San Francisco??

Jen's parents are going to spend a month in California and Will and I were giving them some suggestions for San Francisco, at which point I thought I better save some of these recommendations for ourselves, in case we go there for our anniversary:

When we went to San Francisco as kids with my parents, we always had to eat one night at Grotto #9 at Fisherman's Wharf where we filled up on sourdough bread and butter but I don't know if it is the same as 50 years ago! We also always went to Schroeder's German Restaurant, but it was always very formal and reserved and their website makes it seem a bit rambunctious now with Polka bands. Apparently they still have the murals on the walls, which are not to be missed. They had the most wonderful brown breads and potato salad, which apparently they still have: All dinners are served with choice of German potato salad or cole slaw as appetizer, German bread and butter.

I also remember the wonderful dark rye bread at the Cinderella Bakery that Mother, Daddy, Penny and I visited in the 1990s. I found the Shanghai influence there unusual and I don't see any Shanghai noodles on their menu now -- their cafe menu looks nice and Russian, with pelmeni and piroshki and borscht. And any talk about San Francisco bakeries leads me back to the Fantasia Bakery that baked the desserts at Schroeder's and that was run by the father of one of my UC Santa Cruz housemates. I ran across this little blog posting about him in Culinary Muse.

The Tadich Grill is also interesting and it's been there a long time, although I don't remember going there as a kid, just hearing Mother and Daddy talk about it. I went once as an adult and enjoyed the little private curtained rooms. Fish and french fries are always good.

I've always wanted to go to the Cliff House to eat. You can see where it is on this map of 38 Essential San Francisco Restaurants. And their Wednesday night prix fixe menu at the Bistro is only $25/person (can that be right?) with cioppino and creme brulee!

The San Francisco Chronicle has a list of top 100 restaurants in the Bay area, but they are upscale and trendy, I'm afraid. They do list the prime rib place that Will was referring to: The House of Prime Rib. I've never been. Daddy took us to Tommy's Joynt instead -- but only for lunch for corned beef or pastrami sandwiches. I think he also went for the beer -- unfortunately I was too young to enjoy that aspect.

We'll have to go to a Chinese and a Japanese restaurant, and it's better if we find a little undiscovered hole in the wall and not a hoity toity place that has been gushed over in the media and that serves trendy cocktails.