Hey, Everyone! Jeremy here! I’ve been off on the other side of the country this week with my physics, optics colleagues in San Francisco. (Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair) They had cascades of places to eat and foods to try, but I only had time for a few the week I was out. These are my unsponsored and uncensored opinions of what I had. Feel free to comment and tell me what you think of these and other places on this blog and on our Facebook page. We’d love to hear from our readers. Let’s get to it!
Sorabol
Sorabol was one of those popular super crowded mall restaurants with quick lines wrapped around the building. The food was good, but my tiny meal was…not 15, but $20. I grabbed some traditional rice, a handful of short ribs and bright red kimchi. They were falling off of the bone and my chopsticks with marinated mushrooms and tofu. This was all soaked in Kimchi spice.
Supreme Crab
That night, I looked around the city and saw one thing that Lauren would’ve loved if she 
could come with me, crab cakes. She use to catch blue crabs with her family during Jersey Shore vacations out at the Ortley Beach bay area. The lights were barely on, but just from the smell, you could instinctively tell there were crabs all along the walls, practically through the ceiling! They had everything, dungeness, rock, a few spare lobsters, mixed into dish after dish of crab linguine, #1 popular crab melts, and my order of crab cakes. You can’t go wrong with anything that has the word “cake” in it, right? Perhaps they should’ve been crab “cupcakes” for how small they were to scale.
They were smaller in diameter than your own coffee mug. However, the quality was fresher than fresh. It was all succulent tender crab in an herb bed. I couldn’t even tell how it was bound together. I hardly tasted the bread. I paired it with sourdough and went to Neptune’s sea-castle with every bite. Having the live crabs there helps enhance the flavors your tasting because you knew it was the real stuff. No Mermaid-Meat here! (Thank EVERYTHING!) All of that with fries and a salad, it was worth the calories. San Francisco is all sidewalks. Why sit in traffic when you can walk around and look at all of the sights?
San Francisco Chocolate Store
I know I’m trying to lose weight, but I figured, it’s for you, the blog audience. We hardly ever do desserts, so this is a treat for you AND me. See what I mean? Good, don’t tell Lauren! She’ll smack me upside the head!
I was greeted at the entrance by a toy soldier as tall as a baby giraffe. Every type of chocolate was there mostly hand-crafted confections all oozing with chocolate. I snagged a white chocolate marshmallow for the road right off the bat. I also grabbed a scoop of vanilla bean gelato with caramel drizzled throughout. Definitely a perfect summer spot for a date. Nowhere like a sweets shop for your sweetheart. Give them a kiss, or a bag full of them and share a small sundae. I give Lauren the cherry on top every time. My Italian roots still crave their gelato even now. I like how it was nice and creamy and not too icy. It was like a snowball made all out of cream! Vanilla bean is becoming more and more scarce, so maybe I’ll try a different flavor next time, give the plant a breather, you know?
Kan Ramen
There were a million different Asian and specifically Japanese, Chinese and 
American-Chinese places in California. (Remember that history lesson about Angel Island?) Most of them were in Chinatown but I didn’t want to risk getting sick with all of this talk of viruses, so I cruised along the border between their and Little Italy. The ramen places in Clifton Park NY are meh, so I figured with all of the Japanese people here, they must’ve brought their recipes with them and/or passed them down.
After hiking from the hotel to the beach, up a hill or 2 ramen looked like a good idea. Kan was fast, but not as suspiciously fast as Kazan in Albany. The firm noodles were full of tonkotsu broth with extra spice and some sneaky black garlic. I noted the sweet melt-in-your-mouth pork pieces, but it wasn’t sugary sweet. I figure it was from the garlic, it can be spicy and sweet at the same time. Lauren and I can’t live without garlic. The highlight was the sunny boiled egg done just right. This was the most satisfying and lowest cost, $10.00 so for the same price as home, I got a bowl of ramen as big as my shoe that tasted twice as flavorful and the atmosphere was really nice with a friendly yet quiet waitress. I recommend Kan Ramen anytime.
Freshroll
The wharf was an hour hike away. My optics partner Alex’s wife knew about this Vietnamese place called “Freshroll” and brought me in. Their main thing was pho and MYO spring rolls and weird gimmicky sandwiches. Pho is one of my usual weekend lunches at home, so I knew basically what I would get. See this post for more info. I chose beef from their beef, pork or chicken options. I understand how they want to do more than soup, but I love how at Saigon Springs, we not only know 2 of the waitresses there, but their pho section of the menu has variety, like their special full of tripe, vegetarian with tofu or their beef eye-round.
Freshroll had veggies galore; cilantro, basil, lime, bean sprouts etc. I grabbed as many greens as I could fit in my recyclable plastic bowl. Basil in pho is great, but otherwise, the meats were too few, but excellent for what was there. The noodles were very thin and sort of chewy from being overdone. Instead of potato chips, they had taro chips, like semi-sweet nachos. I could see myself munching on these during a movie with peach salsa. Overall, I would call this the fast-food version of pho that made me miss my weekends at Saigon Springs with my Lauren.
Onigilly
Good thing Lauren taught me not to rush around while visiting and how to meander, 
otherwise I would’ve missed this little jade in the rough. J-pop was blasting through the stereo. The name of the restaurant is a play on the word “Onigiri” or “rice balls shaped like triangles wrapped in nori”. Think of them as sushi cones. It was quaint and easily affordable. For $4-6 I got 2 of them full of fish, meat and veg. They don’t just use white rice. They used the most filtered purest brown rice, but the flavor is identical. You can hear the nori crunch like wrapping paper on Christmas day and taste the freshness in every bite. I usually like to try a basic thing 1st because it’s safe. The way a chef does basic elements tells me everything I need to know about his/her capabilities. I tried a moist flakey salmon. I swallowed both of them like they were the world’s greatest sushi, mouth-watering at first sight. They bore an aroma like you grabbed it out of the ocean that very second. I paired it with green tea and dango. 
Dango is a green, white and fuschia mochi full of bean or seed paste. They were so refreshing after savory sushi, to bring me back down to Earth from sushi-nirvana. My colleague came along for my second time on my recommendation. Then, I found shitake mushrooms braised in soy sauce. Let’s just say, I went to Heaven in a blanket. The mushroom had beautiful decadent flavor. Shiitakes usually come off as too chewy, but these enhanced the soy sauce as a salty umami. Put that into the rice and I said, “I’ve never had anything greater than this”. Onigiri is my new calling card. If anyone knows a place that makes them, PLEASE bring me along.
Fisherman’s Grotto
Next to the fishmongers, I looked inside of a fancy-shmancy $35 and over dinner restaurant. My eyes went straight to the octopus tacos. It was a sight to be seen with charred octopus spewing out the seams, cilantro sprigs and romanesco broccoli doused in chipotle sauce. It was a complete entity eaten in 5 minutes trying to savor it all. The chipotle sauce completed it. I took it in as comfort food. But $25 just for 2 tacos was as ridiculous as it sounds on paper. There’s a theme in San Fran about paying top dollar for quality organic and all around expensive ingredients. It’s worth it if you’re sharing, but as a solo diner, I wouldn’t go for this again alone.
Backed Bear
My friend Ting and I knew this would ruin my diet; but 1 way or another, we were going in. Lauren can scream at me later. The whole place had cookies wafting in the air practically calling us from every blue and white corner guarded by polar bears…”have a treat, relax, devour…it’s chocolate”. That was enough for me and I was still peckish after those 2 tacos. A guy needs a dessert after giving a talk in front of highly sophisticated critics. First things first, pick your medium, do you want cookie, brownie or waffle? The cookies were all fresh on the tray as big as a man’s hand. I 
immediately chirped, “Brownie”. It was ooey-gooey fudge on the inside as warm as my darling’s hugs. It was perfectly medium baked on the inside. 2nd, you pick your ice cream. They had the classics, (vanilla, chocolate, strawberry) leading into double chocolate, bunny trails, espresso…the WORKS! I made a beeline for the double dark chocolate. I soon looked over towards the most beautiful near tear jerking section…the topping bar. Peanut chunks, baking chips, sprinkles and my favorite thing of all…Oreo crumble. I could only choose between cookies or brownies at step 1, but there were cookie TOPPINGS, so I could have my cake and eat it too, LITERALLY! COWABUNGA!! The waffle press on the side sealed it all together and wrapped it in a basket, totally worth the $8 for 3 scoops in 1 of icecream in the middle. I wished Lauren , was there to finish the rest because I couldn’t. I only made it halfway at the most, but I digress, it hit the sweet spot right in the kisser. These guys get my 1st place prize in desserts. Bravo!
Crepe Cafe
Last but not least, this was next to the aquarium and Bubba-Gump shrimp. (There will be a post concerning that cookbook later.) There were a few crepe shacks around, but this is the only time and place I could give one a whirl, my last day to be exact, so I went in. There were huge bay windows and round iron disks to thin the batter, bake and flip the crepes. They had egg, spanish, meat, cheese, berries…pretty much everything you could imagine. Dulce de leche ties with maple syrup in my book, and I’m a maple junkie, so that’s saying something. The crepe was as big as my gut is now. It was folded into a wedge and topped with a giant dollop of whip cream. This is $10, so wallets be warned. I remember staying up all night with a bunch of guys in college making crepes by the dozens as a sort of party, twice, so I guess this was enough to show me that some things are best made at home, that way you can put your own flair on it and not have to pay someone on the higher end of the price. Yup, I’ll gladly save my cash next time I want crepes. It’s more fun for me to cook with my angel than to have someone else get all of the spoils. As a scientist, I must insist upon experimenting whenever possible to come to optimum conclusions and find the best formulas for everything from Applesauce to zucchini cake.
