Food & Drink >>

• Readers' Poll
  Best Restaurant Chaya Brasserie Best New Restaurant Midori Mushi Best Chef Gerard Dumuk, Midori Mushi Best Bar Sublounge Best Irish Bar The Irish Bank Best Gay Bar Endup Best Cop Bar No winner Best Pickup Bar (Straight) Cat Club Best Pickup Bar (Gay) Badlands Best DJ Bar... More >>
• Best Lemon Drop
  Soléa
  The Lemon Drop was invented for people who don't like the taste of alcohol but admire its narcotic potential, and when done well it's worthy of consideration, a sweet, puckery stepping stone from the lemonade of youth to the Calvados of senility. At Soléa, an excellent French restaurant a... More >>
• Best Cioppino
  Rose Pistola
  Esquire food critic Roy Andries de Groot called cioppino "the finest regional dish in America," and anyone who's tasted San Francisco's signature specialty would be hard pressed to disagree. It originated back in Gold Rush times when immigrant Italian fishermen cooked up this local version of... More >>
• Best Steak
  Morton's of Chicago
  Yeah, it's part of a chain (and a damned generic chain at that), but Morton's undeniably knows what it's doing when it comes to the Entire Steak Experience. Beautifully marbled cuts from top-ranked 2-year-old steers are aged two to three weeks and broiled at up to 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit, a... More >>
• Best Hangtown Fry
  Tadich Grill
  Legend has it that back during the Gold Rush, in the boomtown of Placerville (also known as Hangtown, for its frequent rough-justice necktie parties), a prospector grimy with the mud and dirt of the Sierra foothills yet nouveau riche staggered into the first restaurant he saw and ordered "the... More >>
• Best Pork Chop
  Acme Chophouse
  "The pig is an encyclopedic animal," said Grimod de la Reynière, "a veritable meal on legs." Our favorite volume in the great porcine Brittanica is the chop, that tender, fat-ribboned slab of rib meat that gladdens the taste buds and redeems applesauce on a regular basis. All too often,... More >>
• Best Panna Cotta
  Delfina
  A key to the success of Delfina's splendid panna cotta is the buttermilk that is its very essence. The richness of this primary ingredient gives the dessert a silky, luxurious quality not often encountered in the culinary world. One of the simplest sweets ever conceived (its name means "cooked... More >>
• Best Neighborhood Coffee Shop
  Cafe Cole
  The Haight-Ashbury District is one of the last hipster havens in the country without a Starbucks, and the locals like it that way. That's because every morning, Upper Haight and Cole Valley denizens line up at Cafe Cole, an itty-bitty, ramshackle coffee dive right off the main drag. There's a... More >>
• Best Sandwich
  Cuban Marinated Pork Sandwich at Citizen Cake
  Any midnight snacker will tell you that the act of creating a sandwich is a complex discipline requiring an innate sense of balance and a willingness to push the envelope. The fried oyster po' boy and the ahi and wasabi BLT are two noteworthy successes in this area. Another is the Cuban pork... More >>
• Best Coffee Beans
  Graffeo
  We know of an expatriate San Franciscan now living in New York who appreciates the Big Apple's accelerated pacing and seasonal vicissitudes but cannot survive without her regular shipment of Graffeo dark roast. A grind, a brew, and a sip and she's back in her favorite North Beach caffe, far from... More >>
• Best Baked Oysters
  Buckeye Roadhouse
  The best baked oysters in San Francisco aren't in San Francisco at all. They're a few minutes north of the Golden Gate Bridge at the Buckeye, a rustically hip roadhouse just off Highway 1 between Sausalito and Mill Valley. Amid a menu of steaks, chops, jumbo salads, and pie, the Buckeye's... More >>
• Best Microbrew
  White Hawk Original IPA, Mendocino Brewing Co.
  White Hawk IPA isn't for wimps. Its bracingly bitter flavor and puckery finish take India Pale Ale to a new level of intensity, and aficionados of Asahi, Corona, and their pallid ilk should keep their distance. This variety of suds is traditionally hoppy and robust, developed to withstand the... More >>
• Best Bread
  Della Fattoria
  It's hard to find Della Fattoria breads in San Francisco, but they're well worth the hunt. The textures alone are extraordinary: dense, chewy, and moist with the occasional crunch of rock salt, pepper flake, or pumpkin seed. The varieties range from exquisitely simple campagnes and levains to an... More >>
• Best Bastardization of the Martini
  Mango Martini at Gaylord India
  Once upon a time, a martini meant one thing: gin and as minimal an amount of dry vermouth as possible. Then wimps with immature taste buds started substituting vodka for the gin, and the rest is history. Now we have chocolate martinis and apple martinis and Key lime martinis and, for all we... More >>
• Best Dim Sum (Chinatown)
  Pearl City Seafood Restaurant
  Dim sum, for the uninitiated, is an inexpensive Chinese brunch or lunch comprised of small plates chosen from roving carts. Although it's not unheard of for experienced diners to order special dishes from the kitchen, most folks just point, select, and devour. In other cities you can generally... More >>
• Best Dim Sum (Richmond)
  Ton Kiang
  At Ton Kiang, the décor is posh (comfy booths, big round tables, pale walls, immaculate linen), and the dim sum is, too. The classics (cha siu bao, barbecued pork buns; siu mai, pork dumplings; wah tip, pot stickers) are perfectly made, and there are interesting, less common items (mol... More >>
• Best Taco
  Pancho Villa Taqueria
  Enough already with the burrito talk: What we want is a good old no-commitment taco, a simple snack that pleasures and gratifies instantly with no lingering sense of guilt, remorse, or burgeoning waistline. Pancho Villa's Super Taco isn't the sort of taco you just pick up and scarf, however. Two... More >>
• Best North African Restaurant
  Aziza
  Although Aziza exhibits most of the classic Moroccan-restaurant characteristics, it isn't your typical North African hangout. Sure, there are belly dancers, and the hand-washing ritual, and the deal where the waiter pours the mint tea into your cup from three feet up in the air. But brothers... More >>
• Best Joe's Special
  Original Joe's
  Like Caesar salad and chicken à la Marengo, Joe's Special was apocryphally invented when a beleaguered chef threw together whatever was left in his larder and served it to his hungry clientele. Another version has it that some Prohibition-era jazzmen stormed New Joe's on Columbus and... More >>
• Best Potato Chips
  Grand Cafe
  One of the truly satisfying moments in American literature takes place after the hero of Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms deserts the Army and swims, hikes, and freight-hops across the wet, cold Italian countryside. Bedraggled and exhausted, he makes his way to a hotel bar in Stresa and enjoys a... More >>
• Best Eggs Benedict
  The Meetinghouse
  The raison d'être of Sunday brunch is eggs Benedict, that heavenly, cholesterol-rich concoction of English muffin, Canadian bacon, poached egg, and hollandaise sauce. At the Meetinghouse, a primly elegant temple to our native victuals, eggs Benedict gets a New American makeover. Instead of... More >>
• Best Barcelona Experience
  Leonard's 2001
  Though San Francisco's nightlife shuts down right around the time things are just getting started in Barcelona, there are still several similarities between the two cities, among them an abundance of good food and drink. The best restaurant in Barcelona is a tiny bodega across from the Picasso... More >>
• Best Smoked Sturgeon
  East Coast West Delicatessen
  Smoked salmon is as prevalent in San Francisco as dandelion greens and blood orange granita, but it's nearly impossible to track down smoked sturgeon, the uncrowned king of deli-case delectables. At Barney Greengrass and many another Manhattan delicatessen, its characteristic flavor and texture... More >>
• Best New Restaurant
  Chez Spencer
  Every great restaurant begins with intense, freshly harvested flavors combined and dovetailed in harmonious combinations. Chez Spencer, a dazzling new restaurant in the classic French tradition, takes this concept to new heights. The platters created by chef Laurent Katgely are complex,... More >>
• Best Steak Tartare
  Le Petit Robert
  So what's the best way to honor the gallant nation that helped us throw off the yoke of our Colonial masters a couple of centuries ago? By eating French food, of course -- especially steak tartare, a dish that originated in Russia under the Tartars but has since become synonymous with aperitifs,... More >>
• Best Fusion Restaurant
  The House
  East meets West harmoniously indeed at the House, where the bright, crisp flavors of Chinatown make beautiful music with the lusty tastes and textures of North Beach. Proprietors Larry and Angela Tse, who grew up in this bicultural neighborhood, create and serve fresh, inventive, often complex... More >>
• Best Burger
  Pier 23 Cafe
  When you want the classic two-handed hamburger sans cranberry mayo, feta cheese, and other annoying addenda, Pier 23 is the place to go. Nothing could be finer than sitting at one of those big, round patio tables on a sun-drenched day, listening to Carmen McRae and Tony Bennett on the juke,... More >>
• Best Place to Sip Kuo Kung Chiew
  Rosewood
  If you ever have a hankering to nurse a glass of this repellent Chinese liqueur -- a dark, viscous amalgam of Fernet-Branca, linseed oil, and Vicks VapoRub -- the Rosewood, the sleekest watering hole in San Francisco, is the place to try it. Kuo Kung Chiew is only one of the many aperitifs,... More >>
• Best Mud Pie
  MacArthur Park
  It's getting awfully hard to find mud pie in this town, which is a pity because it's well known that mud pie is the most satisfying dessert ever conceived by humankind. This sentiment is shared by everyone who adores chocolate, and if you don't you must be some kind of a Martian or something.... More >>
• Best Gnocchi
  Da Flora
  Anyone who's ever attempted to make gnocchi, the tiny Italian dumplings that have been eaten and enjoyed since the days of Imperial Rome, knows how easy it is to end up with something resembling small pellets of lumpy concrete. This never happens at Da Flora, a cozy, candlelit ostaria draped in... More >>
• Best Hot Fudge Sundae
  Double Rainbow
  A sundae is only as good as its ice cream, and Double Rainbow's ice cream is the bomb. For 27 years now, the San Francisco-based company has been cranking out all-natural, high-butterfat, densely delicious scoops of joy in several dozen flavors, all of them, incidentally, kosher. Pralines 'n'... More >>
• Best Unhealth-Food Item
  Niman Ranch Pork Belly at the Fifth Floor
  Pea sprouts and mung beans are all well and good, but sometimes you want something that's as bad for your body as it is good for your soul. The possibilities and temptations are limitless -- a blood-rare bacon cheeseburger with a side of Cherry Garcia leaps immediately to mind -- but when you... More >>
• Best Guacamole
  Maya
  The rich, creamy, slightly musky character of the avocado can be enjoyed in soups, on burgers, and even in ice cream (hello, Mitchell's), but it's most pleasurably experienced when combined with chopped onions and lime juice and scooped up with a corn chip. There's a lot of guacamole in this... More >>
• Best Street Food
  Aidell's Sausage Stand
  The blithe, no-frills pleasure of scarfing a snack from a street-corner restaurateur is undeniable, but compared to what's available in Rome, Saigon, or Manhattan, our local opportunities for sidewalk noshing are severely limited. Fortunately, the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market has been hosting a... More >>
• Best Margarita
  Tommy's Mexican Restaurant
  You know the line, the Mark Twain line, about the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco. Well, you can add spring to that, at least this year. The last few weeks have had us all fantasizing about a quick trip to Mexico. Of course, we either can't afford it or our bosses... More >>
• Best French Restaurant
  Chapeau!
  Well, we're not in love with the room (the sweet murals on the wall can't disguise the fact that diners are shoehorned into tables set mere inches apart). But we are still madly in love with Chapeau! for several other reasons: the thoughtful service, the gentle prices (a dazzling three-course... More >>
• Best Cambodian Restaurant (S.F.)
  Angkor Borei
  We came for the amazingly generous $6.50 lunch special (a bowl of House Special Soup, lemon grass-scented coconut milk broth filled with tiny mushrooms, chicken, and vegetables, followed by two choices from a list of nine excellent dishes, including spicy chili squid, mild red curry chicken with... More >>
• Best Cambodian Restaurant (East Bay)
  Battambang
  The extraordinarily sophisticated cuisine served at this small, clean, unprepossessing storefront around the corner from Oakland's Chinatown belies its setting: Battambang is a real find. Everything we've tried is so exciting, so memorable, that we're torn between repeating a favorite dish... More >>
• Best Vietnamese Hole-in-the-Wall Restaurant
  Cordon Bleu
  The place is tiny (the Formica counter fronting the open grill seats eight, and there are just three tables tucked in the back), and the menu is, too. There are only five items on offer at Cordon Bleu: imperial rolls, aka spring rolls; shish kebab, which here does not involve any kind of a... More >>
• Best East German Restaurant
  Walzwerk
  Walzwerk may be the only East German restaurant we've ever eaten at outside of East Germany, but it's much more than just a curiosity. Its thrift-shop décor, dining room watched over by large photos of Marx, Lenin, and Engels, and carefully curated bathroom filled with the detritus of... More >>
• Best Wine-Tasting Restaurant
  Restaurant LuLu
  Every night at LuLu there are half a dozen or more featured wine flights: four different 2-ounce pours of wines from a specific region (crisp whites of northern Italy or Rhône varietals, for example) or grape (pinot noirs from Burgundy and the Loire, Willamette, and Napa valleys), priced... More >>
• Best Butcher Shop (Sunset)
  Guerra's Meats and Deli
  If you're at a loss for what to make for dinner, a few minutes spent perusing the glass cases at Guerra's should offer plenty of inspiration, whether you request instructions from the butchers on how to cook one of their unusual signature cuts of meat (the Diamond Jim roast, the butterball... More >>
• Best Butcher Shop (Presidio Heights)
  Bryan's Quality Meats
  A great meal begins with great ingredients, and that's why we rely on the professionals at Bryan's in the Laurel Village shopping center. The place is more like a meat boutique than a butcher shop, given the perfectly displayed pretty cuts and chops and the high employee-to-customer ratio.... More >>
• Best Bargain Produce
  If you want a fashionable social event, go to the Ferry Plaza Farmers' Market on Saturday; for dazzling displays of organic produce, there's the Berkeley Bowl. But if what you want is to squeeze a nickel until the buffalo groans, swing by the venerable 22nd and Irving Market, where on our last... More >>
• Best Tarts
  Tart to Tart
  We were sent to Tart to Tart in search of the best Linzer torte our friend had ever tasted, but on the day we were there, the in-house baker hadn't felt like making a Linzer torte. He had, however, felt like baking Key lime tart, mocha rum tart, chocolate pecan tart, raspberry lemon tart, and... More >>
• Best Pastries (Indoors)
  Tartine Bakery
  We enjoy the cheesy lunch specialties served here immoderately (savory bread pudding, quiche, gougère, and the open-faced interpretations of croque monsieur), even though the strongest thing you can wash them down with is coffee (the food, as well as the clientele, cries out for a glass... More >>
• Best Pastries (Outdoors)
  Frog Hollow Farm
  The famous Frog Hollow Farm in Brentwood sells its produce to the best restaurants around. In order to showcase its superb fruit (its Web site is headed, "Your home to the sweetest, juiciest organic, tree-ripened peaches you've ever tasted"), the farm crimps a bit of flaky, buttery pastry around... More >>
• Best Mexican Pastries
  Panaderia La Mexicana
  We've often picked out a bagful of nice-looking pastries in Mexican bakeries and been sadly disappointed when we got them home and they tasted like dust (or worse, margarine). Not so at Panaderia La Mexicana, where the window display of miniature poundcakes, palmiers, and fanciful pan dulce... More >>
• Best Artichoke Frittata
  Lucca Ravioli Co.
  Lucca's looks satisfyingly like a movie set of a delicatessen for a Warner Bros. picture made in the '30s, so we're not surprised when we learn it's been in business since 1925. It's the kind of well-stocked place in which a few minutes' browsing will turn up any number of good things, such as... More >>
• Best Tamales
  La Gallinita Mexicatessen
  It's not hard to find a terrific burrito or taco in the Mission, but good homemade tamales are considerably scarcer. We love the fat chicken or pork tamales ($1.25 each) regularly available here (the kitchen will cook vegetarian or sweet ones filled with raisins and fresh farmers' cheese on... More >>
• Best Polenta
  Zuni Café
  It's the simplest thing on the menu at the wonderful Zuni Café, just a bowlful of creamy, corny polenta topped with a drizzle of mascarpone or shards of sharp Parmesan, but it's one of the most satisfying dishes we've ever had. We always order one for the table, and it disappears with... More >>
• Best Yogurt
  Total
  Total is a rather bland and unexciting name for the best, richest yogurt we've ever tasted (250 calories for a small serving, of which 110 are supplied by fat, which the silky, voluptuous mouth-feel corroborates). It's imported from Greece and comes in three versions: plain, packaged with a... More >>
• Best Plate o' Pig
  Grilled Pork Chops With Yams and Brussels Sprouts
  The menus at these three excellent family restaurants change seasonally, but we were especially enamored of this fine plate of food. The Niman Ranch pork chops had been brined, so they were very moist and juicy; the baked yams had been dusted with grated orange; and the Brussels sprouts were... More >>
• Best Pig Wrapped in a Tortilla
  Taqueria Can-Cun
  We rate the pig here very highly, especially the cumin-scented al pastor, but what really elevates the burritos and tacos made at Can-Cun above those made at other Mission taquerias is the inclusion of thick slices of perfectly ripe avocado in lieu of sometimes dubious guacamole. More >>
• Best Remnant of Late, Lamented Gordon's House of Fine Eats
  Brussels Sprouts Salad at Verbena
  The wonder that was Gordon's has disappeared from the corner of Florida and Mariposa streets, now a ghost town, but if you yearn for its signature salad of warm Brussels sprouts tossed with chunks of bacon and hard-boiled egg, scented with onion and slightly oiled, it's still to be found on the... More >>
• Best Restaurant-as-Movie-Set
  Tadich Grill
  We get a thrill every time we walk into Tadich's: It looks to us just like a restaurant should, from its carefully maintained, gleaming dark wood to its sparkling white-tiled floors. We like the curly-backed bentwood chairs, the art deco light fixtures, the clean aprons on the waitstaff. The... More >>
• Best Dive Bar
  The Phone Booth
  At the nexus of hipster bar, queer bar, and neighborhood bar lies the Phone Booth. During the locust swarm of trendy bars symptomatic of the dot-com era, this low-key lounge served as a much-needed oasis, far from the ever-present Cosmopolitans and blue Gap shirts. The place's charm is in its... More >>
• Best Place to Spend a Night in the Castro Without Feeling Like You're Spending a Night in the Castro
  The Red Grill & Whiskey Lounge
  The Red Grill & Whiskey Lounge is a great bar, period. With no dance floor, no shrill speaker system, and no cologne-saturated twentysomethings, it's something of phenomenon in the Castro: a comfortable watering hole with a diverse clientele. What it does have is a beautiful wooden bar; a... More >>
• Best Quesadilla
  El Metate
  It may be tough figuring out who holds the title of best taqueria, but choosing the best quesadilla-maker is easy. Nestled in what was supposed to be the modish Bryant Street stretch (Blowfish, the Monkey Club, et al.), El Metate's small, unimposing site belies its tantalizing menu. The place... More >>
• Best Green Salsa
  Casa Sanchez
  Three generations of the Sanchez family own and operate this quintessential Mission taqueria, which comes complete with colorful murals, an umbrella-studded patio, Mexican beer, and tasty stews in addition to the standard tacos, burritos, and enchiladas. The Sanchezes make their own chips and... More >>
• Best Health Foods
  Rainbow Grocery
  Rainbow's huge warehouse grocery carries organic fruits and vegetables, exotic cheeses, biodegradable shampoo, homeopathic remedies, rows and rows of vitamins including natural aphrodisiacs, and delicious vegan desserts (baked without dairy). There is not a speck of dead flesh to be found in the... More >>
• Best Starbucks
  Starbucks Coffee
  Factoid: San Francisco is so coffee-centric that we support nearly 1 percent of the world's 6,526 Starbucks Coffee shops. With 63 Starbucks retail stores to choose from in our caffeinated town, it is really, really hard to decide which one is best. Especially because they are all so damned... More >>
• Best Cheap Food Court
  Milberry Student Union Plaza
  The fast-food menu here ranges from beany burritos to sweet-and-sour pork to cheesy pizza and salads with a variety of dressings. The names of the vendors change frequently, but the essence of the available repast remains the same: starch, sugar, grease, and minimal fiber. But don't be turned... More >>
• Best Expansion by a Local Burger Joint
  BurgerMeister
  For years, the BurgerMeister at Carl and Cole streets, right next to the Muni stop, has filled Cole Valley with the smell of good, grilled, made-to-order hamburgers. Now the popular local joint has expanded to another location, 138 Church St. in the Castro, also close to a Muni stop. The new... More >>
• Best Sub
  King Foot Subs
  Not much competition here. San Francisco is a bad sandwich town, so any place that doesn't charge $10 for two slices of Wonder bread and some gristle probably rates a mention. Even so, King Foot, a tiny sub shop in the Lower Haight, is great by any measure. The subs come hot or cold, 6-inch or... More >>
• Best Old-Timey Soda Fountain
  St. Francis Fountain
  When the St. Francis Fountain, a genteel Mission refuge since 1918, closed its doors in May 2002, many feared it wouldn't reopen. But in November its neon sign lit up again, highlighting a shiny new paint job (alas, no more pink) and its own vintage signs back up on the walls. The ice cream is... More >>
• Best Brunch Alternative to Chloe's
  Fattoush
  On any given sunny weekend morning, the corner of Church and 26th streets is jammed with people waiting to get into Chloe's, a tiny Noe Valley brunch institution. But what those hungry-looking people apparently don't know is that half a block away is a gem of a restaurant with a beautiful... More >>
• Best Place to Pretend You're in Paris
  The Butler & the Chef
  Ah, Paris. Lazy afternoons sipping wine in a small cafe, eating crepes and frites, making fun of all the tiny dogs. We'd like to go back, but in the absence of lottery winnings we'll take the Butler & the Chef, a wholesaler of French antique bar and kitchen furniture that has brought us a... More >>
• Best Wine Seller
  K&L Wine Merchants
  Here's one of those little things that makes living in San Francisco worth all the hassle: One of the most notable wine merchants in the nation is headquartered here. While our friends in other parts of the country are left to peruse the K&L Web site (awesome in its own right), we can stop in... More >>
• Best Place to Buy Slabs of Pure, Lip-Smacking Snack Fat
  European Food Wholesale
  Imagine a bar of bacon consisting of alternating layers of meat and fat. Now imagine no layers of meat. Just solid, snow-white fat. Now imagine eating this raw. Now, open your mind to the notion that, sliced very, very thin and placed on a fresh pumpernickel rind, this might not be as revolting... More >>
• Best White-Trash Bargain Gourmet Dinner
  Dom Pérignon and Chicken Wings at Hooters
  As of press time, John Trani, the most pampered frat boy in history, hadn't yet opened the Hooters restaurant his parents gave him for college graduation. But the moment he does, as scheduled in June, we're there. We're not going for the waitresses with the bright orange running shorts and the... More >>
• Best Vegetarian Pho
  Sunflower Restaurant
  Everything about Sunflower Restaurant feels like home. The dining room is comfortable and no-frills, and the menu is tasty and affordable (well, OK, at home it's free, but still). Among the restaurant's fine offerings is a wide selection of pho -- hearty Vietnamese noodle soups, akin to... More >>
• Best Thin-Crust Pizza
  Gaspare's Pizza House and Italian Restaurant
  We're Chicago-style deep-dish pizza lovers through and through. Plus we prefer pesto to tomato sauce any day. So imagine our surprise when Gaspare's thin-crust, tomato-sauced veggie pie took our breath away. Not overly sauced, not overly cheesed (and we do love cheese), it allowed the toppings... More >>
• Best Mex-talian Restaurant
  Tio Chilo's Grill
  Who'da thought mixing Mexican and Italian cuisine would be a winning combo? Tio Chilo's did, and it works. At this Mission District newcomer you can have your Mexican straight up (enchiladas, quesadillas, tacos, and the like); same goes for Italian (pasta, pork chops, seafood, et al.); or you... More >>
• Best Fish Tacos
  El Balazito
  This miniature taco stand is connected to a do-it-yourself car wash underneath the freeway. Apparently it's a good car wash, because that part of the place is always packed. But come for the fish tacos, which are fresh, simple, and divine. The red snapper is cooked up while you wait, then placed... More >>
• Best Cocktails Under $6
  Orbit Room Cafe
  At this unassuming bar on Upper Market, the bartenders are such dedicated mixologists that they infuse cucumber vodka in their spare time. You can order cocktails here that will get you blank looks at most other bars, like Aviations, Caiparinas, or even Pimms Cups. And unbelievably, although it... More >>
• Best Sweet Potato Pie
  Delancey Street Restaurant
  The residents of Delancey Street's treatment program have been making this pie for 12 years for the foundation's restaurant. It is based on a recipe from somebody named "Sonny's Mother," who hailed from Louisiana. But any other historical details about it have been lost. One thing is certain:... More >>
• Best Place to Take a Kid for a Meal
  Rainforest Café
  Wild lions, tigers, and bears! Thunder and lightning! It's arguably the most realistic indoor rain forest ever created outside a Hollywood sound stage, and it comes alive while you eat. We're talking about roaring elephants and screeching life-size gorillas that, at carefully timed intervals,... More >>
• Best Bakery
  Arizmendi
  Arizmendi is part of a long line of workers' cooperative bakeries in the Bay Area and around the world. Is that what makes the roasted tomatoes so juicy, the breads so toothsome, the pecan rolls so gooey? Hard to say. We'd hazard a guess that most folks don't care, as long as the... More >>
• Best New Owner of an Old Bar
  Bob Clarke, Zam Zam
  The Persian aub Zam Zam opened in 1941, but Bruno Mooshei didn't own the tiny, gemlike bar until the late '60s. "Bruno is still much on people's minds," says current owner Bob Clarke, who took over in 1999, a year before Mooshei died. "He's remembered fondly by some, not so fondly by others."... More >>
• Best Totally Unpretentious Bar
  Dave's
  Where can you get a hot dog with everything and see good art? Where can you order a top-shelf margarita and settle in for a good read? Where do people always look relaxed and happy? Why, at Dave's, of course. Walk into Dave's, and no one looks up to see what you're wearing. The 'tenders are... More >>
• Best Bar Bathroom
  Redwood Room
  Bar bathrooms are so underrecognized. The loos at the Clift Hotel's Redwood Room, for example, were designed by Philippe Starck, who decked them out in the perfect symbols of pretentious minimalism -- white marble walls; simple, sleek toilets and sinks; and the keenest, most delicate faucets.... More >>
• Best Chocolate Orgasm (1 Comment)
  Angelina Rumpelmayer Hot Chocolate and Neuhaus Chocolates
  Can you say multiple orgasm? Angelina Rumpelmayer hot chocolate is made from a century-old French family recipe that's incredibly rich but only slightly sweet (72 percent cocoa). You will have to pay for such elegance, however -- 26 bucks for a 4-ounce bag. The stuff is hard to find, but there's... More >>
• Best Underground Restaurant
  Mamasan's Bistro
  We've heard of underground restaurants in places like New York, but had no idea they existed in San Francisco. Restaurants here must meet numerous legal criteria, including inspections by the health department, liquor-control board, and fire department. Therefore, this entry must be somewhat... More >>
• Best Sushi-on-Acid Experience Without Actually Having to Be on Acid
  Country Station Sushi Cafe
  We're wandering around the Mission near the 16th Street BART station when we discover a mysterious little sushi joint. We enter, and are immediately overwhelmed. It's too much to take in. Have we been drugged? The décor seems to be the fusion ... no, the collision of a thousand different... More >>
• Best Sausage and Beer Pick-Me-Up
  When Oscar Mayer and Budweiser simply won't do, head over to Rosamunde Sausage Grill and its neighboring bar, Toronado, for the haute cuisine version. Watch the Giants game and order a Chimay on tap, then during a commercial head next door for a sausage-to-go. While Rosamunde offers a wide... More >>
• Best Crepes
  Ti Couz
  Ti Couz (meaning "old house") serves up the tastiest crepes in the city, hands down. As its name suggests, the restaurant has a distinctly down-home atmosphere, and the crepes are prepared Breton-style (a culinary tradition of northern France). The price range is a reasonable $2-10. Ti Couz... More >>
• Best Place to Stock Up on Party Basics
  Trader Joe's
  Yeah, you can buy anything under the damn sun at TJ's and buy it by the truckload. And yeah, the prices are rock bottom and sometimes even ridiculously low. But the quality ain't bad and the selection is out of this universe -- especially for party essentials like wine, nuts, and bottled water.... More >>
• Four Best Places for a Post-Midnight Snack
  In most of the world's glittering cities, the witching hour is just about the time things really start shakin'. Here in San Francisco, the only thing those 12 chimes signify is that it's been a couple of hours since the restaurants closed down for the night. There are, of course, exceptions.... More >>
• Three Best Tenderloin Dives to Look for Dashiell Hammett's Ghost In
  The essence of Hammett's San Francisco -- fog, neon, whores on the street -- still exists in the Tenderloin, at least on certain nights, and the best way to experience it may be to pick your way through the neighborhood's dozen or so dive bars. The O'Farrell Street Bar 800 Larkin (at... More >>
• Four Best Delis
  One of the great things about living in a multicultural city is having easy access to all that good food. Restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, and street markets offer tantalizing and delicious foodstuffs unavailable elsewhere, but the best place to scarf on a global scale is the delicatessen.... More >>