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How to enjoy SF
- gattis 3y agohad to stop reading when the first suggestion was "steps and slides" and the picture showed a slide apparently made out of rough concrete.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lyapunova 3y agoThis is really cute. I appreciate the sentiment and I think it applies even beyond SF. FWIW, I have lived in SF for the last 8 years and I agree wholeheartedly.
- ramesh31 3y agoFood is the one thing I'll give SF and the bay area. I've never lived in NYC, but I can imagine it's the only place in the US that comes close. Things are just at another level there than anywhere else I've seen.
- androidbishop 3y agovery true
- inferiorhuman 3y agoIt really depends on what you're looking for. Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Chicago all come to mind as cities with a strong food culture. I'd add Portland and Seattle too with the caveat that you've gotta be a bit more picky.
- throwa623432 3y agoWhat I love most is the Persian food
- metalforever 3y agoI have lived in both, SF food is amateur hour and its expensive in comparison to NYC. $4.50 for a slice of "pizza" that is really a panini open faced sandwich GTFOH.
- drcode 3y agoYeah you can get fantastic food in SF but it requires maybe more effort to find than in other big Metros. I would speculate it's the fact that a lot of folks are vegetarian and therefore tend to cook for themselves at home: The fact that they are no longer in the "restaurant eating" pool of people negatively impacts the restaurant scene. Also, California restaurants tend to emphasize ingredient quality over other factors- I don't know what's in a slice of pizza when I go to New York, all I know is it is delicious. Again, just wildly speculating here
- metalforever 3y agoHonestly it’s unclear. The quality ingredient thing - maybe just marketing? Who is honestly serving quality ingredients when they cannot afford the rent or paying their staff. There’s a lot more mediocrity that flies here versus Manhattan . There are some great restaurants there but unless you are killing it or serving pasta, you are going under in like 12 months . Even standard coffee shops have great food as a result (bodegas excepted). As a data point , the tenderloin I have noticed has the best food at the best price points, if you are willing to go there.
- woah 3y agoIMO median food in NYC is much lower quality than what you can get in SF. It just is unhealthier and less fresh. Maybe for pizza or fine dining NYC is better but SF takeout just seems much more nourishing and higher quality. I’ve also been served really terrible food in NYC on several occasions, which has never happened in SF.
- nouveaux 3y agoHow are you going to compare pizza in SF to NYC pizza? How many places in the world has better pizza than NYC at a lower price?
- unusualmonkey 3y agoI moved to Vegas, both cities have a great assortment of amazing foods.
- inferiorhuman 3y agoOn Chinese food: Historically the folks who settled in San Francisco came from different areas than those who settled in New York, so the food is different. However, a friend from LA pointed out that there just isn't as much of a restaurant culture in San Francisco as there is in LA. A mediocre Taiwanese restaurant in LA wouldn't survive, but nobody would bat an eye up here because the people that really care are more inclined to cook at home. It's not just Chinese food, take a look at Mexican food here versus LA or Texas (even Bourdain complained about this). As far as the author's list goes, I was pretty underwhelmed with Z&Y. It's got a fair bit of hype but didn't deliver. In any case, for a touch of pedantry: there are three Koi Palace locations, all on the peninsula. Equator is from Marin, but I wouldn't get so hung up on being local. Philz is fine, and so is Peets.
- tzhenghao 3y agoAgree! I've also noticed that the # of restaurants vs. price distribution for eating out in SF falls off a cliff especially <$25 per person range, whereas there are many more options in NYC and LA. In other words, prepare to pay up, stand in line for hours or be on a reservation waitlist for the most part if you want "good" food in SF.
- photonerd 3y agoThat’s because all the restaurants in that price range are in the rest of the bay, Oakland in particular.
- inferiorhuman 3y agoOakland is still plenty expensive – banh mi are in the $7–10 range which is about double where they were fifteen years ago. Tacos are $3–4. Depending, of course, on how far east you want to venture.
- photonerd 3y ago$7-10 ain’t very expensive for a huge, fresh grilled, sandwich these days, no matter where you are.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- wyclif 3y ago[flagged]
- culopatin 3y agoI don’t get these comments. Is sf only downtown or the tenderloin? No. I moved here recently and I must say that the sidewalks in the rest of the city are cleaner than in many other big cities ive been to around the world. Not to start whatoutism but have you been to DC? even outside of downtown there is trash everywhere, SO many rats. I’d argue that the homeless situation there is in worse shape. NYC? New Orleans? Glen park, twin peaks, Noe Valley, anything west of mission is pretty clean, I’m yet to encounter shit on the sidewalk on this side of the city. Sure the tenderloin is pretty bad, but there is a whole rest of the city to walk out there that’s beautiful.
- photonerd 3y agoTell me you’re not from a big city without telling me… (London, Paris, NYC, etc etc etc all have similar issues)
- seedless-sensat 3y agoSF streets are notably worse than the cities you listed
- culopatin 3y agoWhere in sf? Just the tenderloin and surrounding areas?
- School-Cotton 3y agoCherry-picking three famously disgusting big cities doesn’t prove that filth and lawlessness is a necessary consequence of urbanization. What about Seoul or Tokyo?
- jen20 3y ago> Cherry-picking three famously disgusting big cities London is not famously disgusting by any stretch of the imagination.
- nantersand 3y agoThis post was written by Yitong on 17 Jun 2023 in New York, NY. Hmm
- pininja 3y agoDistance makes the heart grow fonder?
- readthenotes1 3y agoReminds me of Seinfeld's "Yay NYC" tweet written in the Hamptons
- andirk 3y agoI have been on a mission to figure out why Mexican food falls off a cliff after going north of LA. Plenty of Mexicans, plenty of amazing produce and proteins, what happens after LA that says put rice in my burrito?? Exception: Best SF Mexican tacos is of course Taqueria Vallarta in the Mission.
- throwa623432 3y agoThis! I've had better Mexican food in the Midwest than the bay.
- School-Cotton 3y agoBurritos are not really Mexican food in general — they’re the regional cuisine of a region that includes the American southwest and the extreme north of Mexico. You’re basically saying you like regional LA cuisine better than regional SF cuisine, not that one region is particularly more faithfully reproducing “Mexican food” than the other.
- simonw 3y agoSomeone pointed out to me the other day that the Bay Area was part of Mexico from 1821 until 1848 (it was under Spanish control prior to that) - so one way to think about Bay Area Mexican food (and Californian Mexican food in general) is that it is it's own regional variety, and has been for a couple of hundred years at least.
- School-Cotton 3y agoExactly, although I’m not sure whether rice in burritos was around back then or if it’s a more recent invention.
- travisjungroth 3y agoThis is a legitimate way of viewing things. I wonder how “true” it is in the sense that explains Mexican food in California today. Specifically, I don’t think the Mexican population in Alta California was really all that high in 1848. I think it just wasn’t all that high in general. So there are families that can trace themselves to Mexican California, but I believe their numbers and culinary influence was overshadowed by the significantly bigger population that came later. But maybe that’s just as authentic. They were bringing and making dishes, not copying them.
- bbcc90 3y agoLove this. I’m 10 years in SF myself. One thing I would add is the people
- throwa623432 3y agoAgreed, the dating in the bay is amazing.
- est31 3y agoMost statements I've heard about the dating scene are pretty negative for men at least. Mostly stuff like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/y0heqs/what_is_the_dating_scene_like_in_the_bay_area/irscvb5/ https://old.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/y0heqs/what_is_the...
- selectodude 3y agoMan Jose is pretty tragic.
- asielen 3y agoThe peninsula and San Jose is terrible but the city and East Bay are good. Silicon valley is full of guts who have inflated egos because of their pay checks, but they have not much else going for them.
- matt3210 3y agoGo to poor areas bars. I find that ladies there are very happy to find any stable man that can afford to live without roommates.
- 8f2ab37a-ed6c 3y agoMy female straight friends flying in from LA and NYC feel like they Bay is a goldmine for women looking for ambitious partners, your "purchasing power" is a lot higher here. At the same time, I don't think I've ever heard a single straight male praise the area for its love-life opportunities.
- 3y ago
- 23B1 3y agoI loved the Bay Area when we lived there for the outdoors, the food, and the varied terrain, like this article outlines. But I hated the Bay Area for the people. Not that anyone was particularly nasty or mean, they were just flaky. The number of cancelled plans, far, far outnumbered the kept ones. I'm open to the idea it was just me, but I know we weren't the only people experiencing this – and I have a much easier time of it in other cities where I've lived – Amsterdam, London, and NYC.
- drcode 3y agoHaving lived there for a year, I agree about the flakiness However, along with that comes an openness to experiences from people: If you do anything creative, you will be surprised how much the median person in the Bay will be sincerely into it Less of the "why would anyone do something like that" attitude I found in the Midwest or East Coast when I show people the stuff I do.
- ZephyrBlu 3y agoI've seen other people say that people in NYC are notoriously flaky.
- 23B1 3y agoI have no quantitative data either way, but anecdotally people are late but will usually just tell you if they can/can't make it, as opposed to the 'yes means no' out west.
- smohare 3y ago[dead]
- pesus 3y agoI don’t think it’s just people in the Bay Area that are flaky, but rather Californians in general. I don’t really know what causes it, but I’m guilty of it myself, since I’ve lived here my entire life. Living in a place like SF where there’s a lot of options just exacerbates it.
- TaylorAlexander 3y agoI grew up in the Bay Area my whole life. I simply wouldn't want to live anywhere else. The natural beauty, the politics[1], the community, the employment options. I agree with the article on niche interests. I am a queer polyamorous trans woman and Oakland (which I consider basically "SF" for the purposes of this discussion) is a hell of a place for people like me. I think there are very few places where I could find the kind of queer community I have found here. I also recently joined an artists collective and I have been helping work on burning man art as a group, that is really cool to work with others on something like that! I can't say which city is best if you are a straight white dude working remote for a FAANG company, but for the kind of community I want, this place is a dream. [1] On politics - I actually do not really want to talk about "SF politics" on hacker news because it is instant flamewar territory, but all I will say is I am NOT talking about the specific decisions of San Francisco politicians, which seems to be a HUGE mess and very wrapped up in special interests. I am talking about the political ideologies of regular people. As a trans woman I can walk around here and feel perfectly confident that NO ONE is going to be weird or threatening to me because of my identity. People can be gay or trans here and no one gives a shit. I can get the health care I need without issue. If I lived in London it would have been extremely hard to get the healthcare I need. And then there are other things, like the guy I saw today wearing a "#schoolsnotprisons" t-shirt. YES! I very much agree with this. And then Oakland decriminalized mushrooms (and Santa Cruz, and maybe SF did too) and there is a big push to legalize more drugs here. These are the kinds of things I mean when I say SF politics - the politics of the regular people.
- burner_16913678 3y agoThe politics in particular are why SF is such a gross place. It shouldn’t matter whether you were born in the place you live or not, trans or not, white or not, or work for a FAANG or not. If you’re not originally from SF, and you work in tech, and don’t have some interesting combination of race, gender, and/or sexual preference, the incumbent residents will never forgive you for it. Unlike some parts of the US where people may secretly hate you but at least act polite, or other places where people are quick to get into confrontation, but at least they’re genuine and pretty much alright, in SF people are shitty and overtly rude. 25 years after the dot com boom, still expect people to roll their eyes or talk shit to your face for being an engineer. Bonus points: live here long enough and you’ll encounter even grosser fringe stuff like using anti-Israeli policy as an excuse for straight-up antisemitism. Using anti-racism as an excuse for pro-car anti-pedestrian policies. Using the of environmentalism as an excuse to protect gas stations and parking lots and prevent construction of housing. The weirdest bit is the very few people I know who were actually born here are great. The vast majority of the people using the cudgel of “oh yeah? How long have you lived here?” may only outrank you by a few years.
- lxe 3y agoBeen living in the Bay Area for almost 10 years now. When I first came here for job interviews, I decided to stay for a few days. Rented a car and drove from Los Gatos to Santa Cruz -- I just saw the sig that said "Santa Cruz" and that sounded exotic, so I just went. What a memorable drive. Dipped my feet into the ocean after parking at some historic surfer spot, and remember how cold it was and how awesome it felt. Had interviews in SF later that week and then headed to "Marin Headlands" -- had no idea what to expect. It was a Tuesday, so not a lot of people. Saw what are probably the best views in the world from out there. After moving here (Berkeley -- couldn't afford anything in SF without finding a roommate), I knew that the "awe" factor would take 3-5 years to fade. Every morning I would walk to BART and be greeted with flora that can be described as "alien" -- nowhere else I've seen plants of such variety just growing in peoples' front yard. On the BART ride back from SF, I would be greeted by a sunset and the views of GG bridge between MacArthur and Ashby stations, and I knew at the time that that "awe" still has a long way until it fades. I moved to Potrero Hill soon -- rooming with with a few friends. It was such a great time living in the city in my 20s with a bunch of friends. I would walk to my office in Financial District every day. I would take the long way. I walked a lot in the city. Almost every day I would just soak in the place. The "awe" stuck around. I also had a car that I barely put on any miles on, aside from taking random road trips. My buddy and I set the destination to "Big Sur" and just drove. It ended up taking us up some fire trails up some mountain. Then through forest roads meant for only one car going one direction. I had a period of my life where I was living in Berkeley again, and my commute involved riding a motorcycle to the marina before the sunrise, then taking a ferry across the bay watching the sun rise above Oakland hills and the morning open up the city views. And the commute back at sunset was spectacular. That place I was living in in North Berkeley was like something out of Miyazaki movie. The neighbors knew each other. People would stop and chat on the street. This period will always be etched in my memory. There were so so many other things I can recall from memory that keep the "awe" alive. The fires at Ocean Beach. The random dumpling places in Sunset. Discovering things like the wave organ, or that mechanical museum close to the Pier 39. Climbing up and down from Coit tower. The random bikes and walks in the GG park. Land's end "maze". Cycling the wiggle. Driving up and down the coast and staying at roadside inns. Big Sur. Big Basin. Hot springs. Tahoe trips. Russian River. etc etc.... I live in the Suburbs now. It's nice. The neighbors help each other out and know each other well. The little kids play on the streets. The older ones ride bikes through the neighborhood streets to school. The vibe is different, but it's still Bay Area. I still go on random adventures. I still feel the "awe" sometimes.
- zy1t 3y agoOP here – just chiming in to say I'm enjoying how nice everyone is being :D Glad to hear other folks have the same feelings towards SF!
- Bukhmanizer 3y agoGreat article! What Chinese places do you recommend in LA? LA has great food but I find it hard to discover new places here.
- rjdlee 3y agoTry Kaya Bakery for some more Asian inspired pastries!
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- galoisscobi 3y agoLived in the Bay Area for a few years. Do not miss the work culture, especially people around me graciously donating free extra work hours to companies worth billion/trillion dollars and expecting others to do the same.
- culopatin 3y agoThat’s not a Bay Area issue but an American work culture issue.
- galoisscobi 3y agoI’m in a different city in California now, working for the same company I used to in the Bay Area. The office is empty at 6 pm here. In the Bay Area most people stayed till at least 7 pm, some till 9 pm regularly. While I agree that this tendency to overwork and expecting others to do the same is a part of the American work culture, in the Bay Area it seems to be cranked up to 11.