Weekend in San Francisco

At long last, Stacey and I finally got the chance to spend more than a few hours (her) or a work day (me) in San Francisco. I took Stacey to some of my favorite places and we visited a few new ones. Our room at the Hyatt Regency meant that a nap was never more than a few minutes away -- and that, I'm beginning to realize, is the key to successful sightseeing.

On Friday evening, we paid homage to the Vamvas family with dinner at Kokkari Estiatorio. I know it's going to be a good dining experience when the first thing I see upon entering is some kind of animal on a spit over a fire. In this case, they were Muscovy ducks, and there were potatoes roasting in their drippings. We were most in love with appetizers (mezethes) and desserts (glyka). More and more we have been realizing that this is what we like to eat best. We like to taste lots of things -- the better the restaurant, the more we want to try -- and an entree requires too much sustained attention to one thing -- though we always seem to order them anyway. Our duck and our lamb were good, but we loved our grilled calamari stuffed with feta and served with oranges, thinly sliced raw fennel and black olives; also our brussels sprouts roasted with bacon and lemon. We were particularly taken with a persimmon salad with manouri (a soft, Greek, sheep's-milk cheese), almonds and a drizzle of excellent olive oil. I think the persimmon gets scant attention on the East coast, but here they are very popular in the fall and winter, grown locally and very delicious -- a far cry from the first one I ever tried, in the Bryn Mawr College dining hall. It made my mouth feel fuzzy and turned me against persimmons until, well, Kokkari. For dessert, Stacey ordered baklava, which was quite good and served with some really excellent (house-made?) praline ice cream. I had galaktoboureko, long phyllo rolls filled with semolina custard and served with a rosy-tasting "quince spoon sweet" and pistachio ice cream (not that green stuff, silly).


In the morning I brought Stacey to my beloved Ferry Building. That's it, above, behind the seasonal Embarcadero Center skating rink. Seems silly to ice skate past palm trees, but then, I am from the land of the Nor'Easter. And, no, we did not skate. We ate -- Mexican breakfasts at Mijita -- and drooled up and down the aisle at blood orange olive oil, Bartlett pear jam, Constant Bliss cheese, and chocolate truffles. Then hopped on the old-fashioned F streetcar to Fisherman's Wharf. Our streetcar just happened to be chock full of Santa Clauses playing klezmer music. Occasionally klezmer Christmas carols. This seemed a little less weird -- or was it even weirder? -- when we got to Fisherman's Wharf, where our klezmer Santas were joined by many, many other Santas: trampy Mrs. Santas in fishnets, gangster Santas in dark suits and glasses, frat boy Santas, and one drag queen (Mrs?) Santa wearing an all-too-revealing little pair of red-and-white-striped panties. Santa, put it away! As far as we can tell, the Santas were boarding a ferry to Oakland. What they were doing to do there is hardly within the scope of my imagination.


Stacey and I joined hoards of tourists on the island of 

, which is actually quite interesting. I had no idea that Alcatraz was home to a military prison before it was a federal penitentiary, that families of guards and wardens lived on the island, or that activist Native Americans took it over in the 60's.

We had dinner at Zuni Cafe, a San Francisco institution and inspiration for one of our favorite cookbooks. We frequently make the roast chicken with bread salad from The Zuni Cafe Cookbook, and don't let the word "salad" fool you into thinking "healthy," since really we're talking about hunks of good bread toasted just slightly to avoid sogginess and dressed in a heady combination of chicken drippings and vinegar, with pine nuts for crunch and currants for sweetness. Of course we had to order it at the restaurant, and I can report that it is, in fact, the most delicious roast chicken in the world (it is possible that we have actually made a better version of the bread salad at home). Also notable: Sancerre that reminded me how and why I love Sancerre, and one of the best servers I've had in a long time. Zuni is a cozy triangle of exposed brick with a long, copper bar and the smell of a woodstove (their ovens are wood-burning, hence the amazing chicken). It's possible that I like being there even more than I like eating there, though the eating is pretty darn good.

Today we went to the jazz brunch at Anzu in the Hotel Nikko, down near Union Square. Yum. We shopped a bit (I tried on a diamond vine necklace at Tiffany, just for fun. Sigh.) and then headed home, where we are now doing some very serious loafing and ordering delivery.