San Francisco Food Crawl

Tis the season and we haven’t posted in a looooong time.  But we’re back with another fun filled installment of San Diego Food dot neat! I ventured into San Francisco about a month ago with Anh and we decided we would make the trip worth our while. Once our brunch destination was set up with some friends at Mission Beach Cafe, our next task was to see how many places were within walking distance we could tackle. Since we were walking it all off, the act of stuffing our selves silly did not phase us (in the psychological sense). We had a total of six places on our list for our San Francisco food crawl so we better get crackin’.

At Mission Beach Cafe Anh went with the classic MBC pancakes with strawberries, bananas, vanilla creme, and bourbon syrup. I ended up liking these more than she did, but even then, they weren’t come back worthy. I guess it is hard to wow with pancakes. 

Now the Wild Mushroom Benedict with spinach, caramelized onions, truffle mornay sauce, and potatoes were fantastic. I don’t always eat benedict’s, but when I do, I prefer Mission Beach Cafe’s. This one had all the right things going on. Also on my hard to wow list, eggs benedict has done the unthinkable. Moved from the friend zone.

The mushrooms and onions complimented the English muffin and egg so well. With the truffle mornay sauce adding an extra layer of decadent flavor, not to mention a perfectly cooked runny egg, I’ll have to give eggs benedict the benefit of the doubt from now on. 

So it begins our travels on foot in the Mission District of San Francisco. I felt like a hobbit on the Fellowship of the Snack-Ing. Next stop: Tartine Bakery. They have a decent selection of fresh pastries and cakes, but we came for the croissants.

Here they are waiting for us to pick up and bite into. 

We saw them making something in the back with handfuls of butter. He was there dumping butter into the mixing bowl for a good five minutes. Butter…mmmmmm…

We looked for a nice spot to let our food settle and got lucky with a bench at Mission Dolores Park. It was a particularly nice and clear day with a great view of downtown San Francisco. So we sat and contemplated life for a while, people watching, kid watching, and dog watching. We also watched kids, dogs and adults interacting with each other. 

These were tempting but we still were so full. We ended up getting three different croissants. A regular, almond, and chocolate. Right off the bat Anh didn’t like the color to the croissants. She thought they looked burnt. The hyped up foodster in me looked at her with displeasure and scoffed at this unfathomable notion. “But this is Tartine! King of the croissants, and ruler of all bakeries in San Francisco!” We didn’t end up eating them until later on in the day so things may have been a little different had we tried things earlier. 

The chocolate croissant was my favorite. The chocolate was smooth and the inside was light, flaky, and fluffy. The outside was well, a little crisp, almost too crisp like Anh said it would be. I love it when she is right. For the record, I am not a sarcastic person. Also for the record, I never lie. 

The almond croissant was way more greasy and ate heavy. People wait in long lines for Tartine, but after our experience I don’t know if it will be a regular visit. But again, I do want to try a fresh croissant to see how much of a difference it would make.  I hope a big one. 

To my surprise, our friends were still going strong on the food crawl. Little did they know they were in for a fun filled food day! The fact they made it this far with us is impressive. Bi-Rite Creamery is put on the highest of ice cream pedestals by some ice cream enthusiasts. And when all factors are equal, it is hard to argue with them.  

Blue Bottle Coffee started in Oakland and has sprouted locations in Los Angeles, New York, and even Tokyo. Local coffee joints like Philz have wooed me as of late, so we had to try Bi-Rite’s coffee offering. The Blue Bottle coffee with Alfieri almonds and chocolate chips didn’t have quite the strong coffee punch I was expecting. It was fairly smooth and creamy though. The ice cream also held up to the bright sun that day.

The Salted Caramel is a favorite of ours when we visit. While the flavor was as good as I remember it, the ice cream melted very quickly. Even so, it is one of the best, if not the best salted caramel ice creams I have ever had. 

Anh and I were on our own from here on out as our friends had to cut out. Craftsman and Wolves has been on my radar for a while and I’ve drooled over many a Instagram photos. 

They had many more offerings than I had imagined and their appealing set up really plays up the delicious factor.

Almost too pretty to eat, right?

I don’t even remember what these all were, but I remember wanting to try everything.

Stay focused. We had a mission and had to stay the course with another chocolate croissant. Their version looked like it had multiple layers of chocolate but actually wasn’t very strong in the chocolate taste department. It appeared on the outside to be flaky but it wasn’t as airy as I thought it would be. Still, it was quite enjoyable. 

One last must try item was the Rebel Within. On the surface this looks like an ordinary muffin. Nothing special.

But as you slice into it, a surprise comes oozing out! Honestly I ordered it just because I thought it would be cool to see the egg run out. We were shocked at how amazing it tasted. There were little salty bits of sausage and green onions throughout. This is one of those instances Instagram did not disappoint and I will probably order it every single time I visit.

Last on our food crawl was Boba Guys. 

I read about Boba Guys somewhere and saw they were expanding. They don’t use any artificial flavors or any powders in their boba, which is always a plus.

Having said that, the regular Jasmine Milk Tea was just okay. We always order our boba with half sugar by default but that doesn’t always pan out at places that are not heavy handed with sugar.

If you’ve made it this far and were paying attention, you may have noticed we only listed five places instead of the six we had planned. The sixth place we originally wanted to visit was Mr. Holmes Bakehouse. Due to timing, we just couldn’t manage to make it work. Too bad because their cruffin (hybrid croissant/muffin) was actually the thing we were most excited to try. They sell out quickly and in order to secure one you have to line up early. Maybe next time San Francisco. We probably didn’t need anything else given how much we ate that day…but that won’t stop us from eating our way to the next adventure!