Backstory: A few weeks ago, a cherished cyber-friend who divides her time between Paris and San Francisco wrote me to ask what restaurants I ate at in SFO. "Huh?" says I, I eat at the same places I always have "Commonwealth, Delfina, etc." "Why?" "I like to know." "OK" And it's true; I go in America to the places we in France would probably consider "touristy, yesterday and so what." But they're good, dammit.
I'm still on Paris time, so going to Yank Sing in the Rincon Center at noon, SF-time, for dim sum, is perfect. I'm struck on the way by how San Francisco has turned into a combination of the Bowery/New Orleans and Silicon Valley; bums, drunks and hallucinating weirdos side by side with hoodied-texters and tie-wearing entrepreneurs. Not to mention the rainbow of ethnicity and gender. I love it.
And I love Yank Sing, which at least today had all pesky Yankee locals, not a tourist in sight - but of course, like Brooklyn, Alaska and Washington DC, no one was actually born here, they're all from the moral equivalent of Ohio or Shanghai, at least that's what my eavesdropping revealed.
The food John. Oh yes. Well, much as I am always overwhelmed by the carts coming by, I know what I want and my know-it-all (truly, he does) opthalmologist who grew up here and who wanted me to get takeout from a hole-in-the-wall place on Clement at 6:55 AM when the dim sum comes out of the oven but I arrived too late for, whetted my appetite for shrimp dumplings, so off we go - plus some Peking duck and fried crab and then - ah let's see - mango pudding - perfect!
My bill, with some wine, no bottled water and tea calculates at $42.52 before tip. A splendid start.
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Boulevard is a bit more complicated. I've eaten here for several years and been impressed by the food, the service and the prix/qualite index. Because I'm flogging books/pubs this week, because I'm never sure what my schedule will be and because I'm grouchy and ornery, I wound up without a rez (I was rejected, good Lord, I tried.). No matter, brazenly I entered - "Has there perhaps been a cancellation" says I? tugging my forelock. "The bar stools [that will throw your back into spasm again] or a tiny table in the back where the din of the 20 year olds at the bar boozing will not reach you?"
No question. Look at menu; decision: green salad with heirloom tomatoes (by special request, because it was not on the carte/menu), abalone Rockefeller and some Cotes du Rhone.
Terrific greens, albeit oversalted, terrific tomatoes, likewise, nice butter, ditto.
Abalone not oversalted (my message got back to the kitchen) and condiments were tasty.
The bill, with a half-bottle of wine, no bottled water, coffee or dessert comes to $62.56 before tip, which usually stingy me, I upped.