San Francisco is My Home

18
Dec

Ike’s Place

Author: kris, Category: Food

I’ve lived in the Castro for five years, and I feel the neighborhood is almost perfect. The only thing it’s been missing is a really outstanding sandwich shop, and a few weeks ago we finally got one.

Ike’s Place is a new cafe on 16th Street near Market that offers top-notch hot sandwiches, freshly made ice cream and coffee. It’s small but there are a few tables inside and outside, and the food is perfect. I highly recommend checking them out.

10
Dec

Ambiance in Noe Valley

Author: kris, Category: Neighborhoods, Shopping

I went shopping in Noe Valley on Friday. I don’t often get over there, even though it’s right next to my neighborhood. Maybe it’s because of the big whomping hill between us. Anyway, I always forget what a completely charming place it is. If you like gentrification — in a funky boutique way, not a strip mall way — fancy coffee, more strollers than you can shake a rattle at and some well-dressed pedestrians to people-watch, Noe Valley will be right up your alley, or at least up your winding side street.

I wound up at one of the afore-mentioned funky boutiques, Ambiance. And as luck would have it, I happened to be there when they held their customer appreciation party. Free champagne, gift-with-purchase, decent sales and a raffle every half hour: it was excellent.

Though the party is over now, I mention it because Ambiance really is excellent. The selection is great, and unlike most stores it caters to more than one age group: you and your mom can both shop here. On top of this, they run the gamut from over-priced designer dresses to astoundingly marked-down clothes that even I can afford. And I don’t know how much of this was the party and champagne, but the staff was very helpful and made my friend and I feel like queens. They’re shopping assistants, not just counter jockeys, and will help you find different sizes and colors and freely give opinions on what you’re trying on.

The best part? The customer appreciation isn’t over. You can hit their appreciation party at the Haight Street location on Thursday, December 13, from 5 to 9. I highly recommend it.

Image courtesy of Ambiance website.

06
Dec

Stocking Stuffers around town

Author: kris, Category: Shopping

I don’t know about you, but I usually wait until the last minute to think about buying stocking stuffers for people. This year, though, I am vowing to change, and because I run this site you are going to change right along with me. Here’s a few places I’ve found to buy some terrific stuffers:

Cliff’s Variety Store

Cliff’s is the one-stop shop for most of your needs in the Castro, and really deserves a post of its own. It really is a variety store, and much of what it sells is of a size to be easily stuffed into a sock on the mantle. Here you’ll find great small toys for the kids and young-hearted adults in your life: everything from small rubber figures to tiny puzzles and card games to novelty items. You can also pick up fun costume items: drag-queen-sparkly false eyelashes and fun face paints. There are also a ton of art supplies, like colored pencil sets, sequins, feathers and beads.

Green Apple Books

Green Apple has a games section at the back of the store where you’ll find several fun, small card games. They’ve got the relentlessly addictive Set back there — not an easy game to find in this city, believe you me — as well as a Tarot deck designed by Edward Gorey, which unfortunately my best friend and I found at the same time or one of us would surely have bought it for the other. Green Apple also has the smallest, coolest notebooks I’ve ever seen, really tiny pads with shiny metallic pink and gold covers. And if you go upstairs and pause on the landing, you’ll find an excellent collection of little pocket-sized books that would fit perfectly in a stocking.

Mission Street Junk Shops

Wander along Mission Street near 20th and you’ll find a long line of, well, junk. But often it’s the kind of junk you need, the junk — like socks and wrapping paper and fun little Christmas figurines — that you might have been paying more for at Target. If you’ve got some patience, this can be a great place to sniff around in search of treasure.

Pier 39

I really kind of love city-themed stuff, and Pier 39 has it all. I don’t collect t-shirts or anything, but I’ve got the odd treasure stashed away — a stolen beer glass from a pub my girlfriends went to in New Zealand, sew-on patches from places I’ve been, postcards from all over. If you’re visiting out-of-town family this Christmas, maybe they’d get a kick out of an SF-themed shot glass, stocking cap or picture frame. Cheesy? Sure. But stocking stuffers are not about being tasteful. I say, bring on the cheese. Which brings us to…

The Castro Cheesery, Joseph Schmidt Confections, Chocolate Covered

The Cheesery does not actually carry cheese anymore, which is fine with me. I am skeptical about the merits of stuffing a smelly cheese into someone’s heirloom stocking. What they do carry is a wide selection of gourmet coffees. A small amount of great coffee is a great addition to a stocking.

But we all know it’s all about the chocolate. Joseph Scmidt was born and grew up in SF, and just looking at the creations is almost enough to satisfy you. Their sweets are gourmet, expensive, and amazing, and their store window is very hard to walk past. Chocolate Covered’s candies, by contrast, are less gourmet (though still delicious), but the store has a funky atmosphere helped along by the old-school lunchboxes for sale everywhere. They’ll also do you a custom box with any photo you like on the front, although I don’t think this would fit in a stocking.

 Chocolate St. Nick courtesy of Joseph Schmidt.

03
Dec

Under One Roof

Author: kris, Category: Shopping

The Under One Roof holiday store is open for business at Market & 15th Street, selling every possible permutation of Santa figurines imaginable. All proceeds from purchases made at the Under One Roof store are shared among 30 HIV/AIDS charities, so shopping here is a good thing. Plus, I’ve only glanced inside but they seem to be selling higher-quality merchandise than the usual schlocky plastic stuff you find at this time of year. It’s worth a look, and it’s a good way to toss some money towards several very worth organizations.

26
Nov

The Fashion Exchange

Author: kris, Category: Shopping

I recently decided I need to dress like Natalie Portman in Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium (wow, do you ever not care about this, but stay with me). Unfortunately, all the stores are filled with clothes for Natalie Portman in The Darjeeling Limited, so I had to hit the thrift stores, which are all I can really afford anyway.

So it was that last week saw me sniffing around The Fashion Exchange, currently my favorite used store because it’s near my house. Also because, unlike the really grotty and exciting thrift stores like Goodwill, The Fashion Exchange only accepts higher-quality clothes, so I don’t spend an hour sorting through soup-smelling flannel dresses before I find something useful.

(I have just outed myself as a thrift-store-come-lately, I know. True afficionados relish the soup scent, and some even brew batches of soupy perfume to maintain that faint chicken noodle scent all the time.*)

Because it’s on the edge of the Castro, The F.E. has a hefty guy wardrobe, but naturally I gravitated towards the skirts and stuff. Here is what I like about the girl side of the store: many things are shiny, there is a decent selection of colorful clothes in addition to the standard boring blacks, browns and taupes, and lots of stuff comes in normal sizes instead of grandmother-huge or little-sister-wee.

Of course the prices are not rock-bottom like a good thrift, but there is more than enough affordable stuff that you can browse right by the more expensive labels. Unless you like that kind of thing, but then what are you doing here?

*That is a lie. Or, I don’t know, maybe they do.

25
Nov

Good Vibes and court TV

Author: kris, Category: Shopping

I just went into one of my local corner stores to grab a few things. While I waited in line to buy my eggs and whathaveyou, I was treated to a few minutes of one of the most horrific shows I’ve ever seen, playing on the store’s TV. (And, okay, I haven’t watched much TV since The Cosby Show went off the air, but still.) It featured gritty videotapes of real-life court scenes where people were physically attacking each other, while a gleeful narrator described — in detail — the horrible crimes (often involving children) that the trials were dealing with.

While I waited, trying and failing not to hear the show, I was mentally comparing this shopping experience to the experiences I’ve had at local sex shop Good Vibrations. (I’m not sure why I was thinking of this, but let’s just run with it.)

I was hesitant to enter Good Vibes, even for research purposes, because I figured it would be graphic and kind of slimy-feeling and generally miserable. Instead, I found a clean, well-lit place for sex toys in every shade of pink and purple, many with Hello Kitty themes. Unlike the convenience store, where I gradually sunk into my shoes from the misery of what I was hearing, Good Vibes is full of, well, good vibes, with a friendly staff who looks you in the eye and a clientele who never seem to be hiding something under their overcoats.

Oh! I remember why I was thinking of this. It’s because at my corner store, the ice cream is put way in the back corner, like the porn is in some video stores (I’ve heard). I thought it was funny that I feel a little guilty and furtive buying a pint of Ben & Jerry’s but never feel that way in the actual sex store.

And maybe this is one of those famously deplorable “San Francisco values” we hear so much about, or maybe this is just my value. Maybe I’m wrong about all this, and the sex shop is the perversion while reality TV is good healthy entertainment. Living in this city, it’s honestly hard to understand “normal” sometimes, or even identify it when I see it.

I guess I will go skulk in the corner with my ice cream now.

21
Nov

Sushi Zone

Author: kris, Category: Food

I’m going to talk about Sushi Zone for a moment. Understand, I’m doing this with great reluctance, and I’m going to need you all to promise never to actually go there.

You see, Sushi Zone, which lives in what is essentially a cubby-hole at 1815 Market, is always crowded.  And I mean crowded. When they open for dinner at 5:00, you need to have been in line for half an hour if you want to be seated. There are two or three tables and several counter stools and, folks, that’s it. Fools who show up at a reasonable hour for dinner can expect to wait two hours for a table. And they do it, too. I’ve done it myself more than once.

Why such a wait? The answer is obvious, right? Topless waitresses.

Okay, no. Obviously, the food is outstanding. When you go (because I know you will go; nobody ever listens to me when I ask for favors), you’ll want to begin your meal with several orders of the baked mango sea bass. Make sure you get at least one order per person; you will not be sorry, even if you don’t like mango or sea bass. Baked in mussel shells, the mango sea bass is a hot, creamy concoction of goodness, a Fred Astaire song and dance on your tongue. It is, literally, the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

After that, you’ll want to check out the Hawaiian numbers 1 and 2, and, well, anything else on the menu. After the mango sea bass it won’t matter so much what you get or don’t get, because you’ll be floating around in a glowing golden bubble of delight. But everything there is excellent, so you’ll be fine.

The best part is that you can order way too much food and still come away with a reasonable bill, especially for a sushi restaurant. Just make sure you wear pants with an elastic waistband.

Some people, of course, think that Sushi Zone is not all that. Those people are, as William Goldman once put it, “enemies of art and I pity their ignorance.” In other words, more for me.

16
Nov

Aww!

Author: kris, Category: News, Shopping

Every year, our awesome SPCA branch does a promotional holiday window display at Macy’s. It earns a ton of money for the SPCA, helps find homes for shelter animals, and is just ridiculously cute.

I just got home from the unveiling ceremony of this year’s windows, starring former 49ers quarterback Steve Young. I remember my dad having a sweet sports crush on Steve Young after his favorite football hero, Joe Montana, left the 49ers, so I have fond feelings for the man. The fact that he donated his time to come pull back a curtain for the SF/SPCA also speaks highly for him.

You can watch the little window scamps playing around on webcam shots that are updated every three seconds, or just head on over to Macy’s and do your oohing and awwing in person. Added bonus: there’s a big one-day sale going on at Macy’s today.

14
Nov

Tartine

Author: kris, Category: Food

I had a minor professional setback this morning and spent a couple of hours scrambling around in fix-it mode. By the time I left the house to meet a friend at Tartine, I was walking under a little cloud of self-absorbed gloom, which the brilliant blue November sky, the flowers bursting out everywhere and the balmy weather did nothing to dispel.

Then I got to Tartine, and remembered why I love being a freelance writer so much. It’s because weekdays are the only time you can possibly get a seat at this toothsome little bakery, which is always full of people and often has a line reaching out the door.

Today I got there before my friend and ordered coffee for me, a cappuccino for her, a pain au chocolat and a slice of almond lemon pound cake, fortunately scoring two seats at a communal table by the door. I draped my sweater over one seat and put the drink and pastry in front of it, then sat down in the other. After about ten minutes I realized that I looked like a little girl giving a tea party to my imaginary friend.

My imaginary Harvey and I sat watching the room, which, being shy, I don’t often do. But there’s something about Tartine that relaxes me. Probably it’s the steamy bakery smell that wanders around crawling up people’s noses, and is so sweet that you don’t even mind how many other noses it was in before it got to yours.

And speaking of sweet…not everyone understands the art of making pain au choclat (or chocolate croissants, if you are not all pretentious like I am), but Tartine understands. The croissant is huge and flat and flaky, and filled all the way through — not just in one tiny strip — with gooey, perfect chocolate. And Tartine is the kind of place where you can turn to your neighbor and ask if you’ve got chocolate on your face, even if he’s eyeing your imaginary friend and, increasingly, you, with a raised eyebrow and a kind of worried expression, wondering whether you’re so crazy he’ll have to change seats.

This is not a place where you can kick back for a couple of hours and advance your novel or read the paper, but if you want to sit for 40 minutes or so — and you come during the day on a weekday — it’s perfect. On a weekend, come for the food, by all means, and since you won’t get a seat, take your bakery bag and your coffee one block to Dolores Park, where you can watch the golden retrievers bounding around and cheerfully get chocolate all over your face.

07
Nov

We are nihilists, Earl.

Author: kris, Category: Shopping

I went to Castro Village Bowl on Monday. While Albany Bowl is the more popular of the local bowling joints, Castro Village has the benefit of not being horrible crowded, and also being incredibly cheap.

I bellied up to the bar for a beer early into the first game. There was a crowd of maybe four or five regulars bunched up at the end of the bar, big men in their mid to late fifites drinking Coronas. As I waited for my beers to be uncapped, one of the men eased himself over onto the stool next to me. There was a pause while all his friends got kind of quiet and I pretended not to notice anything was going on. Then, “So, Earl,” one of his friends called at him, “how’s your married life?”

Beat. Raucous laughter. Blushing, poor Earl eases himself back over to his friends and I take my beers back out to the lanes.