Food For Thought

A niche restaurant in San Francisco’s Ferry Building, the San Francisco Fish Company serves fresh sushi and even fresher clams and mussels to stand out even in the bustling restaurant-filled Ferry Building. They offer seating where other eateries offer none, and attract people with a big open atmosphere. Seating: Actually existed, a feat in the crowded Ferry Building, which is basically a 1-story mall for restaurants. Even more impressive considering that the day I went was the day that people were allowed to set up tents with food and wares outside, tripling the attractions in terms of live entertainment and available stores to browse. There was a white guy playing Billy Joel, two black fellows playing reggae, and a Mexican playing the guitar (A 3 person mariachi band would have given the sequence a progressive theme). Anyway, seats. The tables on the outer edge of roof on the side were raised  a little, forming a bit of a wall against the noise and people in the walkway, wh...

Considering the last Hard Rock Cafe I went to served taquitos that gave me food poisoning and ruined my trip to Universal, this establishment immeasurably improved my opinion. A popular restaurant for no particular reason besides being a famous brand, Hard Rock sells American food while playing American music and then sells you merch to commemorate your freedom-filled experience. Seating: As with most places when a group comes in with a voucher, we were ushered to the crappiest seats and seated immediately. People don’t like speaking up for the most part, so restaurants can make it more comfortable to stay in the crappy area than to complain and get only barely slightly nicer chairs. The chairs and table were plain black wood, and felt like hard rock (pun). Decor: Nice ceiling decorations and lighting. The roof was dominated by a big hanging disk with lights, whose pattern looked like a Mr. Pibb can. The bar had lights under the table illuminated the pastel blue/brown tili...

(No picture, but imagine the setting of No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre) The default option for travelers in California is to eat breakfast at their hotel. However, the continental breakfast in Four Points outperforms in service but in return is not complimentary. Seating: Plenty. Breakfast opens at 6:30, and there are always 2-3 servers waiting to take your breakfast voucher, and tables galore, probably because breakfast isn’t free. The servers also bring OJ and apple juice around, like a real restaurant. The booths and chairs are standard issue. There’s no wow factor in their seating. Decor: Quite bland. Beige walls, stock pattern for booth covers and chairs, and pictures of fruit over the row of food. While looking at them, I am reminded of the short story “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, where the female main character goes insane from being trapped in a room by her husband with a nasty wallpaper for an entire summer. Good read on how females and m...

A Californian pizza chain with unenthusiastic and sloppy workers but tasty pies, Pizza My Heart leaves a lot to be desired, but executes its main function, which is to serve quality pizza, quite well. Seating: As expected for airport food. Spaced out tables with plenty of chairs for friends. I’m pretty sure I sat in the ice cream parlor next door’s seats, but the Asian janitor didn’t really care. They provided mozzarella and chili flakes, as well as hot sauces and garlic powder. The servers also didn’t care about their jobs, and never wore a smile the entire time I was waiting in line. Also one looked unkempt, with a greasy mustache like a proper Italian, but was actually Mexican. Decor: I’m not sure what kind of theme this restaurant was trying to pull off. There were pictures covering every inch of available space, small 6 inch square frames with pictures of famous surfers or surf competitions in each one. Exactly what that has to do with their name escapes me. Maybe tha...

A local eatery in San Francisco’s Chinatown whose layer of grime conceals authentic Chinese dim sum. The familial love among the workers is a bond felt by anyone entering the establishment, and the display of just cooked food in their platters invites even those wary of its graffiti and rough charm. Seating: Nonexistent. The only table available was taken up by freshly made dumplings, and the store advertises its to-go nature on the front window, so no surprise. Decor: Definitely Asian. There were bamboo plants growing in a pot near the back, and various other plants on shelves around the room. However, the steam pot segments lying around the room gave the place a rustic appeal, where ethical cooking methods and ingredient purity were important. Beyond that, there were no decorations, implying that the owners themselves enjoyed the decorations that were up. Actual Food: With a ~30 item menu, I felt a bit overwhelmed by the quantity of choices, some in barely passable E...

A quaint Italian restaurant in a corner of the 2nd floor of Pier 39. Swiss Louis has a curt but efficient order-taking method that leaves diners without any connection with their waiter and a decoration and lighting combo that is aesthetically pleasing while minimalistic. Their food and views of the harbor add to the quiet date appeal of the establishment. Seating: Most tables have a table near a harbor front window, and I got one near it. However, the view port was dark and glare-y, and I could hear enough sea lion barking in the distance in the lulls of conversation to make me slightly annoyed. Counter-intuitively, this sea lion proximity improved my dining conversation, because when people were talking the barking was silenced. The table was set before we got there, with three glasses, one of water, one for coffee or tea, and one for a soft drink. I liked the diamond pattern the glasses formed on the square table, and having so many drink options made me forget for a moment...

On a cold California morning, In-N-Out bustles with voices and smells. In contrast to Hana Zen, this restaurant was completely packed to around 30% over max occupancy (don’t report them). I actually hadn’t heard of their famous secret menu until today, but I got acquanted with the beautiful, price defying fast-food that is In-N-Out Burgers. Seating: Parking was packed, but since this establishment built it self next to a Costco, alternative parking was not far away. The chairs, despite being all metal, were comfortably warm, but not someone’s-been-sitting-in-this-chair warm. The booths were also easy to get into and out of, and seemed to have a wider entrance than McDonald’s booths. Like traditional fast food, you seated yourself, which I had a hard time doing after going through a line stretched across half the perimeter of the building, but unlike traditional fast food, they provided a bench and bar beside the register, already prepared to be packed with backed up orders. ...

A diminutive Italian restaurant in downtown Palo Alto with muted lights and an inviting, concave entrance. With half a menu made up of wines, Vero surprised me with its high classiness/price ratio and friendly servers, and allowed me to have more Italian food, always a plus. Seating: No parking, but I had wandered near there by foot so felt no inconvenience. The tables could hold about 30 people, and started filling up around the time I entered because they recognized me as a famous food critic. At least one family was returning, and the other couple seemed to be enjoying their date. The chairs were weighty and wooden and the server seated us quickly. There was also a bar, which involves too much face-to-face interaction with the bartender to be comfortable. The appetizer, bread and olive oil, also included a dash of red wine, adding flavor to the bread dipped in it. The bread was salty enough to eat by itself plreasureably and went well with the wine-oil, but the hard crust ru...

When I entered this establishment, it was totally empty. This was around dinner time, so it should have come as a warning to me. Foolishly, I advanced with a meal voucher thinking, "it can't be all that bad". And it totally proved me wrong. Seating: The place was empty so finding seats wasn't difficult. However, as soon as we walked in to our seating area, the other server and the chefs suddenly stood up and went back to work from where they had been chilling. Miso soup, the appetizer, tasted like disgustingly brackish bean curd sauce, the kind sold at any Oriental store. If left alone, the soup settled into a cloud shape . Disturbing. Decor: Lightly Asian. If a nonobservant person were to walk in, they wouldn't notice the single cherry tree on the wall that qualifies this restaurant as a Japanese place. The rest of the chairs and booths were standard issue, with the tables remaining sticky even after a cursory wipe down by the server as we were...