Food & Drink >>

• Best Restaurant
  Gary Danko
  You sit down at the tiny bar, slightly disappointed that the surroundings aren't as elegant as they were at Chef Danko's last showcase, the Dining Room. Then you get into the lively, friendly rhythm of the place and you realize that although it may not be as finely appointed as, say, the Fifth... More >>
• Best New Restaurant
  Lapis
  You're dazzled the moment you walk in -- by the light, airy ambience, the sweeping bay views, the soaring ceilings, the rich draperies, the dramatically backlit bar, the thickly embroidered banquettes, and the deep-blue Mediterranean shade that informs not only the restaurant's color scheme but... More >>
• Best Bistro
  Zax
  This North Beach hideaway-hangout features a hip, arty ambience, a friendly bar ideal for single dining, and stellar, reasonably priced food of the Provençal variety: everything you need for the total bistro experience. The monthly changing, seasonally informed menu is made up of only six... More >>
• Best Discount Food Store
  The Bargain Bank
  Since opening in March 1999, the Bargain Bank has become a neighborhood magnet for its incredible buys on a vast, ever-changing array of food, candy, beverages, and household items, which come from overstocked suppliers. If you see something you like, better buy in quantity, because it could be... More >>
• Best Farmers' Market
  Heart of the City Farmers' Market
  If you can make a habit of stopping by here Wednesday or Sunday mornings, your days of picking through Safeway's much-fingered produce in search of a single ripe vegetable are over. Here you'll find stall after stall of California's seasonal output, all perfectly ripe and ready to eat, not to... More >>
• Best Place to Grocery Shop Without Ever Leaving Your House
  Webvan.com
  Its prices rival those of any supermarket chain, and as of now, there's no delivery charge for orders over $50, so why endure the fluorescent lighting if you don't have to? Webvan will bring almost any imaginable food item to your door -- including fresh produce, meat, and seafood -- as well as... More >>
• Best Chinese Grocery
  New May Wah Supermarket
  The great thing about Clement Street -- the foggier, more pristine, latter-day Chinatown -- is the hustle and bustle and colorful produce of the original model, reinterpreted for the semi-suburban melting pot of the Richmond. The May Wah outlet on Irving is sunnier and more expansive, but the... More >>
• Best Russian Deli
  Gastronom
  No one beats the Russians when it comes to noshing, as Gastronom ably demonstrates. This sunny corner delicatessen overflows with the delicious sorts of tidbits that make full-fledged meals seem so unnecessary: tubs of red and black caviar, smoked salmon, herring, and whitefish, pātés,... More >>
• Best Selection of Truffles
  XOX Truffles
  Open since late 1998, XOX Truffles is owned and operated by Jean Marc Gorce, a classically trained chef from France who spent five years as chef de cuisine at the celebrated San Francisco restaurant Fringale, followed by a stint as chef for the Westin St. Francis. After Gorce suffered a heart... More >>
• Best (and Freshest) Gourmet Coffee Deal
  Cafe Abir
  There are as many theories on the best cup of coffee as there are caffeine junkies to dream them up. But the quality that isn't up for dispute is the "fresh-roasted" label; it's bandied about to describe everything from cans of Folgers to the beans in Starbucks' espresso concoctions. What's left... More >>
• Best Six Blocks of Liquor Stores
  Guerrero Street Between 18th and 24th Streets
  A liquor store can be more than a store that sells liquor, and when there is one, or more than one, at every cross street, it had better be -- if it wants to survive. Hence this liquor store-abundant stretch of Guerrero, where, if you haven't dropped by Pay & Save Liquor and Grocery at 18th in a... More >>
• Best Place to Find a Latvian Liqueur
  Cannery Wine Cellars
  When you need just the right wine, beer, aperitif, or liqueur to complement your authentic ethnic feast, head on down to this whimsical, impressively stocked emporium of high spirits. There are acres of well-organized vino, of course, but the fun of the place is its wide array of exotic booze:... More >>
• Best Spanish Restaurant
  B44
  The thing most local Spanish restaurants lack is the distinctive energy of the original model, especially the vida loca pizazz to be found in Barcelona's ever-buzzing tapas bars and bodegas. B44 is tucked into an alleyway not unlike those that harbor many bistros found in Barcelona's old... More >>
• Best Abondigas
  La Rondalla
  647-7474 Yes, it is fun to say "best abondigas." But really, these are the best meatballs, as in meatball soup, in town. Their girth is somewhere between that of a golf ball and a baseball, the meat still pink on the inside, and huge pieces of zucchini, potato, and carrot give new meaning to... More >>
• Best Alternative Seviche
  Fina Estampa
  By now, just about everyone in San Francisco has tried seviche at least once, and though lime-cured seafood is hard to beat, it can, like anything else, get tired after a while. If you've reached this point, it's time you ordered the seviche mixto at the Peruvian-Spanish Fina Estampa -- a... More >>
• Best Thai Restaurant
  Thep Phanom
  There's something lively, cheerful, and undeniably authentic about the food at this Lower Haight classic: The chicken larb sparkles with mint and chili peppers; the hot-duck salad is earthly pleasure incarnate; the broiled prawns are sweeter and more delicious than you're used to; the peanut... More >>
• Best Thai Plus
  Basil Thai Restaurant and Bar
  With its full bar, upbeat soundtrack, and chic décor, Basil makes you realize Thai food has come a long way. Classic pad thai and other standards are supplemented by innovative dishes such as the plamuk yang (grilled squid with tamarind vinaigrette) and a heavenly hoi ka ta (jumbo... More >>
• Best Chinese Restaurant
  R & G Lounge
  The only time we ever dreamed about food was when we dreamt we were eating the crunchy prawns with candied walnuts and mayonnaise from the R & G Lounge. The food's terrific here, especially the stuff from the fish tanks that are the venue's dominant motif: roasted crab, batter-fried prawns, spot... More >>
• Most Healthy Chinese Food
  Lucky Creation Vegetarian Restaurant
  This small and extraordinary dining emporium features tasty items fashioned from wheat gluten, interspersed with fresh vegetables such as the most succulent of mushrooms. Wheat gluten -- for those gourmets not in the know -- is the stuff that allows bread dough to snap together when pulled... More >>
• Best Place to Rendezvous With a Secret Agent
  Li-Po
  You've seen it in a dozen Ian Fleming confections: The compelling-forbidding cavelike entrance, the golden Buddha grinning from his shrinelike crevasse, the picturesque lanterns dangling from the ceiling, the bar where a white-suited George Lazenby sips and waits. The supporting characters,... More >>
• Best Jook
  Hing Lung
  The classic spot at which to sample jook -- the thick, soul-soothing rice porridge ribboned with scallions, fish heads, and other things -- is Sam Wo, legendary late-night purveyor of amusingly rude service, but the variety available at the larger, airier Hing Lung is far more extensive and... More >>
• Best Chef
  Roland Passot of La Folie
  A staggering number of San Francisco restaurants serve up mind-blowing food -- Fleur de Lys, the Fifth Floor, and the Dining Room spring immediately to mind -- but Passot's incredible creations are not only in a class by themselves, they so completely transcend La Folie's unexciting, inelegant... More >>
• Best Place to Hang Out and Feel Like One of the Guys
  Swan Oyster Depot
  You sit down on a rickety old stool at Swan's long, narrow marble counter and before you know it you're part of the establishment's large extended family. The humming atmosphere is warm, witty, and blue-collar, Old World courtly. The behind-the-counter wisecracks flow fast and furious as oysters... More >>
• Best Place to Slurp Oysters
  Zuni Cafe
  Zuni is all about oysters -- well, and roasted chicken and people-watching, too -- the shucking of oysters, the slurping of them, the absolute Zen of them. The venue provides the classic setting in which to consume a platter: The battered zinc bar is present and accounted for, a long and... More >>
• Best Indian Restaurant
  Shalimar
  Most of the Indian restaurants around here are gorgeous, brocaded, teak-velvet palaces with spotlit Shivas in every crimson crevasse and humdrum, halfhearted food on every platter. Shalimar is exactly the opposite. In a tiny, noisy storefront setting of styrofoam cups, red plastic baskets, and... More >>
• Best Sushi, Pool, and Keno
  Peko Sushi
  Sometimes you're in the mood for a game of eight ball. Or maybe you'd rather drop a few bucks on keno. Or have a stiff drink. Or a spicy tuna roll with a side of sashimi, and then maybe a round of karaoke. Irving Street's Peko Sushi has all this and more -- darts, one of the most eclectic... More >>
• Best Undiscovered Sushi
  Yoshi-san's Monkichi
  One of the best things about living in San Francisco is the abundance of neighborhood sushi restaurants. That is, until everyone else in your neighborhood discovers your favorite spot, and you find yourself huddled with the hungry masses outside No-Name on Church Street, wondering why those... More >>
• Best Hamachi Sashimi
  We Be Sushi
  The taste of good hamachi (yellowtail) is hard to describe: It's clean, light, delicate, a bit oily, but a good oily -- in fact, a miraculous, melting, soul-soothing oiliness that, at its best, seems to avoid the digestive process altogether, traveling straight to the pleasure center of the... More >>
• Best Atmosphere at a Sushi Restaurant
  Blowfish, Sushi to Die For
  The draw here isn't just the food, but the show: anime on multiple TV screens, manga art on the walls, pulsing techno on the sound system, Japanese toys on shelves behind the beverage and sushi bars, beautiful (some might say handsome) sushi chefs, and a staff as colorful as the crowd lining up... More >>
• Best Sushi Restaurant to Which to Take a Microbiologist
  Kitaro Japanese Restaurant
  Kitaro's well-rounded menu has all the traditional Japanese food offerings: bento boxes, udon, and donburi. But it's the sushi people line up for, especially on weekends. Kitaro, which has a distinctly Asian-pop culture feel to it, offers both traditional sushi and its own seaweed-and-rice... More >>
• Best Dim Sum
  Ton Kiang
  To the inveterate snacker, the tidbit fanatic, the unapologetic lover of tapas, antipasti, and other foods miniature, dim sum is Nirvana Central. It's delightful: A nosh-laden platter appears at your table, you point at the particular combination of culinary ingenuity that strikes your fancy,... More >>
• Best California Cuisine
  Eos
  California cuisine might best be described as the food that results when our state's uncommon confluence of cultures meets up here on the edge of the Pacific Rim -- several zillion acres of produce on the right, the largest ocean in the world on the left -- and goes at it with wok and Dungeness.... More >>
• Best Kaiseki Tasting Menu
  Elka's
  If you want to sample from someone who's been creating Asian-inspired dishes since before most people had even heard the word "fusion," here's where you should go -- and by the way, you should also judge everything else from this starting point. Elka Gilmore's East-meets-West cuisine is... More >>
• Best Cajun Food
  Cajun Pacific
  From the moment a basket of hot, fresh corn bread arrives at the table, you know this dinner is going to be good. The jumbo muffins come in two flavors, the sweet ones and the hot ones, the latter featuring pieces of jalapeńo. Actually, everything about Cajun Pacific is jumbo, except the place... More >>
• Best Hawaiian Luau
  Punahele Island Grill
  This place is so authentic that a big pile of macaroni salad comes with every order -- only true Hawaiians know that macaroni salad is the unifying food of their modern culture. And the mounds of shredded pork on every plate are so succulent they dissolve before you can begin to chew. The... More >>
• Best Restaurant That's Also a Vacation
  Forbes Island
  One of the most trying aspects of getting away from it all is actually having to go somewhere, and when you figure in traffic jams, airport delays, packing, unpacking, repacking, etc., enjoying yourself can be a real pain in the ass. Forbes Island offers an alternative. All you have to do is... More >>
• Best Restaurant Food Despite the View
  Julius' Castle
  You can't apply the old canard "the better the view, the worse the food" to Julius' Castle. How can a place with such an exquisite panorama at its windowsills -- 270 unobstructed degrees of Bay Bridge, Alcatraz, East Bay, and other attractions -- serve such unhorrible, even very good, food? Chef... More >>
• Best Restaurant to Which to Take Indecisive Out-of-Towners
  Straits Cafe
  If one of the burdens San Franciscans are saddled with is the frequency of out-of-town guests, we at least have enough options to satisfy even the most picky diners at those obligatory dinners out. Even so, everyone's got that aunt who can't decide between Chinese and Indian, or maybe Thai.... More >>
• Best Place to Don Pinstripes and Exude Latent Power
  Fifth Floor
  You may not have a home in Pacific Heights and a summer place at Emerald Bay and a chauffeur to tend to your two Mercedes and Junior's Alfa Spider, but at the Fifth Floor you can pretend you do -- and the maitre d', chef, bartender, and busboys will encourage the fantasy. When you emerge from... More >>
• Best Place to Wear White
  Neo
  Actually, a lot of people tend to wear black here simply to be different. That's because everything at Neo is white. The tables, the walls, the plates, the chairs, the waitstaff's clothes, the menu -- even the facade of the building is shrouded in a billowy white curtain. The white does not have... More >>
• Best New Addition
  Delfina
  If you've ever wondered how Delfina could get any better, revisit the place now. The remodel is finished, adding seats to the front and space in the back, as well as a wood-fired oven. The restaurant is both larger and more comfortable -- and you'd never know that it wasn't always like this. More >>
• Best Argument for Reincarnation
  Bruno's Restaurant
  When the old Bruno's on Mission, built in the '40s but sitting empty and forlorn for decades, opened its doors, it ushered in a whole new era for the San Francisco scene. Swing and jazz and supper clubs and big plush booths all became hot again, and Bruno's was the molten center of the scene.... More >>
• Best American Restaurant
  The Blue Plate
  What do you think of when you think of good, down-home American cooking? Fried chicken? Thick steaks? Pork chops? Garden salads? French fries? Hominy grits? Berry cobbler? Chocolate cake? Banana cream pie? The stuff served up at the Blue Plate is delicious, but it isn't exactly down-home: The... More >>
• Best Open, Close, and Reopen
  Dine
  There once was a restaurant named Marais Which opened and closed before you could say, "Hey." Then came a striking new room named Dine Where Chef McClasky's food really does shine. OK, we can't rhyme. But that doesn't mean Dine isn't pure poetry. More >>
• Most Romantic Restaurant
  Fleur de Lys
  The experience of eating here can only be likened to dining inside a sumptuously appointed, unabashedly elegant Arabian Nights oasis: The soft folds of the venue's enfolding tent glow in the candlelight, exotic florals dazzle their way toward a wrought-iron chandelier hanging from the ceiling,... More >>
• Best Restaurant for a First Date
  Pasha
  What you mostly want on a first date are: 1) plenty of distractions for those inevitable glazed-over moments; 2) exotic cuisine that will show your date what a globe-trotter you are; 3) a possibly humiliating version of fun that will show your date what a sport you are; 4) comfy... More >>
• Least Romantic Restaurant
  McDonald's
  Inside, ballooning dot-commers stand in line for Fillets O'Fish while raging at their hapless colleagues on their headset cell phones. Outside, half-dressed homeless people suck down Cokes while raging at passers-by who don't give them money. Chip some bird crap off one of the picnic tables on... More >>
• Best Restaurant With Which to Surprise Someone
  Curbside Too
  The tiny, French sister of Antoine Alliaume's Curbside Cafe may not be as well known as it should be. But that's a good thing, when you think about it, because what better way to impress someone special than taking her to a place of which she's never heard? Reasonably priced, classic French... More >>
• Best Restaurant Trend
  Artisanal Cheeses
  The consumption of cheese is, of course, one of the great perks of being human, but despite its pure and wide-ranging wonderfulness -- especially in concert with some harmonizing species of fruit, and particularly at the end of a meal -- cheese as dessert course was a rarity in American... More >>
• Best Place to Forget It's All Happening
  Dago Mary's
  Perhaps you are a disgruntled bohemian who, facing an Ellis Act eviction by your new yuppie landlord, has decided to fight back via random vandalism of SUVs. Or maybe your SUV was recently vandalized by a disgruntled bohemian; or your IPO went through the ceiling, or through the floor, or out... More >>
• Best Temple to Charles Addams
  The Rooster
  The macabre wit of the late, great New Yorker cartoonist is alive and breeding at this strikingly realized Mission District restaurant. It's difficult to check out the interior design from outside; you have to commit yourself and plunge on in. Once past the heavy draperies, let your eyes adjust... More >>
• Best Monday Night Dining
  Enrico's
  Like the rest of North Beach, Enrico's is overrun every weekend with what one might call a bridge, tunnel, and airport crowd. But on Mondays, empty tables, a streetside patio, good drinks (try the mojito), well-paced service, and a nice selection of tapas and entrees make this a singularly... More >>
• Best Patio Dining
  The Terrace Restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel
  Outdoor dining in wind-swept, fog-shrouded San Francisco? When it's accomplished amongst the shrub-buffered alfresco-ness of the Ritz-Carlton's garden courtyard adjoining the Terrace Restaurant, nestled on the sunny eastern slopes of Nob Hill, you betcha! And this isn't merely a lovely and... More >>
• Best French Restaurant
  LuLu
  This SOMA landmark -- a trailblazer when Reed Hearon opened its doors in 1992 -- is still going strong nearly a decade later, serving up fabulously rustic creations in a noisy, high-spirited, oft-imitated milieu. The ripest, most aromatic fruits and vegetables and the freshest meats and seafood... More >>
• Best Bar Dining
  Mecca
  Despite the city's seemingly endless supply of fine dining destinations -- an embarrassment of riches that, we've heard, may soon result in restaurants opening inside of one another for lack of space -- getting a table on a weekend at a popular spot can still be difficult, and Mecca is no... More >>
• Oddest Anomaly in the San Francisco Dining Scene
  King Jamaican Restaurant
  "Is this even a restaurant?" the curious and hungry wonder upon entering the nondescript storefront with yellowed photographs pasted over the windows. Inside, there are glass display cases overflowing with Rastafarian and Afrocentric items, incense, T-shirts, and reggae tapes. On the walls hang... More >>
• Best Restaurant in Which to Have a Cultural Identity Crisis
  Zante Pizza & Indian Food
  Zante Pizza & Indian Cuisine is the unexpectedly successful marriage of South Asian flavors, Italian food, and the gritty feel of an all-American dive -- right in the heart of the Mission, so it's surrounded by burrito joints and bodegas. Though the menu is an exhaustive list of mostly North... More >>
• Best All-You- Can-Eat Pizza
  Goat Hill Pizza
  Goat Hill has been spinning pies for more than 20 years, since back when ordinary folk could actually afford to live on Potrero Hill, and it's changed very little in that time. It still has the same red candles and red-checkered tablecloths, and it also still has an all-you-can-eat pizza bash... More >>
• Best Culinary Arrival in Recent Memory
  Krispy Kreme Doughnuts
  Finally. The hot glazed arrived in the Bay Area in March, and not a moment too soon -- for years, we've been yearning for this special treat to make its way across the country from the Southeast. There is no doughnut like the Krispy Kreme. Period. In fact, we're not sure the KK product should... More >>
• Best Newly Arrived National Chain
  The Cheesecake Factory
  Say what you will about the continued chain invasion of San Francisco, the Cheesecake Factory boasts a couple of features from which some local restaurants could learn. First, there are few places here where you can go and be seated to just have dessert and coffee. Think any of your favorite... More >>
• Best Unapologetic Gluttony
  Brunch at the Crown Room
  It's hard to beat a muffin and a cup of coffee on a Sunday morning. Unless you throw in, say, a half-dozen glasses of champagne, poached salmon, smoked salmon, oysters, mussels, seviche, eggs Benedict, omelets, fresh-squeezed orange juice, French toast, bacon, sausage, blintzes, roast beef,... More >>
• Best Brunch
  Absinthe
  Unlike any other meal of the day or week, brunch is all about laziness, and languor, and the civilized appreciation of sloth as both lifestyle and art form. It's the time you either spend on the couch with lox, bagels, and the Sunday paper, or out at a stupefyingly lavish buffet spread that will... More >>
• Best Waffles
  Sears Fine Foods
  Sears, which turns 62 this year, is famous for a number of things -- its preserved-in-aspic coffee shop milieu, its (apocryphal?) Cadillac waiting room -- but mostly it's famous for its tiny, light-as-air Swedish pancakes. We can take pancakes or leave 'em, but we love our waffles. (We're not... More >>
• Best Soul Food Breakfast in Chinatown
  Powell's Place #2
  Opened in February 2000 as a spinoff of the original Powell's Place on Hayes Street, the new location is co-owned by former 10-time award-winning cable car bell ringer Carl Payne, who's now a cop at the Central Station on the same block. (The restaurant is decorated with SFPD souvenirs.) While... More >>
• Best Italian Restaurant
  L'Osteria del Forno
  This here's the total North Beach experience: a tiny jewel of an eight-table storefront trattoria smack on Columbus Avenue where the neighborly waitstaff makes you feel right at home and the kitchen produces amazingly flavorful Old World delicacies. The food's necessarily simple -- the kitchen... More >>
• Best Barbecue
  Brother-in-Laws Bar-B-Que
  Really good barbecue's hard to come by within San Francisco's municipal limits, but Brother-in-Laws has got the spice-dripping, porcine-powered goods. The smell of it hits you from a block away: meltingly good ribs, snappy hot links, moist, tender chicken, and crumbly brisket cooking a good long... More >>
• Best Steak
  Ruth's Chris Steak House
  Loath as I am to admit it, the flesh served up at local legends Harris' and Alfred's, good as it is, isn't up to the cholesterol available at that global consortium known as Ruth's Chris. The New Orleans-based chain offers steaks I once described as "deep-red whipped cream," so hyperbolic was my... More >>
• Best Caesar Salad
  Alfred's Steakhouse
  The trouble with most Caesars nowadays is they're either supplemented beyond recognition with grilled chicken breast or, God help us, Chilean sea bass, or they're treated like some variety of garden-fresh health food. Nothing could be further from the truth. The true Caesar, the noble Caesar,... More >>
• Best Unhealth Food Item
  Roasted Marrow Bones at 42 Degrees
  So much artery-clogging, cholesterol-raising bad stuff to gobble, so little time. From all the foie gras, crèmes brûlées, fettuccine Alfredos, and hot fudge sundaes available in this town, how does one choose a singularly corruptive sensation when one really wants to tie one on?... More >>
• Best Cornmeal Muffins
  Powell's Place #1
  Powell's serves perfectly respectable Southern food seven days a week, and the blues-brimming jukebox out front overflows with good music, but the focus, the locus, the pièce de résistance of this venerable rendezvous is its corn muffins. In this sourdough-lovin' city it's difficult... More >>
• Best Trailer Park Grub
  Butter Bar
  Amidst the glitter and gurgle of Butter sits a rather lovely little trailer-cum-concession stand offering a different kind of late-night eating alternative. And though the line for the loo always outdoes the one for Spam sammies, these goodies shouldn't be neglected. Tater Tots -- prepared to... More >>
• Best Late- Night Seafood
  Belon
  Imagine it: Midnight on a weekend, and damn it, once again you've forgotten to eat dinner. You're too dressed up for a burrito, got over Mel's long ago, and are hoping for something more ... refined, yet simple, yet elegantly prepared. And you wouldn't mind a bottle of champagne to wash it down.... More >>
• Best Late-Night Steak
  Globe
  It might be the cozy atmosphere. It may be the stylish customers. It could be the great staff. But, most likely, it's the late-night steak frites for two. The dish is still the best reason to visit Globe at the end of a long night playing -- or working, for all you restaurant slaves. More >>
• Best Late-Night Chinese
  Yuet Lee
  Though drinking late into the night can harm the liver, the brain, and, in more extreme cases, the desire to continue living when you wake up the next morning, another unfortunate side effect is hunger. But since Yuet Lee is open until 3 a.m., last call means the party's just started. While... More >>
• Best Delivery, Greater Noe Valley
  Haystack Pizza
  If you live in one of these neighborhoods -- Noe Valley, the Mission, Diamond Heights, portions of Potrero Hill, Glen Park, call if you're not sure -- you are, as you may know, one of the blessed. Seven days a week, from 11 a.m. until 11 p.m. (midnight on weekends), you can have some of the... More >>
• Best Place to Feel Like Part of a Community While Interfacing Via Computer
  Chat Café
  Chat Café, a fairly new addition to the Castro, bills itself as "part of a great neighborhood." And indeed, it breaks the lone-wolf stereotypes normally associated with Internet cafes. Owners Tom and Michael have gone to great lengths to promote neighborly behavior at their splashy,... More >>
• Best Restaurant Wine List
  PlumpJack Cafe
  Vino, one of humankind's most ancient triumphs, should be a communal pleasure accessible to one and all, not just to the bourgeois wastrel with the wine cellar and the '66 bordeaux. The owners and sommeliers of PlumpJack do their best to right the scales of grapely appreciation; the restaurant's... More >>
• Best Female With a Bottle
  Renee-Nicole Kubin
  In a man's world, Renee-Nicole Kubin, sommelier at the four-star Danko, has a lot to offer. Not only does she know her grapes inside and out, but she can handle a bottle in ways that will make you blush. Flirtatious, bold, and a finish that lingers: We're not describing the wine. More >>
• Best Place to Contemplate the Meaning of It All
  The Deck at Kelly's Mission Rock
  There's nothing like a mile-long, 500-trillion-ton oil tanker (we may be exaggerating) to make you feel like just a drop in the river of life. Throw in sweeping bay views, good food, and a few close friends, and you may wonder why you always seem to be running around looking for something when,... More >>
• Best Place to Get Buzzed on Lychees
  Lisa's on Folsom
  At Lisa's on Folsom, a funky Hunan Chinese "food bar," everything's done with a bit of a twist. Walls are painted turquoise (to improve the building's poor feng shui), clear glass display cases serve as dining tables, and there are "Chinese tapas" on the menu, not appetizers. But the fun... More >>
• Best Controversial Transformation
  Blondie's
  Ah, the joy of a Tuesday night aperitif at Blondie's -- soft, lilting jazz, an open-air patio, and some of the best (and largest) cocktails in the city. But then: Ah, the horror of Blondie's on a weekend, when frat types, suburbanites -- to be honest, we don't know who they are -- spill from the... More >>
• Best Place to Make the Move
  The Lone Palm
  Human mating is often like a dance, an achingly delicate melding of two souls, each with its own fears and insecurities, hopes and desires, burning lusts, and unbelievably grotesque fetishes. Sometimes, hooking up happens all by itself, and before you know it you're shopping together at Good... More >>
• Best Bar in Which to Squander a Sunny Late Afternoon
  Emma
  Nothing's more decadent than ignoring all of those deep-seated Puritan inclinations and spending a beautiful sunny afternoon, not hiking or picnicking or building a sandcastle, but sipping a tall cool drink in a sleepy saloon. The thing that makes Emma so ideal for this purpose is its beautiful... More >>
• Best Degree That Might Not Impress Prospective Employers
  Tequila Ph.D. From Tommy's Mexican Restaurant
  Higher education can be a bitch: classes, homework, thesises -- or are those theses? Regardless, after a while it makes your brain hurt. Unless, of course, the degree you seek is a tequila Ph.D. from Tommy's, where 145 pure blue agave tequilas, the largest selection outside Mexico, make for a... More >>
• Best Microbrew
  Mendocino Brewing Co.'s Eye of the Hawk Ale
  We're living in precarious times, but there are benefits to existing at this particular juncture in the cosmos: namely, the preponderance of really good beer. Mt. Tam Pale Ale, Lagunitas IPA, Pete's Wicked Lager -- the choices are endless. But Eye of the Hawk, brewed up in Ukiah since 1984, is... More >>
• Best Micro- brewery Tour
  Anchor Brewing Company
  Those of us who love beer are particularly, universally enamored of Anchor's sudsy product, prepared as it is in such an interesting range of styles and flavors and with such craftsmanlike care (Anchor produces a mere 100,000 barrels a year, compared to, say, Sierra Nevada's 500,000). Touring... More >>
• Best Bloody Mary
  Golden Gate Ferry
  There's nothing particularly special about the Bloody Marys served on the ferryboats that embark, many times a day, for Sausalito and Larkspur -- your basic vodka, tomato juice, and Tabasco in a plastic cup; nothing so captivating as, for instance, the wasabi-and-sake-informed concoction... More >>
• Least Pretentious Mission Bar
  The Attic
  We're not sure why exactly, but the Attic stands out from the rest of those see-and-be-seen haunts that have sprouted all over the Mission like mushrooms in cow manure. Maybe it's the dim lighting that lets you literally hide away at a back table, or the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink... More >>
• Best Beer-Drinker's Resource
  The Toronado
  Regular stopovers at this Lower Haight watering hole are an education in both regional and international beer-making for the post-Miller generation. A call board above the bar lists 45 or so offerings on tap and hand pump, grouped by brewery (mostly local), and the selection generally includes... More >>
• Best Flaming Bowl of Liquor
  The Scorpion
  While Trader Vic's in Emeryville boasts the most enormous Scorpion, and the Outer Richmond's Trad'r Sam's offers the tastiest Scorpion for the best value (with a frothy splash of champagne added, to boot), the Lilo's Scorpion bowl wins for presentation -- the Bacardi-fueled flame in its ceramic... More >>
• Best Place to Drink Between Sets at the Fillmore
  Someplace Else
  When the opening band turns off its amps and the crowd throngs upstairs to slake its thirst for alcohol, you're out of luck if you're not first in line. Sure, you might snake your way through to the bar -- and spill half your drink in the sea of elbows before the second act is onstage.... More >>
• Best Selection of Beef
  Tehama Angus Ranch Annual Bull Sale
  Did you ever -- while sitting through an ill-crafted boyfriend excuse, some election-year political cant, or a high-concept minute of dot-com TV advertising -- get the feeling you were being sold a line of bull? And did you kind of, well, like the feeling? We hear you, and we've found just the... More >>
• Best Bakery
  Boulangerie Bay Bread
  At long last a harmonic convergence has occurred, and food critics and consumers alike in this city of opinions and picky predilections have come to an agreement: Boulangerie Bay Bread is the best bakery in town. Whether you need a huge round of wheaty and sour levain for your road trip, a... More >>
• Best Black Bean Cakes
  Eastern Bakery
  All black bean cakes come down to two elements -- the black bean filling and the surrounding crust -- and the Eastern scores high marks on both counts. The filling is rich, smooth, and almost creamy, with a deep, earthy quality that transcends sweetness; the flaky, lard-enriched crust is its... More >>
• Best Fresh Vegetables With a Smile
  Valencia Farmers Market
  It's hard not to feel good about yourself as you stroll into the Valencia Farmers Mar-ket. Out front, lemons, oranges, pineapples, strawberries, and -- when in season -- fresh sweet cherries beckon to the passing herbivore. Inside, rows of bell peppers, zucchini, asparagus, and spinach -- not to... More >>
• Best Italian Cafe With Literary Flair
  Caffè Proust
  If you like a side of literature with your linguine, check out Caffè Proust. OK, so linguine's not on the menu, but other pastas are. And yes, Marcel Proust was French, but he was fond of Italy, and the proprietors of Caffè Proust are Italian, so there you are. The restaurant is a... More >>
• Best Cioppino
  Florio
  If anything could be called San Francisco's municipal dish, it would be cioppino. Invented by Italian fishermen working the bay a century ago, it is related to bouillabaisse and cacciucco Livornese and other Mediterranean fish stews in its wine-garlic-tomato-based character, but cioppino... More >>
• Best Place to Eat Duck
  La Villa Poppi
  So much promise, so much disappointment. Duck can be such a moist, juicy, crispy, smoky, wonderfully fragrant experience, but it all too frequently ends up on the platter heavy and overdone, with all the pleasure cooked out of it. Not at La Villa Poppi, however, where owner/chef Greg Sweeting, a... More >>
• Best Homemade Gourmet Lunch in Hunters Point
  The Outback Cafe
  When developers break ground at the Hunters Point Shipyard, the Outback Cafe will finally begin to get the business it deserves. Until then, it will remain an oasis on the edge of an EPA Superfund site. The little cafe is truly one of the best-kept secrets in the neighborhood -- many people who... More >>
• Best Waiters
  Sam's Grill
  One of the first restaurants we remember going to as a kid was Schroeder's, the century-old German joint on Front Street. The stags' heads and beer steins were certainly noteworthy, but what impressed us most was our waiter, a brisk, tuxedo-clad pro with a perpetually raised left eyebrow and a... More >>
• Best Restaurant Painting, Revisited
  The Kiss II
  Last year, we gave this honor to The Butler's in Love -- Absinthe, at Bix, by artist Mark Stock. But a funny thing happened while we were researching the award: Staff at Bix provided a postcard depicting Butler, plus another of The Kiss II, which also hangs at Bix and was also, as it so happens,... More >>
• Best Gelato
  Ciao Bella
  There is ice cream, and then there is gelato, the dense, intense ambrosia that is so readily available in Firenze and Roma and more or less nonexistent hereabouts (despite nominal imitations). The Ciao Bella version, however, is perfectly wonderful. The company started in New York's Little Italy... More >>
• Best Ice Cream
  Joe's Ice Cream
  Mutsuhiko Murashige has mastered all the standards of the all-American treat while adding a few improvements of his own. At Joe's, one can indulge in a green tea sundae or two scoops of adzuki bean ice cream. Murashige immigrated to San Francisco from Japan and bought the little Richmond... More >>
• Best Dessert Menu
  xyz
  There are a few special moments that make life worth living: your wedding day; the birth of your first child; the waiter saying, "Would you like to look at the dessert menu?" Many's the time the carte in question has not crowned (or rescued) the preceding meal with sufficient succulence, but... More >>
• Best Place to Suck Giant Tapioca Balls Through a Straw
  Wonderful Food Company
  Watch out, Jamba Juice -- Taiwanese pearl milk teas are poised to be the next liquid craze. The drink -- a delicious concoction of giant tapioca balls, condensed milk, and black tea -- is a near-addictive Asian treat that began gaining popularity in the States a few years ago. San Francisco... More >>
• Best Cafe Mocha
  Alfred Schilling Chocolate, Pastry & Restaurant
  We've made mistakes in our lives, we admit. Once we tried a Starbucks frapuccino, and it tasted like the milk left over after eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs. We're adults, for chrissake (our Pez addiction notwithstanding). To complete the finicky, sophisticated, bon vivant lifestyle we so... More >>
• Best Internet Cafe
  Quetzal
  Unlike some Internet cafes, in which computers seem like an afterthought, at Quetzal they are the centerpiece: 10 new iMacs in a rainbow of colors, with high-speed DSL access at only 16 cents per minute, or $9.95 per hour. But the cafe has much more to offer: coffee drinks served in super-sized... More >>
• Best Place to Chill Out
  Imperial Tea Court
  There's Golden Gate Park, but you never know when an errant Frisbee's gonna smack you upside the head. There's a trip up the coast, but outwardly directed road rage is a dangerous and ever-present probability. No, give us the Imperial Tea Court when the stresses of daily life have taken their... More >>
• Best Sushi and Then Some
  Moki's Sushi and Pacific Grill
  If you haven't been to Moki's, we strongly -- nay, vehemently -- urge you to get your ass to Bernal Heights tout de suite. A brilliant sashimi combination is surpassed only by even-more-brilliant specialty maki, or, for those who prefer their food cooked, Polynesian-inspired dishes such as spicy... More >>