San Francisco, the cat's pajamas times 100.

Last week I visited a good friend of mine who lives in San Francisco.  James and I have been friends since we were 18.  I'm 33 now so you do the math.  Many, many years!  He has been trying to get me to come visit for Coachella the last few years.  Finally, I worked it out and stayed with him for 5 days last week. We got tickets to Florence and the Machine, who we both love. While I was there, I also saw Travis, another old friend of mine from my Club One days.  It was very good to see him!  I also met a ton of James's friends.  He seems to know everyone in San Francisco, seriously.

Let me first start off with saying: I must live here.   I REALLY am going to make this happen.  My plan is when my lease is up the end of 2011 to make a move.  This city is foodie heaven.  Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING I ate was so f'ing delicious.  I still have a 5 pound food baby inside me that I need to abort, pronto...but I digress.  So, if anyone has any leads on sales/marketing/advertising positions or potential roommates, let me know.

Ok, back to the topic at hand, which is food.  Stars and garters, it was all so outrageous.  Where do I even begin.  I guess we will just go day-by-day, meal-by-meal.

I got there late Wednesday afternoon so we had an early dinner at Franchino.  This is a very intimate mom-and pop Italian joint.  You can maybe squeeze 20 people in there.  The husband flirts with the customers and sings to everyone while the mother and daughter attentively wait on you hand and foot.  He actually instructed everyone to leave the restaurant and he sung everyone a song in Italian to celebrate the Giants win the World Series (which was the day before). 

Oops, sorry the picture is flipped!  I'm still working on learning how to use this new camera.

For starters, we had the bruchetta.  This was, by far, the best bruchetta I've had in my life.  Super authentic.  And I would know as I have been to Italy and had bruchetta there.  Super robust flavors, bread soaking in olive-oil, it was fantastic.

James had a seafood risotto dish with a tomato cream sauce that I also tried.  Loved it!  Huge chunks of calamari, huge clams, and the risotto was divine.

I had their house carbonara.  Goodnight Irene, this dish was amazing!

Thursday, James had to work so I took the Muni to downtown and explored some of the city.  I went to Bristol Farms which is like Whole Foods on crack.  They had the best salad bar I've ever experienced.  Basically, it's $9.99 a pound and you fill it up with whatever you want and it's all so damn good.  I'm talking fresh mozzerella, chinese food, pasta, fresh organic vegetables, turkey, so much to choose from so I went to town with that shit!

Next door they had gelato.  The Andie's candy mint gelato, mmmmm!

One thing I've noticed is there is hardly any fast food in San Francisco which is great.  Instead of Mcdonalds and Jack in the Box, there are tons of farmers markets and food trailers and amazing restaurants EVERYWHERE.  I saw this on the street and thought it was cool.

Thursday night we went to Warakubune to get sushi in the Castro.  First, let me say, I have eaten my share of sushi.  As in every week.  If I could, I would eat sushi every day.  I have *never* had such delicious sushi at such a cheap price. 

At this point, everything started blurring together.  I felt like a food zombie.  I completely lost control of myself and my self-control I ate everything, all the time.  I don't even recall what I ate and when I ate it, so at this point, I'm just going to try to recount what I can remember as best that I can through the pictures that I took.

James took me to The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen.  Now, need I even say more?  For real.  I got the Mousetrap: Tillamook sharp cheddar, creamy havarti, monterey jack, on artisan sourdough...aka just kill me now. James got the same and butternut squash soup which was deeeelish.

I wanted to do some touristy stuff so James took me to the Fisherman's Wharf.  I was pleased as punch as I love seafood and you could get a ton of good seafood for cheap.

Now THAT'S a salad, my friends...

I just want to eat EVERYTHING!

Crab sandwich on sourdough, mmmmm this was sooo good.

We also went to Boudin and I got a bread bowl because I am not right in the head.  I really had no self-control whatsoever.

Clam chowder bread bowl.  I could have taken a bath in it though I suppose that coulda kinda been nast...

Where the magic went down...

James took me to get some mini-donuts.  Sugared holes, tra la la.

James looking dashing while eating mini-donuts.

Me after my sugar high from eating the mini-donuts...

As if eating sugared mini-donuts wasn't enough, I had to get a crepe from Crepes A Go Go.  I have a sickness, I really do.  Well, the crepe DID have strawberries so I had my fruit for the day ;)

The next day we had brunch at the Pork Store Cafe.  I had crab benedict which was, as James says, "amazeballs."  My pic of this decadant dish didn't turn out very well but the pic of James's lox benedict came out great:

So, the Pork Store Cafe was in the Haight-Ashbury area where I would LOVE to live.  So many super cute little places to eat and get coffee, all walking distance!

Before I left, James took me to get Ramen.  We hit up Genki Ramen.  It was here that I had this amazing baked scallop dish sizzling in a pool of butter.  Words cannot express how damn good the baked scallop dish was. 

We also got ramen and shrimp tempura and edamame and potato deliciousness and omfg someone help meeeeee...

potato goodness:

so much to choose from, so little time...

There's really so much so more but frankly, I'm tired of uploading all of the pictures ;)  So, friend request me on facebook (Jaime Safianow) to see them all!

Thanks again to James for an amazing time.  I plan to move there the end of next year, hopefully!