Frommer's San Francisco 2012 - Matthew Poole [77]
A handful of cafes line Belden Place and offer a variety of cuisines at moderate prices. There’s Cafe Bastille, 22 Belden Place ( 415/986-5673), a classic French bistro with a boho basement that serves excellent crepes, mussels, and French onion soup; it offers live jazz on Fridays. Cafe Tiramisu, 28 Belden Place ( 415/421-7044), is a stylish Italian hot spot serving addictive risottos and gnocchi. Plouf, 40 Belden Place ( 415/986-6491), specializes in big bowls of mussels slathered in your choice of seven sauces, as well as fresh seafood. B44, 44 Belden Place ( 415/986-6287), serves up a side order of Spain alongside its revered paella and other seriously zesty Spanish dishes.
At night, Belden Place takes on a Euro-speakeasy vibe—perfect for sipping aperitifs and nibbling on frites.
Tadich Grill ★ SEAFOOD Not that the veteran restaurant needed more adulation, but the city’s ongoing loss of local institutions makes 158-year-old Tadich the last of a revered dying breed. This business began as a coffee stand during the 1849 gold rush and claims to be the very first to broil seafood over mesquite charcoal back in the early 1920s. An old-fashioned power-dining restaurant to its core, Tadich boasts its original mahogany bar, which extends the length of the restaurant, and seven booths for private powwows. Big plates of sourdough bread top the tables.
You won’t find fancy California cuisine here. The novella-like menu features a slew of classic salads such as sliced tomato with Dungeness crab or prawn Louis, meats and fish from the charcoal broiler, and even casseroles. The seafood cioppino is a specialty, as is the baked casserole of stuffed turbot with crab and shrimp à la Newburg, and the petrale sole with butter sauce. Everything comes with a heaping side of fries, but if you crave something green, order the creamed spinach.
240 California St. (btw. Battery and Front sts.). 415/391-1849. www.tadichgrill.com. Reservations not accepted. Main courses $14–$20. MC, V. Mon–Fri 11am–9:30pm; Sat 11:30am–9:30pm. Bus: All Market St. buses. Streetcar: All Market St. streetcars. BART: Embarcadero.
Fast Food from Around the World
Catering to the dense population of downtown white-collar workers, the Rincon Center’s Food Court at the corner of Spear and Mission streets has about a dozen to-go places serving cheap, respectable fare running the gastronomic gamut: Korean, American, Mexican, pizza, coffee and cookies, Indian, Thai, sandwiches, Middle Eastern, and Chinese. Most of the restaurants are open Monday through Friday from 11am to 3pm, but some until early evening.
Similar inexpensive eats can be found at the Ferry Building Marketplace and Justin Herman Plaza, both at the foot of Market Street at the Embarcadero. On Market and 5th Streets, the Westfield San Francisco Centre has an enormous food court in its basement.
Tsar Nicoulai Caviar Cafe ★ CAVIAR Tsar Nicoulai is a wonderful little U-shaped 15-seat counter within the Ferry Building Marketplace where all sorts of caviar, champagne by the glass, and roe-related snacks are served to fans of fish roe. Drop by without reservations for the best American and imported caviars (served by the taste or the ounce), blinis hot off the griddle, caviar and champagne samplers, and specials like seafood salads and truffled scrambled eggs. If you haven’t yet done so elsewhere, try the fun, colorful varieties of whitefish roe, which come in flavors of beet and saffron, ginger, wasabi, and truffle.
Ferry Building Marketplace, 1 Ferry Building no. 12 (at the Embarcadero and Market St.). 415/288-8630. www.tsarnicoulai.com. Reservations not accepted. Caviar $10–$76 for samplers or 1-gram portions; salads and such $10–$18. AE, MC, V. Mon–Fri 11am–7pm; Sat 9am–6pm; Sun 11am–5pm. Bus: All Market St. buses. Streetcar: F or N-Judah line.
Yank Sing ★★ CHINESE/DIM SUM Loosely translated as “a delight of the heart,” Yank Sing is widely regarded as the best dim sum restaurant in the downtown area. The servers