Xaparro Ramblings

Thursday, February 13, 2014

When we're not eating we'll ride the historic streetcars and cable cars

One of the fun, and sometimes challenging, experiences in a city is figuring out transportation. Of course San Francisco is not exactly a new city for us, and it's a small city to boot. So we should have more of the enjoyment and less of the challenge in our explorations.
Of course you realize our Airbnb is located almost on top of the Powell-Mason line

We're hoping it's not as crowded as we remember it last time. While the cable cars are used to a certain extent by commuters, the vast majority of their 7 million annual passengers are tourists. So we should feel right at home. Did you know that the San Francisco cable car system is the world's last manually operated cable car system? The US Department of Transportation counts the cable cars among the mass transportation systems with the most accidents per year and vehicle mile in the US, with 126 accidents and 151 injured persons reported by the city during the 10 years until 2013. So we'd better be careful. You can read all about it on, you guess it, Wikipedia.

And don't you think it's about time to go to the Cable Car Museum. It's free and pretty close at 1201 Mason. I think we can just jump off the cable there.

"Stop, we need to get off at the museum"

I'd link to it, but I think the site has been hijacked. "The facility, which is inside the city's last cable-car barn, takes the top off the system to let you see how it all works. Eternally humming and squealing, the massive powerhouse cable wheels steal the show. You can also climb aboard a vintage car and take the grip, ring a cable-car bell (briefly), and check out vintage gear dating from 1873."

What about the historic streetcars? They also run on rails, but are powered by electricity rather than cables. In 1962 construction began on BART which was supposed to put the 5 Market Street trolley lines underground. I guess it wasn't a unilateral success or perhaps someone saw the great tourist potential of historic streetcars, especially if another Embarcadero route was added to Fisherman's Wharf.

San Francisco's Municipal Railway has assembled one of the most diverse collections of vintage streetcars, trolleys, and trams in transit service anywhere. Up to 20 of these vintage vehicles carry passengers along Market Street and The Embarcadero every day.

very faint, but you get the idea!

And finally, there are the trolley buses with wheels, not rails, and powered by electricity. You can find a detailed map here.

And, if I'm reading it correctly, the 30, 41 and 45 are trolley bus lines run right by the apartment.

Oh, we have got to pick up that MUNI pass and start traveling.

I Love Hardware Stores!

Not the big box stores like Lowes and Home Depot (although they are interesting too) but the small ones that used to be independent and joined Ace Hardware just to survive. Monroeville doesn't have one but Oakmont does and I will forever love Strosnider's in Silver Spring, Maryland. No, Patterson's Hardware in Fillmore is still independent and doesn't belong to Ace. Didn't there used to be a Brigg's Hardware? But I can't picture it.

Right now the reason for my affection is the fact that Cole Hardware on Polk Street in San Francisco sells the 7-day San Francisco MUNI passport and it is open from 8 am to 8 pm EVERY DAY! So that means that on Sunday morning we could walk the 6 blocks to Polk and buy the passport, unless the San Francisco Information Center at the SF airport is still open when we arrive at 7 pm on Saturday night. In that case we would buy it at the airport but it is nice to know there is a hardware store near the apartment in case we need a plunger or a flashlight.

To get to Cole Hardware on Polk Street we would have to go up some steps since Green Street ends at Taylor and then recommences half a block later but after that it is pretty flat until Leavenworth when it goes downhill. And it keeps going downhill block after long block until it reaches Polk Street. On the left corner is Cole Hardware and on the right corner La Boulange bakery (the one that is supplying Starbucks now). So we could have breakfast too! Or lunch. They have a wild mushroom mac and cheese, for those interested.

I don't think I want to walk back uphill to the apartment. Maybe back uphill two blocks to Hyde Street to catch the cable car. Or over to Van Ness and down to Pacific to catch the #49 Van Ness/Mission MUNI bus since we are doing the Mission District on Sunday.

Our SF Neighborhood

So, what is around 856 Green Street? One thing for literary fans is Macondray Lane, the street that Barbary Lane in Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City books is modeled after. I read the first Tales of the City years ago and remember being struck by the fact that Winnemucca, Nevada, was featured in it. I connected right away...

The original Swensen's Ice Cream shop is on the corner of Union and Hyde and was founded in 1948 and so is the same age I am. Unfortunately they don't seem to carry "Bittersweet Chocolate" as a flavor any more. It was my favorite at the El Cerrito shop when we lived in Albany because it was wonderfully dark and rich and was absolutely decadent in a milk shake.

Another nearby attraction is the San Francisco Art Institute, with its Diego Rivera mural, about 6 blocks away, and the twisty Lombard Street, another 6 blocks away. Equally distant is Coit Tower, the one with the WPA murals that is closed for renovation.

In a San Francisco Chronicle article, "In heart of S.F., food and pleasure long linked," the author chooses a square mile that defines the city and that square mile is bordered by Fisherman's Wharf and the Embarcadero on the north, Hyde Street on the West, Sansome on the East and Clay Street on the south. 856 Green Street is within that definitive square mile so we should be able to eat authentically. Of course when we visited as kids we stayed on Union Square and so were outside of that square and pretty much ate outside of that square (except for Grotto #9 at Fisherman's Wharf) and we did fine. That "square" cuts out a lot of Chinatown. Where was Tao Tao, the Chinese restaurant where we had bird's nest soup the first time we were there? And Yamato Sukiyaki was on California at Grant. And the Tadich Grill is on California outside of that grid. And the Ritz Old Poodle Dog was on Post, again outside of the grid. Did you know that the Ritz Old Poodle Dog started out in 1849 as "Le Poulet d' Or" but the Americans mispronounced it as the "Poodle Dog" restaurant. Jim Smith has a website with the history of the Poodle Dog restaurant, in case anyone is interested.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

What Happened to Japanese Restaurants?

One of my fondest food memories of San Francisco is Yamato Sukiyaki, the Japanese restaurant where we got to sit on the floor and have a Japanese waitress cook the meal tableside (usually sukiyaki with tofu and beef and bean thread noodles). Willy's first eating out experience was at a similar restaurant, Maiko, on San Pablo in Berkeley when he was about a week old. I don't remember eating sushi at all then and now all the Japanese restaurants seem to be sushi bars.

There is a Japanese Izakaya in the Mission District that is very intriguing: Izakaya Yuzuki, which uses koji (the yeasty rice that they make miso out of) in its cooking. There's a review in the Chronicle and in BarFlySF. Its presentation looks very simple, elegant and very Japanese and they serve fresh home-made tofu.

There's also Nombe in the Mission District but it doesn't look as appealing and pushes its RamenBurger.

Apparently more of the Japanese are in outlying areas, like Mountain View. Or there seem to be a lot in the inner and outer Sunset, like Nabe, which does have sukiyaki and they are open for lunch. But all the way to the Inner Sunset? What else is there? Oh, wait! That's just on the south side of Golden Gate Park, a block from the San Francisco Botanical Garden. One of the Yelp reviews gave this tip:

"If you are a tourist (or a local) going to the Academy of Sciences, I recommend that you go early to the museum, leave at lunchtime and walk over to either Kiki's (a casual Japanese restaurant) or Nabe for lunch, then go back to the Academy. You will enjoy Kiki's or Nabe's a lot more than the food at the Academy (the food at the Academy isn't bad but it's expensive)."

The Kiki restaurant is probably more along our price line, especially for lunch, but they don't have sukiyaki! Do you think that was a purely American invention of the 1960s?? Hold on, here's a list of restaurants from Yelp that have sukiyaki listed in the reviews. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to walk by the restaurants and choose them by their looks. I'm afraid Yamato Sukiyaki is no longer in business.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Our Week in Baltimore

This last week Penny and I attended a Road Scholar program at the Peabody Institute in Baltimore covering Chopin, Liszt and Vladimir Horowitz. We were the youngest among the attendees, the oldest being 95 but not looking it at all. I thought it was a rather rigorous schedule, attending two classes in the morning and then spending the afternoon visiting the Peabody Library and the Walters Art Museum, learning about the history of the piano, attending a Master Class in voice and a symphony rehearsal. And then after dinner we would attend two recitals, one at 7:15 and the other at 8:30 pm. I was pretty tired at the end of the day but all those folks older than us kept right up with the program. The food wasn't gourmet (we ate at the dining hall) but the coffee was awfully good and we needed a lot of it to keep us going. The highlight of the program was hearing the Beethoven Piano Sonata No. 30 in E Major, Opus 109 three times. Or was it four? When I left on Friday I had a lot of music in my head and only wish I could separate the tunes and assign them to the right composer...

We didn't take too many photos of the Peabody but were able to get out on Thursday afternoon to visit Baltimore's Inner Harbor and Fell's Point, and eat out at an Italian restaurant where Penny was able to get her crabcake (the dining hall only had codcakes).