010: A Thanksgiving SF Tour
A travelogue of SF, where I moonlight again as a food writer
Good morning,
I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving! Apologies for the missed post last week—my lovely computer broke last Wednesday, so I was dealing with that. As the Apple Genius said to me after hours on the phone, “The bad news is that since your computer is so old, it might not be worth it for you to get it repaired… the good news is that you couldn’t have picked a better time for your computer to break!”
The prospect of needing to buy a new Mac out of the blue was stressing me out, and the last thing I wanted was to visit the Apple Store on Black Friday of all days.
Thankfully, the resident tech boy saw me in my lonesome panic and offered to help. He ended up reformatting my disk and wiping everything, but it worked. I essentially got a brand new computer with none of the costs.
By then, James’s friends, Shine and Su, had arrived from New York. We had originally planned to take them skiing in Tahoe, but changed our minds last minute. We then brainstormed what we could do with them over the next four days as they stayed with us for the Thanksgiving long weekend.
I once read advice on the internet that said, “Get to know your city and neighborhood so well that you could give a two-hour tour. It’ll benefit you more than anyone you show around.” This idea, and our first experience hosting guests together, inspired this week’s post: a Thanksgiving “tour” of SF. I added in a bunch of photos too, as I practice my photo documenting and editing skills before we leave for New Zealand.
⚠️ This post is a bit of a long one (because photos) so if your email app truncates it—make sure you click “view entire message” so you get to see everything! ⚠️
Written while drinking a Honey Haze from Philz Coffee down the block, living the romantic “writer at the local coffeeshop” life while I can.
11.24 - Thanksgiving
James and I are over turkey—it’s dry AF and we’re convinced nobody actually likes it outside of the tradition. Instead, we thought it’d be fun to take our friends harvesting for fresh mussels. Truthfully, I don’t like mussels but I can eat a whole plate of the fresh-foraged mussels myself—they just hit different.
Mavericks Beach (Pillar Point)
Half Moon Bay, CA
You can buy a single day or an annual fishing license and harvest shellfish and crustaceans (mussels and sea urchin) on a low tide. Make sure you check the wildlife advisory though—we went for the mussels, only to find that they were still on PSP quarantine in San Mateo County. Still, the beach itself was beautiful and perfect for a sunset walk.
Haidilao Hot Pot
Cupertino, CA
Haidilao is a popular Sichuanese hot pot chain with two branches in the Bay Area, often at the top of many “best hot pot” lists. Its name in Chinese (海底捞) loosely translates to “scooping from the bottom of the sea”—which was a timely coincidence, considering we failed to harvest anything for our original Thanksgiving dinner plan. Thankfully, most Asian places are open on American holidays, and we joined the Yelp waitlist remotely and avoided the infamous 2-3 hour wait.
11.25 - Friday
Turtle Tower
SOMA, SF
We slept in (the best part about vacation) and went to grab phở ga (chicken pho with giblets) at Turtle Tower, one of our favorite restaurants. This is a dish I will always want to eat.
Because I was feeling tired, I ordered Vietnamese iced coffee—and learned they serve it to you in an espresso drip cup set over a cup with condensed milk! Color me impressed; I was not expecting this level of authenticity.
After, we stopped by Sports Basement to rent a racket before heading to Balboa Park to play tennis. They were having some pretty amazing sales, with 20-40% off most items! (I eventually went back on Monday and bought a few things for New Zealand).
ZERO&
Hayes Valley, SF
We then went to Hayes Valley, which our friends compared to Williamsburg in Brooklyn. James and I wanted boba for a post-tennis snack, and we had to show them ZERO&. This is one of our new favorite boba places, mainly because we love coconut. (Their other drinks are also pretty good.) Their signature drink is the coconut zero, which is an entire blended coconut with coconut pudding and milk.
Rintaro
Mission District, SF
We then took our friends to Rintaro for a nice modern Japanese meal and to visit my sister’s boyfriend, Johnny, at work. The staff were nice enough to accommodate us despite the restaurant being packed. They revise their menu seasonally, so we got to try new items despite being regulars. Here were my favorites:
Yuzu Aisu Choux - new dessert, say no more! This cream puff filled with house-made yuzu ice cream sounded way too good. Apparently, the owner grows the yuzu in his backyard in Oakland. I had trouble deciding which dessert to get since I also love their Hojicha panna cotta with almond cookies, so we compromised and got both.
Oden bar - We ordered the assortment so we could try all the featured pieces. My favorite was the mochi kinchaku—a tofu pouch that soaks up all the comforting dashi broth, filled with warm gooey mochi inside.
Off-menu - Rintaro often has special off-menu items (ask your server). This time, we tried some saba (mackerel) sashimi and chicken knuckle yakitori (my favorite) and both were delicious.
11.26 - Saturday
We opted for a business-as-usual Saturday, to show our friends how we like to live normally. This meant a chill day playing badminton with our friends, lunch afterwards, and some loafing around. The exception was an early birthday dinner for Shine, where James had made a reservation at a restaurant I was very excited for.
Souvla
Mission District, SF
After playing badminton with the weekly crew, we grabbed some lunch at Souvla with Cat and Johnny. My go-to order will always be the chicken salad, Greek fries, and a frozen Greek yogurt. Shine and Su got to try the Black Sheep, the gamey vegan lamb that we first discovered a few months ago.
Alice Marble Tennis Courts
Russian Hill, SF
We actually played more sports after lunch—surprising, I know. This time, we went to the Alice Marble Tennis Courts at the top of Russian Hill, my favorite courts in the city. The views are breathtaking and there’s always a pleasant breeze with plenty of sun. It’s also a stone’s throw away from SF’s famous Lombard St, which we drove down on our way back home.
Baklavastory.
Mission District, SF
After Souvla, Cat and Johnny visited a bakery where they bake fresh trays of baklava every hour with imported sheep’s milk and freshly chopped pistachios. They were kind enough to drop off a tray for us, and I have to say—this was the best baklava I’ve had in my life. It’s not too sweet, super flaky, and simply delicious. I cannot hype this up enough.
I would have eaten the entire tray (more on this later) but stopped at having just one piece because we didn’t want to spoil our appetites for our dinner reservation.
San Ho Wan
Mission District, SF
I had bookmarked San Ho Wan a while ago, and had been dying to try it on a special occasion. Thankfully, Shine’s birthday was the next day and James managed to grab a reservation for 4.
“You’re going to San Ho Wan?!” said Johnny, at lunch. “Almost every chef I know says that’s their favorite restaurant, or where they’d want to go on their birthday. The only complaints I’ve heard are that it’s too perfect.”
“Is that even possible?” I asked.
“Well, it’s Corey Lee. He has an impossibly high bar, and he was the first Korean chef to earn three Michelin stars, for Benu. San Ho Wan is a more casual concept since it’s KBBQ, but the food is supposed to be just as amazing.”
Well, friends, it was worth the hype.
While they have a prix fixe house menu, we ended up ordering à la carte since we were interested in too many dishes. I don’t think I’ve ever had Korean BBQ that was as tender as the cuts we ordered from San Ho Wan. They even had 5-Year Doenjang and Clam Jjigae (바지락 된장찌개), which is apparently a dish they serve at Benu.
We skipped dessert because we wanted to rush home for more baklava… only to find that Lychee had (somehow?!) jumped onto the table and ate the ENTIRE tray while we were gone! He was so tubby he could only waddle around, and weighed twice as much as he normally did. For the rest of the night, he just sat belly up on the couch in a happy food coma while we played Mario Party Superstars. Don’t ask me who won (I don’t remember! 😡) but the biggest loser definitely wasn’t Lychee.
11.27 - Sunday (Happy Birthday, Shine!)
Hog Island Oyster Co.
The Ferry Building at the Embarcadero, SF
We were originally planning to drive to the Hog Island farm in Marshall, but ended up being too tired for 4 hours on the road. (You guessed it, we slept in again.) Instead, we walked over to the Ferry Building, where we poked around the shops before sitting down at the Hog Island restaurant there. While we didn’t get to shuck our own oysters on the beach, we still got to sample various fresh oysters with a gorgeous view of the bay.
Mensho Tokyo SF
Lower Nob Hill, SF
Shine has a tradition of eating noodles on his birthday, so we took him to James’s favorite ramen place in the city for dinner. This was my first time, too—I was curious to see if it was as good as the lines made it seem.
We went at 9pm to avoid crowds, and our strategy worked—we walked straight in. We ordered James’s favorite appetizer, the spicy fried enoki, and I had the OG Tori Paitan ramen: rich and creamy chicken soup, pork chashu, fried burdock root, kale, green onion, chives, pickled ginger, with the house spicy sauce on the side.
I have a confession: before eating this bowl, I thought I didn’t like paitan ramen. Now, I’m pretty sure Mensho is also my favorite ramen spot in SF. Maybe I should also make it a birthday tradition to get noodles now!
11.28 - Monday
Arsicault Bakery
Inner Richmond, SF
Shine flew out at noon, so I took him and Su out for one last breakfast before driving them to the airport (perks of being unemployed). To show them a new neighborhood and leave a nice last memory, we went over to the Richmond District to get the best croissants in SF—$60 worth of croissants, in fact.
I wish I had a photo to show you, but I ate my 3 croissants (well, 2 were mine and 1 was James’s) too quickly.
And that’s a-wrap for this month’s food tour! lTo be fair, it’s been a while since I’ve written a travel/food guide and I almost miss it. Leave me a note (you can reply to the email) if you like this type of content, and I’ll think about doing this more frequently… until then, enjoy these recs!