EXOTIC BURGER

On SF Gate there's a list of eight restaurants that are SF classics, and the writer takes pains to mention that you probably have a few others you would add to the list -- sorry -- but well whatever. These are the places, they say, that you would take an out of town friend to so that they can grasp the einzigartiges konzept of the city. In order: John’s Grill, Trattoria Contadina, Red's Java House, Caffe Trieste, Beach Chalet, Mario's Bohemian Cigar Store Cafe, Old Clam House, and Tosca Cafe.

I've been to three of them. In forty years.

The Caffe Trieste was a daily dose for nearly a decade, till I moved out of the neighborhood and discovered that the lattes at every other place are crap and there was no place within easy dawn walking distance for a decent cup of joe.

Tosca's was on the regular weekly pubcrawl schedule for my friend the bookseller and myself till they changed hands and became too upscale for schlubs like us.

There are places I would add, but I don't want tourists to ruin them, so I won't.

A number of good places are on my own list, where Cantonese is often the common tongue (Mandarin and English also can) but that tells you more about my out of town friends than about the city, and I'm sure the beatniks and beautiful people never went there. Some of them didn't even exist yet when there were beatniks and beautiful people.

What's sad is that most of the classic old lunch counters in Chinatown no longer actually have lunch counters, and some of them aren't even food places anymore. Where one of them once was you can now get your feet twiddled. Hardly worth visiting the city for.

Another one has changed hands several times in the last twenty years, and currently serves "Chungking" cuisine in a stylish and hip atmosphere, and lord knows yep that's why you visit any town, so that you can have the food that does not reflect where you are in any way at all but instead could just as well be dished up in New York, Moscow, or Budapest.

Indeed, that picture above shows a Chinese dish. Not one that many Chinese eat, a favourite of Doctor Henry Kissinger, and consequently available everywhere in America. It's not bad.

And totally safe. Nothing dubious in it at all.

It's whatever you want it to be.



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