco’s SOMA (south of Market) neighborhood, especially close to the AT&T ball park, it’s not easy to find one that calls itself a French bistro and serves delicious pastries, breads and charcuterie. In general, most restaurants close to the ball park serve ball park [...]

If you have ever taken the ferry or cycled from San Francisco to Sausalito across the Golden Gate Bridge, the first thing you notice when you come to this picturesque little town is how much of its main street has been taken over by fast food joints and tacky souvenir shops. The reason is fairly [...]

I spend so much time in San Francisco, review local restaurants and cafes, and yet, until now, I have never posted a list of my favorite SF hotels. Since the world has woken up from the long summer holiday, visiting friends and business colleagues have been pressing me for a list of places to stay. [...]

The worst part of being Mapplr’s Editor is having to give away my secret places to eat out in San Francisco, Amsterdam and other cities. Before you know it, you’ll can never get a table again.
Recently I had very good sushi at Okina in the Inner Richmond neighborhood. In fact, the sushi here is much [...]

The South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood in San Francisco has been undergoing a dramatic revival in the past few years and like the Mission, Potrero and Dogpatch (other trendy neighborhoods), it is a popular location for entrepreneurs to start restaurants and wine bars.
Still, there are a few reliable good places to eat that have [...]

“Neighborhood restaurant” does not have to mean kitschy decor and floral-print tablecloth. Here in a pocket of San Francisco’s south of Market (SOMA), the locals have been going to the chic, recently opened Local Kitchen and Wine Merchant on Rincon Hill across the Metropolitan. A number of luxury apartment towers are going up in this [...]

I decided to take a break from my usual habit of listing favorite places around the world to interview Gabriel Amaya, a good friend of mine who is the chef-owner of Olea, a restaurant in San Francisco that serves fresh, locally sourced organic food cooked Mediterranean-style. I met Gabo several years ago after stumbling upon [...]

It’s not easy to find good lunch places in San Francisco. If you find yourself in Union Square, the downtown shopping district of San Francisco, you will realize that the lunch alternatives are rather dire. You have fast food, which caters to the hurried office crowd whose preference for super-sized sandwiches and watery coffee has [...]

It’s summer and that means ice cream. I love ice cream. When I was a child growing up in Manila, I looked forward to my daily ice cream cone with Magnolia ice cream’s flavors: mango, avocado, coconut, purple yam, langka, pineapple, and many more.
So when I found out that Mitchell’s Ice Cream in San Francisco [...]

It sounds very odd, an Indian “taqueria”, but there’s no other way to describe Kasa, a laid-back eatery on 18th and Noe. Kasa serves two dishes: kati rolls and thalis.
Kati rolls are thick, buttery roti (pancakes) that you fill with any one of the following: chicken tikka, chicken tikka masala, lamb curry, kebab, aloo jeera [...]

Downtown San Francisco has a lot of Indian and Pakistani restaurants but which one to choose? Some are awful, others merely average. So I was thrilled to find Lahore Karahi on O’Farrell Street at Leavenworth (the Tenderloin), just a few blocks north of Union Square. The owner, Zulfiqar “Guddu” Haider runs the place. He is [...]

When someone says, let’s go out for Japanese food tonight, they usually mean sushi. Unfortunately that leaves out an entire universe of Japanese dishes such hotpots, seafood, vegetables and meat roasted on a robata grill, and so on. Not so at Ozumo, which also offers more varieties of sake than I’ve seen in Japanese restaurants [...]

San Francisco has many wonderful cafes: some are European style with good food and fabulous people-watching; others are great for bringing your laptop and using as an office. Some simply have excellent coffee.
Let’s start with places to get a good espresso: my top pick goes to Blue Bottle Café at the renovated Mint Plaza. In [...]

Most visitors to Silicon Valley are surprised to know that there are any cafés worth spending any time in, where the coffee isn’t watered down sludge. But there are several gems, if you know where to look. For those who are looking for places to meet people in the Valley, this is a very handy [...]

Chez Papa, the bistro, has been around for sometime now operating out of Potrero Hill. Now, the owners have opened a restaurant in downtown San Francisco on Mint Plaza next to the old Mint, a renovated square that is also home to the first cafe of the Blue Bottle Coffee company. 
The cuisine is Provenςal but [...]

Few restaurants are reliable enough that you can say you’d eat there for brunch, lunch and dinner. Absinthe is one of those few. What do I love about the place? The interior: French brasserie, warm, stylish, cozy and best of all, the tables are not so packed together that you can hear your neighbors whispering [...]

I love San Francisco’s small plates (tapas) restaurants because you get to try so many different dishes with your dining companies. One of my recent favorites is SPQR, Roman-style osteria in Pacific Heights (see SF Chronicle review). SPQR is located on Fillmore Street where Chez Nous used to be. I loved Chez Nous and used [...]

Finding a good place for lunch in Napa Valley, the most well-known wine growing region in the US, isn’t as easy as you think. Most foodies have heard of French Laundry, which has three Michelin stars and is considered to be the best French restaurant in Northern California, but it’s very expensive. Moreover if you [...]

If you are looking for a cafe with a lot of light and a place to sit outdoors — but that also provides Wi-Fi access — there are two wonderful cafes, Cafe Flore in the Castro and Dolores Park Cafe in Dolores Park, you should consider. These two areas are adjacent to one another so [...]

Finding a good lunch place in downtown San Francisco, specifically the Union Square shopping area, is very difficult. Most places cater to tourists and serve greasy, disgusting, fast food that is barely above McDonalds.
So it’s great to find a Japanese noodle and sushi restaurant on O’Farrell and Powell that serves good udon and soba. The [...]

One of my favorite new restaurants in San Francisco is Olea, opened barely five months ago by my friends, Gabriel Amaya (see photo above) and Glen Bolosan. It has taken them over a year to find a suitable location (California Street at Larkin) so you can imagine how happy I was to hear that they [...]

Since we’re on the subject of restaurants and wine bars in renovated industrial buildings, I forgot to mention one of the recent additions to the SF dining and bar scene: District on Townsend Street, two blocks from the baseball stadium.

Vibe: industrial chic, exposed brick walls, funky art work, gigantic lounge spaces, huge bar, great [...]

There’s always something new in San Francisco’s foodie scene and the most interesting places have been popping up in the south of Market (SOMA) area. Serpentine and South Food and Wine Bar are the latest “small plates” restaurants that I’ve tried and like very much. I prefer dining in this way – not traditional three [...]