What to eat in San Francisco: Farmers market at Ferry Building, sushi at Kabuto, crab and garlic noodles at Thanh Long, and artisanal ice cream at Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous

My childhood best friend got married last month in Montery, and it was an opportunity for me to revisit the lovely Bay area. It would be John’s first time to northern California so naturally, we made a list of all the things we wanted to see and do. You would think our list included the Golden Gate Bridge, Lombard Street, Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, Alcatraz, or riding a true cable car. But no, being the foodaphiles we are, we saw none of those. Each day was about getting from one food item to the next. It was insane but in an awesome insanity kind of way, as much as insanity can be awesome. Needless to say, we are already missing the Bay area: the weather, the atmosphere, the nature, and especially the food. Here is a little tribute to our recent trip to lovely NorCal.We arrived late Friday night so of course we hit up the In-N-Out by the airport. I was not terribly hungry because I’d caved on the plane and bought a cheeseburger (which, surprisingly, was not bad for airplane food—thanks, Continental/now United), so I just ordered their animal-style fries. Now if you’re not familiar with In-N-Out’s secret menu, animal style just means adding caramelized onions and thousand island dressing on whatever it is you ordered. Thus animal-style fries means this topping on top of fries. In-N-Out is good but honestly, I prefer Five Guysto In-N-Out. I know, blasphemy…but hey, I have my opinions. Maybe there will have to be a future post on this topic.Saturday morning, we immediately hit up the Ferry Building farmer’s market for we’d heard so many great things. I remember on John’s first trip to NYC, he came upon the Union Square farmer’s market and was in awe; it was the first farmer’s market he’d ever been to, and he was so happy gazing at all the vibrant produce and interesting local eats. Of course, the one in SF’s Ferry Building would be that much better. And better it was. Blocks of booths and stands and food venues. Asian pears, samosas, oysters, coffee…it was a food paradise. We tried New Orleans style coffee from Blue Bottle which we’d also heard about. The lines were long but there were two locations within the venue, so we got our orders after fifteen minutes. The coffee is very fresh—the beans are ground on order (which explains the wait). We also tried a few different types of oysters from Hog Island Oysters which also had two spots in the area. We opted to order ours from the farmer’s market stand rather than the restaurant inside the Ferry Building. At $2 each, they are not cheap, but they were definitely fresh, smaller and sweeter than the Gulf Coast’s larger and brinier variety. Here oysters tend to be eaten with just a little olive oil and shallots rather than cocktail sauce and horseradish, a method that supposedly preserves the taste integrity of the oyster. Either way, they were delicious.We saw another long line at RoliRoti, a mobile rotisserie unit. The couple in line advised us to try the porchetta, a slow-roasted pork served on ciabatta bread. After the dude behind the counter chops up your pork, he takes the bread slices and mops up the pork juices so all that fatty goodness soaks into your ciabatta. A little sweet onion dresses the sandwich, and voila, you’ve got yourself a $9 sandwich. We ate the porchetta (which was featured in Men’s Health for being one of the 10 Best Street Eats in America) on a bench facing the bay with the sun smiling down on us. Life is good, man.On Sunday, we returned to the Ferry Building to eat, this time, inside the Hog Island Oysters restaurant. John and I shared a flight (“flight” sounds better and less Applebee’s-like than “sampler platter”) of oysters with our friend Stan: a variety of 24 for $60—steep, but hey, we were on vacation. Upon Stan’s recommendation, we also tried the clam chowder. It came in a thin creamy soup that tasted heavily of bacon, and the small clams were swimming inside with their shells still on. John, who is used to thick chowder, made me happy when he said it tasted a lot like my clam chowder with the exception that I’d used canned clams instead of fresh—next time, I’ll have to try using live ones. We also ordered the oyster stew which wasn’t bad but wasn’t great. The portions are small (perhaps I’m used to huge impossible Texas dishes); and 24 oysters, three stews/chowders, and three non-alcoholic beverages set us back $130. Ouch, but as usual, when we’re on vacation, we eat like our wallets are bottomless.Next we grabbed ice cream at Mr. And Mrs. Miscellaneous in Dogpatch. I had the jasmine green tea on a cone while John tried both that and browned butter. Mr. And Mrs. Miscellaneous is one of the many ice cream shops serving up creative flavors in SF, e.g. candied violet (which tasted like a purple Skittle exploded in my mouth). The ice cream is served in a perfect ball on top of a skinny cone; it looked just like a toy and was so adorable that it made me love the shop even more for presentation. What is it about ice cream that gets your heart pumping? The scientific answer is probably all the cream and sugar that goes in it, but the romantic side of me prefers to say it’s the sweet coolness of it hitting your tongue that causes the endorphins to go out of control.For our first supper (that’s right, I said first,/em>), Stan took us to Kabuto Sushi where I had the best sushi I’d ever had in my life. Even when I went to Japan in 2007, the sushi was not as delicious as Kabuto’s. Okay, so there’s a huge caveat: when I went to Japan, we couldn’t afford to eat at the real sushi joints because they were way expensive so we only ate at the kaitensushi bars which, yes, are considered the fast food of Japanese sushi. I’m sure if I’d had the better sushi in Japan, it’d be comparable if not better than what I had at Kabuto. But regardless, Kabuto had the best sushi I’d had this side of the Pacific. Everything was ordered a la carte, and each piece was roughly $5 a pop. The traditional sushi we had was blue fin tuna (my favorite bite that evening), butterfish, escolar, Tasmanian salmon (which was disappointingly lavorless), and sea urchin. We also had some of their more creative sushi like the fatty tuna seared with a blowtorch; foie gras with raspberry on top of sushi rice; yellowtail paired with pear and hot mustard; a twist on the classic ceviche served on seaweed; and last but not least eel tossed with pear, foie gras, and chocolate sauce served in a martini glass. The presentation of this last one was a bit over the top for my taste but in terms of taste and creativity, it was the winner among the creative line.Immediately after we settled the bill at Kabuto, we made our way across town to Thanh Longwhere we had our second supper of salt and pepper dungeness crab and garlic noodles. We also tried their shaking beef which used ribeye steak and came so flavorful that it didn’t need the traditional dipping sauce.I left stuffed and was sad that I could not enjoy more of Thanh Long. That is what I get for being a glutton. We went home and while waiting to fall asleep, looked up where to eat the next day. We knew we’d be heading to Napa: more good food and drink. Stay tuned for more of our SF eating adventures.