Hedonia

Walk with me, dammit

It's that time again, friends. Loyal readers will know that I am a volunteer walking tour guide through City Guides, and that May and October are months wherein we lead special tours, such as new tour debuts, or just less frequent tours that benefit from the better weather.

This year we are doing something very special indeed. Saturday, May 5, we will be walking six tours from the newly republished book Stairway Walks in San Francisco by Adah Bakalinsky. I will be leading the Eureka Valley walk, which really encompasses both Noe and Eureka Valleys. My tour starts at 2 pm at the corner of Elizabeth and Douglass, and will involve a strenuous hike over hill and dale to some remarkable hidden corners of the city. We're talking lots of stairways, so bring good knees. If you're especially hardy or masochistic, you could theoretically catch one of the 11 am tours and still make it to my neck of the woods for another Bataan death march. But hey, that's up to you. And if you cannot make any of the tours because, say, you're too busy getting drunk on margaritas for Cinco de Mayo, then I command you to buy the book, simply because it is a wonderful way to experience our fair city.

A few other highlights from the schedule of May tours:

Fairmount Hill, May 6, 10 am:
Tour cottage-dotted streets and see impressive views, a modern architectural showcase, and the Poole-Bell Mansion. Also hear the story of the Bells and Mary Ellen Pleasant.

Vistiacion Valley, parts I & II, May 19, 10 am & 2 pm respectively:
Explore little-known Visitacion Valley, named by 18th-century Spaniards lost in the fog and part of the only local land grant deeded to an Anglo. Part I: This tour's focus is on the valley's commerce and transportation--past, present, and future--with a foray into the Spanish-style Little Hollywood enclave west of Bayshore and a stop at Silvestri's statuary showroom. Part II: This tour concentrates on the valley's community life--all reflecting the rich history and emerging promise of the "Valley of the Windmills."

Diego Rivera Mural, May 19, 11 am:
See the last and largest of the murals done by Diego Rivera in the U.S.: Pan American Unity, painted for the Pacific Exposition of 1940.

Mission Dolores Neighborhood, May 20, 12 pm:
Learn about the Spanish Mission that formed the neighborhood, the people who gave their names to San Francisco streets, and the lake that has vanished from the landscape. Explore an area created by diverse groups who still have ties here. This tour runs every Sunday, but I am leading the one on the 20th.

Tenderloin, part I & II, May 20 and 27 respectively, 9 am:
Part I: Learn about famous madams, see where Billie Holiday was busted for opium, and discover the neighborhood poker clubs. Flower nurseries and forges to the madams and gamblers of the uptown Tenderloin. Part II: Explore the Tenderloin from the isolated rural village beginnings to the San Francisco bootlegger wars and the start of the California movie industry. Learn about famous madams, see where Billie Holiday was busted for opium, and discover the neighborhood poker clubs. High rollers and card clubs, gangsters and jazz, and the Vietnam era.

And so many more! What are you waiting for? Get off your duff and walk with me, dammit!

One year ago today ... I enjoyed a nibble at the bar at Incanto. Remind me to tell you about the last several visits.

Chelsea, boy

My company's New York offices are in Chelsea, in one of the comparatively tall buildings -- 12 floors high. One of the nice things about working in a low-rise neighborhood is getting above the rooflines. This is the view from the window in the office I colonized:

Sweet, huh? That funny-shaped white building in the center is New York's first Frank Gehry-designed building; our north windows have majestic Empire State building views; and our south windows have an unobstructed view of the Statue of Liberty, though she's rather far away and puny. Still, it inspires a small thrill. 

The office is just a couple blocks from the magnificent Chelsea Market, which I visited during my lunch hour. The former National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) factory now houses a myriad of shops, food-oriented and otherwise; Food Network's offices are fittingly upstairs. It's kinda like the Ferry Building, only more industrial-looking. Many of the food shops and restaurants have quick take-away stalls out front.

I opted to pick up some stuff from Buon Italia: Stuffed zucchini, stuffed eggplant and some lovely, bitter escarole (that's SHCAROLE to us eye-talians) with pine nuts and too much olive oil -- just the way I like it. Twelve bucks bought me roughly a pound of prepared vegetable material, plus the plastic containers it was served in.

Just past Chelsea Market is the now tragically hip Meatpacking District, the final nail in whose coffin was when Samantha fictitiously moved in in Sex and the City. Where once were actual meat packing warehouses and, later, gay leather bars and tranny hookers, now fancy boutiques occupy the vacuous stalls: Stella McCartney, Alexander McQueen and Jeffrey to name a few. I popped into the latter for a quick peruse, and I spotted an adorable grey pinstripe jacket with bedazzled Dia de los Muertos-style skulls on the back. And it could have been mine, for a mere $3,125. Unfortunately, I only had $2,865 on me, so I had to resist.

But who needs haute couture? Walking around the streets of Chelsea with the wind blowing my très cheap chic H&M scarf about has made me feel rather glam. A swagger and an ounce of attitude are worth thousands on the open market.

Range: Falling star?

I've followed with as much interest as anyone the drama and intrigue around the recent assignment of Michelin guide stars to Bay Area restaurants. I was unsurprised by many of them, but was pleased to see Range receive one star. Frankly, I didn't expect any Mission restaurants to receive that degree of attention.

We've eaten at Range a few times now. We really fell for it from the very first time we went, shortly after opening. Repeat revisits have reconfirmed my opinions: solidly good food and above-par service ... for a Mission restaurant. And that's an important modifier. I have long held that the Mission/Valencia Corridor restaurants are among the best in the city, but that is to say that they are the best in terms of diversity and quality -to-value ratio. They simply cannot be judged on the same terms as, say, Acquerello, much less French Laundry. So how can Acquerello and Range merit the same rating? How did other seeming worthies within the Mission, like Delfina and Limòn (to say nothing of more under-the-radar spots like Walzwerk) miss out?

We returned to Range last night; I was luckily able to nab a reservation for six of us, albeit at the blue-plate special hour of 5:30 pm. It had been a few months since our last visit, and I was eager to see whether the restaurant not only lived up to its newfound Michelin-star reputation, but simply whether it was as good as I had remembered it.

La Provence: Sunshine in the fog

Haven't we just been a couple of Gallic gallants of late? We hopped from Chez Papa to Bistro 1689 (though the latter is scarcely a bistro or especially French), and last night we decided to check out La Provence, in the curious little cluster of eateries at the corner of Guerrero and 22nd. (Is that Mission or Noe Valley? It's I think technically in the Mission but has more of a Noe vibe, n'est-ce pas?)

This is a space we know well. For years it was Mangiafuoco, one of or favorite Italian restaurants, not least because it was mere blocks from where we lived. After Mangiafuoco's closure, it went through a few machinations of short-lived restaurants we never bothered to check out: Da Luisa, Fiamma and I think something else that lasted something like a month. When La Provence opened, we sat back and watched, waited to see whether it would be the latest casualty.

To our mild surprise, it stuck. La Provence has occupied that space for just over a year now, which we decided was long enough for them to work out whatever kinks they might have had. And so last night we made a brief excursion to the south of France.

Le meh: Bistro 1689

I'm always excited by the opening of a new restaurant in our neighborhood. Although Noe Valley has a not insubstantial number of restaurants, comparatively few are really worth writing home (or a blog) about, so I'm always optimistic at the sight of a new eatery. Unfortunately, I am also often disappointed.

Bistro 1689 drew a fair amount of buzz well before it opened, one of a small cluster of changes in the Baja Noe stretch of Church Street, some of which are still afoot. Formerly a nondescript Chinese restaurant, I figured it could only be an improvement. Then again, I'm not crazy about most Chinese food, so the bar was low there.

We popped in last Friday, having made a clearly unnecessary (yet still point-building) 6:30 pm reservation on OpenTable. Let the games begin.