San Francisco – Sitting way above the Dock of the Bay

A view of the city on a rare clear day

When we polled our friends about where we were most likely to end up living in America, the overwhelming response was San Francisco.  The reasons people gave had to do with the food, the wine, the European-ness, the jobs, etc.  In fact, if you brought me back to my late 20s I would have told you then how much I wanted to live in San Francisco.  But Andy and I knew enough about the city and the bay area to know that it would be a hard sell for us.  Food and wine is a great description, but is that enough to make you fall in love with a place?  Isn’t European-ness what we are fleeing from?  And what about that fog?  It was all a bit puzzling.

The puzzle began with where to base ourselves for our 4 week discovery session of the city by the bay.  San Francisco and the wider ‘Bay Area” covers a very wide region – you could argue the size of a small state.  Each neighborhood is not only different in its people and style, but VASTLY different in its weather.  A simple mile of driving can be the difference between sun and fog.  The fog doesn’t just roll in romantically in the afternoons, it sets up camp and has its own postal code. 

   

With a dearth of rental properties in the city, we chose an executive rental in Sausalito.  It’s a gorgeous setting – a little Positano shaped hillside trickling down to the sea, the first exit off the glorious golden gate bridge.  Sadly it is this geographical and aesthetically pleasing environment that draws in the busloads of tourists and (bad) cyclists on a daily basis.  Between 10-6 each day you cannot drive thru town.  God forbid you should require the convenience of something like a grocery store – those have been zoned out of ‘quaint’ tourist land.  As a result of our harrowing 20%+ grade uphill to our house perched on stilts on the hillside and the avoidance of tourists, we spent a lot of days marooned in our tree fort.  At least the view was spectacular - we literally woke up with gleaming sun over the bay, the very spot where Otis wrote his song.  We spent the day "watching the ships roll in, just to watch them roll away again. "

Morning sun over Angel Island, taken from my bed

 "The Bay" from our Sausalito tree house

When we did venture out, we found the city to be as expected.  A lot of great food (the best we’ve eaten in America, the best grocery shopping too), a lot of great wine (though Napa is up its own ass and stuck in the 80s), and strangely european – except that they haven’t worked out good public transportation.  Oh, I hear you locals shouting things like “BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) is amazing” but it was you locals who gave us cab company phone numbers and even private sedan car numbers and apps – telling us never ever to rely on the buses. 

A surprise, and a seriously negative point for the city, is that there is actually little to do in the city itself.  Note the bold “in” there.  When we asked people what they did for fun we heard endless citations of trips to wine country, trips to Yosemite, trips to the beach, trips to Tahoe.  You get the pattern.  When we pushed them for recommendations in the city the universal answer was … wait for it… BRUNCH.  Brunch is not a pastime, my friends.  Brunch is a meal.  And don’t get me wrong, it’s probably my favorite meal, but a city needs more than a good brunch culture.  ½ of 1 weekday does not an active city make.  That’s when it really hit us – ½ of a weekend day.  That’s all the time that most san Franciscans take off from work.  They work extremely long hours here – starting up this entrepreneurial company or that.  We saw a dad on a tennis court with his daughter on his cell phone talking about a financing plan for a new business.  People are passionate about their work – that’s generally a good thing – but take it too far here.  We met with another friend who rides the company bus each way to work.  We asked how long the commute was and got a “not long…just an hour… and the bus stop is so close… just a 15 minute walk”.  Ok, so you work 12 hours a day and commute to work 2.5 hours.  No wonder there is nothing to do – who would ever have the time to do it? 

Little-to-do does have its benefits -- our tour of the city itself was so efficiently done in a matter of days that we had weeks to explore the larger “Bay Area”.  There really are some lovely places to live around the bay – and our readers will not be surprised to learn that the close vicinities of Berkeley and Stanford were our favorite neighborhoods.  Around Berkeley Andy felt most ‘at home’ with his Oxford roots.  Bookstores, a fantastic produce market (Berkeley Bowl), and little bakeries and other interesting shops all found in a quaint and very cycle-able downtown.  Stanford, and its neighborhood of Palo Alto has more flaunting wealth, and more sunshine, but could also be a comfortable home sweet home. 

The gorgeous Stanford campus

It’s a young city despite the fact that people have lived here for generations and are the types to make sure you know that.  Yes folks, San Francisco has a whole variety of douche-bags.  The saying “There’s nothing bad about California except the Californians” was probably first uttered here.  Maybe I’ve been out of work too long already, but a segmentation of the city is warranted, don’t you think?  At the risk of offending absolutely everyone, I hearby give you my segmentation of San Francisco Douche-Bags: 

What is not douchey (I promise you, that is a word) about the city are its chefs.  Wow.  They really know how to put a plate together here.  The abundance of farm fresh produce so close to the city is remarkable.  It’s farm to table, without going out of their way to overpromote that.  Without trying to be too crunchy-granola-organic crazy – they use butter and cream and salt and all the yummy stuff in between.  There were so many Michelin starred restaurants that we could only try a few.  You’ll see our recommendations below. 

After living in the city for a month, I may not have left my heart in San Francisco but I definitely left my stomach.  And isn’t the way to your heart through your stomach? Maybe our friends know us better than we know ourselves.

San Francisco against our criteria:

1) Is it a college town?       In some neighborhoods

2) Does it have liberal politics?      Possibly too liberal?

3) Is it sunny?           HA! In which half acre?

4) Is it sporty?           Not really

5) Career prospects?       Strong

6) Airport access?     Good

7) Foodie?      Awesomely so

8) Aesthetics?     It has some stunning vistas

9) Easy to make friends?  Yes, plus we know people already

Activity recommendations

1. Touristy day - walk the embarcadero, take a ferry, ride the cable cars, go to twin peaks. There, you've seen all you need to see.
2. Muir Woods - take a walk in the redwoods just minutes from town.  (Though if you ever get the chance, the redwoods in Jebediah park near the border with oregon are even more spectacular)



A stunning walk through the redwoods at Muir Woods

3. Explore the lesser known parts of wine country - check out Geyserville and Dry Creek.  
4. If you aren't afraid of heights, walk or cycle across the Golden Gate bridge.  Or, if you want to wait for 25 years, be in town for a big anniversary birthday.  We caught the 75th and the fireworks were amazing!  
5. Take your bike down to Half Moon Bay for a lovely cycle and lunch by the sea  
6. Take the Tiburon ferry over to Angel Island (the ellis island of the west) and rent a bike for a tour of the islands relics and 360 degree views of the Bay

Dining recommendations:

1. Manresa – All the way down in Los Gatos, but absolutely wonderful.  This reminded us of L’enclume or even Noma.  All of the produce comes from a local farm and they surprise and dazzle you with perfectly cooked plates. 
2. Coi – In town, on Broadway, this simple room (you’d have to know where it was or you’d miss it) produces spectacular food.  Three words:  foie gras ganache.  Outlawing this should be a sin.  
3. Sushi-Ran – If you do find yourself in Sausalito as a tourist, on the quieter Calendonian street you will find this gem.  Order the tempura fiddleheads.  Because where else will you get these?
4. Willie’s  - Up in Healdsburg, the real heart of Sonoma wine country (and far better than Napa) you’ll find this awesome bistro.  Order a bunch of their small plates and drink your way down the wine list.
5.  Ferry building – If only all foodcourts could have takeaway ham cones. 

LA Story

In 1991, Steve Martin was cast in a brilliant film about life in LA.  Memorable scenes included ‘open season’ on the 405, a large group of diners ordering half-caff coffees, the difficulty of getting a dinner reservation (“with a financial statement like that you cannot have the duck”) and a brilliant scene involving hidden roller skates and an art museum. 

At 17 years old, it formed my first real impression of the city – vacuous people who drive everywhere and only care about themselves and their celebrity ambitions.  Business trips taken decades later didn’t add much to that impression – pretty beaches, but long straight boring roads lined with strip malls.  Uggh.

So you might ask why we bothered to include it on our discovering America tour.  Well, the answer is simple – LA probably has some of the best job prospects for us, and we wanted to know what it was like to stay in a real house, in a real community, rather than as complete tourists.  We’re glad we did.

We stayed in Venice Beach – which has easy access to the freeways, and ridiculous access to miles and miles of beach, including the 20ish mile bike trail that spans the coast.  The neighborhood itself is very funky – with Abbot Kinney street being heralded as the coolest street in America, or so Esquire magazine says.  The streets are lined with trees and houses have both front and back gardens, producing a very suburban neighborhoody feel within an urban center.

Cycling in santa monica - just a few miles down the beach from venice beach

perfect sunset over venice beach

As luck would have it, we timed our stay with the neighborhoods annual Venice Home & Garden show – where local residents, mostly artists and architects, open their homes to the community as a big fundraiser for a neighborhood school.  So we got to go inside the walls and see how people are living.  Wow.  There is some good living here – lush gardens, brilliant pools and an architectural aesthetic which has taken the mid century bungalows and transformed them into open comfortable living bar none.

 

LA isn’t as bad as its reputation would suggest.  There are some plastic, vacuous people, but that cannot be more than 2% of the population.  There are celebrities, but the 3 times we saw celebs (Rob Riggle, Marcia Cross, Helen Hunt) they were acting like normal people too.  We weren’t stuck in traffic that often.  We were easily able to get dinner reservations at some of the world’s top 100 restaurants – and when we showed up and were not celebrities, we were still treated spectacularly well. There are some streets lined with strip malls, but actually it is surprisingly green – and even wild – just minutes away in the santa monica mountains.

Just miles away from downtown LA to the Santa Monica mountains 

The only really negative thing we had to say about the place (beyond the usual cost of buying a house, crime, etc) was that the supermarkets and produce stores were horrible.  We couldn’t even find a decent blueberry at a Whole Foods.  Thank goodness for the farmers markets – you would have to do your stocking up there for sure. 

And be careful where you park – they hover over your meter and write out the tickets before it clicks expired.  Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

In the end I had to remember that Steve Martin ultimately finds love and happiness in LA.  Maybe we can too.

LA against our criteria:

1) Is it a college town?          Not really

2) Does it have liberal politics?      You know, I don’t know.

3) Is it sunny?           Yes

4) Is it sporty?           Mostly

5) Career prospects?       Strong

6) Airport access?     Good

7) Foodie?      Ok.  Good ethnic eats, bad shopping

8) Aesthetics?     Better than expected

9) Easy to make friends?  Probably, plus we know people already

Some tips for dining:

1.) Spago is a real institution. The service is good, the food is good.  The scene is a bit 80s.

2) Saam at the Bazaar is an experience – but the vibe outside the special tasting room actually looked a little more fun.  Whatever you do, order the cotton candy foie gras…oh wait, that wont be legal after July 2012.  Sad.

3) Umami burger is amazing.  The truffle burger…oh…my…god.