San Fran's Forefront society

9/28/11

As you approach San Francisco, you can't help but to feel elevated to the highest states of what a human should strive to be ( or at least has been thought to think it, should be) I know it sounds a bit much but it is certainly true. The city has pioneered much of what is today's standards for green living and cultural tolerance. Furthermore, access to probably the best crops in the world and diverse demographics makes it a culinary  melting pot. Of course, I can't leave out excellent public transportation. 

So pretty much all I love (m)  culture, food and nature's ways. Unfortunately our pockets are too small to afford this city. The median salary of a family in SF is ~89,000. We learned that renting a room from a house where you live with other strangers in other rooms is $~850.

So, at the advise from our friend Drew we decided to explore the following parts of the city In 2 days,

Fillmore St.
Mission Neighborhood
China Town
Haight St.
Castro an
Fisherman's Wharf

Originally we meant to have breakfast at Fillmore St. but a typing mistake in Yelp (highly used in SF area) sent us to the ultra popular Mama's in Filbert St. It was Wednesday at 10am and there was a line. This place was well worth it. We shared there egg Benedict's and their Swedish cinnamon pancakes. Their benedict's are the best I've had in a long while. A spicy papricky kick at the end of the hollandaise sauce and the real deal runny poached eggs. 

Next we actually went to Fillmore street to do our laundry. We did it at the Royal Cafe which had laundry and a coffee shop. Paul describes this part of town as sophisticated. For example, the retirees at the coffee shop were discussing -heart of darkness- and -apocalypse now- . We also learned that San Franciscans are promoters of lowering the waste produce by embalming and body burring using natural preparations and cardboard boxes instead of coffins. BTW, tossing your coffee paper cup could be confusing in SF because they have 3 trashes namely, composting, recyclable and landfill. Something I liked a lot, but it takes a second to do it right. 

We drove to Mission, the up and coming Latino neighborhood. There we ate tacos at the taqueria, served by a Nicaraguan cook. They were really good. I could not avoid noticing that there they did not separated their trash into compost, landfill and recyclable. 

China Town was one of the places I really wanted to go, hence, we headed there at the end of Wednesdays. Just to give you perspective, 1 out of 3 people in San Francisco is Asian so this China town is a big deal. That, plus having had  Benton, a SF born Chinese at my thesis lab talk about it for years, built my expectations.  Once we arrived we stroll the streets and serendipitously met Uncle Gee. We heard "Get in here,  RIGHT NOW!!!" . It was startling but somehow we obeyed. He sat us in -Vital Tealeaf- tasting bar and we sampled more than 10 teas ( to my entire happiness) as we heard Uncle Gee discuss tea knowledge with some Brits that turned out to be -self-made locals- and very helpful. Unknowingly we had stumble upon a Chinatown celebrity so we would have been happy with that experience by itself but we kept going. 

Here is a link to vital tea leaf and Uncle Gee FB page 
http://www.vitaltealeaf.net/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Uncle-Gee/103767649924?sk=wall&filter=12

Next we sample steam buns and noodles from stores where we saw only chinese clientele, hoping to catch the right places. I think we did. The last streets we walked before leaving, led us to a small plaza were a bunch of Chinese/Asians were gambling at.  They were mostly men but also some women had their separate groups. It looked like serious matter. 

Then lovely Drew called us and we went to dinner with him at a Latin restaurant called Pasion. There we talk about family and salary. We stayed with Dre and decided to visit the rest of the neighborhood tomorrow.