San Francisco is a food town. We have more restaurants per capita than any other American city. Not more restaurants, because San Francisco’s population is small compared to other cities. We’re smaller than Columbus, Indianapolis, and Charlotte. But per person, we have more places to eat than New York, LA, and Chicago.
The choice can be overwhelming. There is anxiety to get the best meal possible every time you eat. It is best to get rid of this fear, because while every meal may not be mind blowing, it’s going to be pretty damn good. Unless you eat at most of the places on Fisherman’s Wharf, but that’s another story. A lot of the restaurants there thrive on the visiting tourists, not repeat customers.
Because San Franciscan’s love food, each neighborhood has many excellent restaurants that cater to the locals. If they weren’t good, they’d go out of business.
I’ve listed a lot of restaurants on my website. I also have recommendations I send to my guests.
The San Francisco Chronicle is a good resource for searching. The Chronicle has excellent food critics, and their recommendations and articles can be found here:
San Francisco Chronicle Food.

The search tool is a bit wonky, but worth a go. I’ve found the articles more useful.

A coffee shop, a good local coffee shop, not a chain that has outlets across the street from each other, is a simple joy. It reflects the taste of the owner and the character of the neighborhood. It should feel inviting. It is a place to relax and a cheap way to expand one’s living quarters. People go to coffee shops to get away from the familiarity of their apartments or house, and to be with people while not being obligated to interact with them. On a trip, it is a way to get a sense of what it feels like to be a local.

Novelists and screen writers, both professional and would-be, have been writing in some place that served coffee since the caffeine was extracted from the bean. I’m going to bet when the first café opened it was soon filled with customers scrawling poems on parchment. Coffee allows thoughts to flow.

The Blue Danube invites customers to leave those thoughts in blank books. At this writing, they total more than 45. Past volumes are on a shelf for anyone to read.

These books are filled with drawings, musings, observations and confessions. Some pages are from travelers writing about their experience of San Francisco. Children write jokes, draw, or play tic-tac-toe. Some write about people they love. Others write confessions of shame, anger, or infidelity.  It is like getting permission to read other people’s mail or diaries.

The Blue Danube is located on Clement St, one of favorite streets overlooked by visitors. I’m going to write more about Clement St. in the coming weeks. It is the sort of location that, when I’m giving private tours of San Francisco, I encourage my guests to experience.

Chinatown boasts a lot of good dim sum bakeries. The Good Mong Kok sports huge lines on weekends, which I’m guessing is a result of being Instagramed and Yelped to death. Not that it isn’t good, it is, but rare is the dumpling worth investing 30 minutes standing on a sidewalk for and so far I haven’t found it.

Even at Xiao Long Bao I’m only waiting 10 minutes. OK, maybe 15.
This is located on Clement St, which is under visited by tourists. Which is too bad because there is much to discover on this Richmond district street. On the other hand it may be a blessing, because I’d rather Clement St not be invaded by hoards of wanna-be influencers taking selfies holding a soup dumpling while making duck lips.

Because Xiao Long Bao is busy serving neighborhood locals, the dumplings, scallion pancakes, buns don’t get a chance to sit around for long. Everything is fresh, and soups are made to order.

The menu is bigger than most dim sum places, and it doesn’t include everything available. There are items in the case they didn’t have room for.

Don’t expect the crew to be overly friendly or effusive. They are trying to serve up food quickly to many hungry people. They are glad to answer questions, but only to a point. If you’re really confused about what to order, take your chances and order what looks good. It probably will be. And maybe order a few more things than usual because if you get something you don’t like, you can move on. Dim sum is cheap and worth the little risk.

By the way, anyone who knocks stars off a place like this because the didn’t like the service is a self-involved idiot. Maybe they just didn’t like their duck lips.