FAMOUS DAVE'S BBQ IN GILROY...WHY NOT EAT AT A CHAIN WHEN YOUR AT AN OUTLET MALL?

The SO said, "hey let's go to Gilroy to hit some outlets." "Uhh...okay," I say dubiously, since shopping is not something he usually wants to do. There are worse ways to kill a lazy Saturday. Once we get there we are both hungry. Normally when I've been here I've hit up the Black Bear Diner  but thought we should try something different so I Google Gilroy restaurants up on the phone and it's chain, chain and more chain. Since we were in the burbs we decided to just pick one and go native, as it were. One name I'm not familiar about pops up, Famous Dave's BBQ. That sounds promising as I'm always up to find some halfway decent barbecue here in California.

Walking in, the place is packed for 2:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday. There are several large families waiting for tables and based on personal experience I can tell by the look in the hostesses eyes they are way understaffed today. I ask if it's just okay if we sit at the bar and she smiles a bit of a relief and says it's fine. Bellying up the bar we dive into the BIG menu and are soon greeted by the bartender who also looks harried and is at least 7 months pregnant. Ahh...makes me feel like I'm back in the South...home. Gazing at the appetizers we decide to get something deep fried and the onion strings looks perfect.

RANGE IN SAN FRANCISCO....8 YEARS ON...IS IT STILL GOOD?

The Valencia corridor has become a hot bed of new restaurants in this town. It seems every time you go to the neighborhood there is a new place opening. But there are several that have survived the ups and downs of a foodie town. One such place is Range. 

It's one of the original "let's see what's selling at the market and put that on our menu" places. And though the menu is moderately stable these days they still specialize in local farm fresh ingredients. After perusing the small focused menu I went with a sort of green, white and brown them with my first few choices. 

BIMBIM BAR IN INTERNATIONAL FOOD COURT...A SURPRISE IN THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT UNDERGROUND

Getting lunch downtown is always a struggle of where should I go? Will the line be too long? Is it affordable? Is it good? Can I walk there on my lunch hour? And on and on...you get my point. So it was on this particular day that all these questions ran through my mind. Just to be different and see some new options I walked down Kearny Street which is abuzz with Financial District lunchers. At the cross section with Bush Street I saw this to my left

yeah, I know what you're thinking, looks kind of sketchy, and I thought the same thing too. However, 

having eaten in some pretty scary looking places from Cambodia to China to Spain to Iceland, I decided to take a chance as sometimes good things can be found in crap packaging. Entering the door, you then head downstairs to a basement that is white tile lined and filled with tables and little food bars with cuisines from different countries, much like a mall food court but without all the screaming kids and teenagers.

CANTON SEAFOOD DIM SUM RESTAURANT...DIM SUM IN SOMA?

It's a Sunday and the SO and I just finished a movie and want a quick bite. How 'bout some dim sum he says. Sure, but I don't want to go to Chinatown or the Richmond to get it. Then he reminds me there's Canton Seafood Dim Sum Restaurant in our SOMA neighborhood and I'm like sure let's go. 

 

It's one of those large sprawling dining rooms, where yes, they do come around with the carts, and on this Sunday it is bustling. Actually, the place is always crowded on Sundays, that whole after church thing and I see folks who look like tourists. After some waiting at the server stand and some table clearing we finally get seated. They bring us out some hot tea pretty quickly, but it seems the ladies with the hot trays or backed up and don't seem to be coming over to our side of the restaurant. We can see the head guy talking animatedly to the ladies and we assume by the way he's pointing, he's telling them they need to roll through to the other side as folks are waiting. It was roughly 10-15 minutes before they finally came around our way. 

LOOKING FOR FISH NEAR GOLDEN GATE PARK? IT'S PACIFIC CATCH

Where can I get some good affordable fried fish in San Francisco? It's not usually a question I ask myself. I'm a big seafood fan but have pretty much given up finding good and moderately priced fish and friends here, which is odd considering we are right next to the ocean you'd think we'd be awash in it, but outside of crab season, the stuffs pretty expensive for what you get. One Saturday I was wandering through Golden Gate Park and came out the side near Irving and Judah where the NJudah comes, it's the Sunset District, which is funny cause it's mostly foggy out that way. But I was on a food mission when I saw Pacific Catch. It has four locations in the Bay Area, kind of a mini-chain and I've walked by it a handful of times but never gone in, until now. 

FIVETEN BURGER TRUCK....MORE LIKE TEN OR MORE BURGER

FiveTen Burger truck was near my work one day and since they are mostly Oakland based, I thought, screw the watching what I eat today and give them a try, so I did.

They've gotten beaucoups of press and positive reviews so trying them to me was a no brainer. Yes, it was one of those--if everyone else says they are good then they must be good. It's a small menu but I decided to go with the grass fed burger and a garlic fries. 

FUKI FOOD TRUCK...A TASTY GEM IN THE SOMA STREAT FOOD PARK SHUFFLE

As most know, I've been a fan of StrEAT Food Park since inception and try to get there whenever possible. On this particular rare sunny, not too windy Saturday me and the SO made our way over to see what was available. The choices are sometimes a crapshoot depending on day and time of day. This time around we saw a lot of familiar places that we'd tried before and then came across Fuki, a tiny little trailer.

 

 

And while the menu is small, only 7 items, they sounded like tasty items that struck a cord with our taste buds in the moment and so we ordered.

 

BIERGARTEN IN HAYES VALLEY....IT'S LIKE A HIPSTER OKTOBERFEST

On a recent Saturday, after the SO got a haircut, we decided to hit up Biergarten in Hayes Valley since we were just around the corner. It's a venture by the folks from Suppenkuche just a few blocks over. It's an open air space surrounded by a fence and has two shipping containers set up--one for the beer pour and the other as a kitchen.

Being a rare, bright, sort of warm day in San Francisco, of course the place was packed. There was a line to order beer and food and most of the tables were full. The SO went to stake out a place to crash land while I endured the line. Part of the line reason is it's mostly draft beer that comes in 2 sizes--half liter and liter--which means big ass mugs of beer and thus it takes time to fill that many mugs. It took about 15 minutes to get to the order point. Since we weren't looking to get plastered we stuck with the half liters--which you can see are still pretty big.