zachary's pizza in berkeley is AMAZING the china town food is awesome there are great burritos, i like this place called high tech burrito if you go to berkeley, check out telegraph and shattuck, those streets are great, and get better as you near the campus. amoeba records has stores in berkeley and san fran, their used selections on movies and cd's is amazing, you should check it out of you are a music fan.
Eat at Little Henry's. It's sort of a hole in the wall Italian restaurant, yet it's run by an Asian family. They sure do make some tasty eats! http://eastbay.citysearch.com/profile/886012/
lamb schwarma at Truly Med(iterranean) in either the haight or the mission. Escape From New York pizza slices on haight. alcatraz was way more impressive than i thought it was going to be. take the BART to berkeley and do drugs with the young'uns... (just kidding...drugs are bad.) seriously, berzerkeley is a pretty cool place to hang out and chill and meet weirdos.
A lot of suggestions in this thread from 2 years ago, http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?threadid=73962 ...if I remember right (actually, I remember left, but you get the idea). Check out my suggestion for Beach Blanket Babylon. It's hilarious political satire, in a vaudeville, song and dance style, with Broadway quality actors. The has been been running for years and years, and there's a good reason why. Get one of the little round tables in the center, not far from the stage. You can sit and order drinks while you're cracking up. Buy reserved tickets early. You can get them on the net at this link, and learn a little about it: http://www.beachblanketbabylon.com/ As I said in that thread, man, am I jealous. We love that city. Great ideas here, already, and in the thread I posted. Have fun! (you too, Jeff! )
You live in Houston and you've never had pho? Wow. Houston has a rather large Vietnamese population, so you're selling yourself short. Pho is basically a noodle soup, but with a distictly Asian style and flavor. Depends on where you go and what kind you get as to what they actually put in it, but I've rarely had bad pho. Go try it, it's great. If you're worried about what the meat is inside, order the Pho Tai. The meat is slices of beef, so there's nothing in there to scare you.
I know, I know, no need to rub it in Thanks, I give you my word that I will give 'Pho' a try one of these days.
I'm the manager at the Holiday Inn Fisherman's Wharf & the Holiday Inn Express Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I can get you a Friends & Family rate for almost any hotel in the city... which is usually 60% of the normal rate. And, yes, parking is a premium in San Francisco... so expect to pay anywhere from $30 (Fisherman's Wharf) to $70 (Downtown) per night for parking. Send me a PM if you are interested in the F&F, and we'll go from there.
There's a place on the corner of Washington St. & Grant St. in Chinatown called "Sam Wo". It's the oldest, still existing, Chinese restaurant on the west coast. It was built in the late 1800's and has remained relatively unchanged. You won't find a place like it anywhere else in the world. Also. If you ask a concierge, they will recommend you to the "House of Nanking"... do not go there. Its a tourist trap... and the food sucks.
Be at the Slanted Door at eleven when they open (this practically assures you of getting a table). If you go to Napa, Do the tasting at Swanson vineyards. It isn't free (heck, it's $55), but it's the best tasting in the wine country, and they have great wines. As for China Town, just walk up and down the streets and pop into any place that looks good; point to something, and hold up however many fingers you want for the amount you want. For all I know, they were charging me the "tourist" price, but it was still CHEAP and good.
If you haven't tried it yet, do this next time when you go to a Pho restaurant. Ask them for a piece of lemon (usually they don't charge you extra) and squeeze the juice onto the pho and the soup...wow, make me hungry now.
If you're only their for a few days don't bother renting a car. You can walk to most places in SF or take Muni and BART. If you've never driven on hills, or parked on hills, its going to be a challenge to drive in SF not to mention that with traffic and if you don't know the streets its not always that easy to get around and of course the parking situation. You can take BART to Berkeley and the parking is just as bad in Berkeley. I second a lot of the places listed. Some other places I would suggest seeing is Golden Gate Park, Japantown the SFMOMA, the Exploratorium and Sutro Baths. These were public baths that collapsed into the ocean but the ruins are pretty cool, the view out over the Pacific is great there, plus there is some pretty good hiking along the cliffs at Point Lobos there with great views of the Golden Gate bridge and Marin headlands. If you want to check out the Golden Gate bridge you can walk across it and you can take a ferry to Sausalito in Marin. For food there's tons of great food. In addition to what others have suggested I would recommend checking out some of the Tacquerias in the Mission at the Mission and 24th BART stop there are several really good ones. If you go to Berkeley I would also recommend visiting Oakland. It gets a pretty bad wrap but its a decent city. Oakland Chinatown while not as historic has as good food as SF's but cheaper. I had some of the best Northern Chinese food I've ever had in Oakland Chinatown. The area around the Rockridge BART station at the Oakland / Berkeley border is pretty nice along with Grand Ave. at Lake Merritt. If you're a baseball fan the Oakland Coliseum is a great place to catch a game. Have a good trip. If you end up going there in early September let me know because I will be in the Bay Area for awhile then and will be happy to show you around if I have time or just have a beer at the Jupiter Brewer near my Alma Mater.
