California: In San Francisco, the World is Your Oyster

 

The Bay Bridge and downtown San Francisco as seen from Alcatraz,
the former island prison in San Francisco Bay.

      Four nights in late July were enough to give Jane and me a taste of San Francisco. After a short Alaska Air flight from our home in San Diego, we visited Alcatraz, the Presidio, Fishermans Wharf, and more.  We ate very well, including at two of the city's best known oyster bars. We rode a cable car. We had mostly sunny weather and we had a good time. 

     Jane visited San Francisco on business trips several times when she was working in New York. I had been only once before, on a 2004 vacation from New York that included Yosemite National Park and the wine country north of San Francisco.

       That trip provided my first look at the kind of sidewalk encampments that are now seen in big cities in much of the world. Sure, I had seen unhoused people sleeping on steam grates in Midtown Manhattan, but not in blocks-long trash-strewn communities.  On that trip we rode the same cable car route and we tried one of the oyster bars that we revisited this time, but I left San Francisco that time with a very negative impression. On this trip, the Lyft ride from the airport to our hotel, the Beacon Grand, took us past a few isolated encampments, but the overall impression was of a surprisingly clean and functioning and prosperous city.

       There are still post-pandemic empty storefronts here and there, and I have no idea what the office occupancy rate is, but downtown streets, even in the Financial District, have busy sidewalks and lively restaurants and other eateries. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, which is in the Financial District, would be an asset to any city.  We rode a cable car to and from Fishermans Wharf our first evening in town, we took a Lyft to the Presidio and a free shuttle bus back to downtown, but otherwise we were on foot in this amazingly hilly city. 

     We had several memorable meals, including oysters on half-shell and cioppino at Scoma's, a seafood restaurant which is much, much better than its location in the touristy Fishermans Wharf area might lead you to expect. Get a table in the bar, where the view is better than from the dining room. More oysters were eaten at Hog Island Oyster Company in the Ferry Building. We were shut out in 2022 when we tried to visit Hog Island's Tomales Bay location in Marshall, California, but we got seated twice here, enjoying Tomales Bay oysters as well as oysters from Puget Sound in Washington. The "steamers" on the menu, by the way, are Manilla clams, not the meaty steamed clams of New England, but served in a sausage-fortified broth, they make a decent dish. 

      Our other oyster destination was Swan Oyster Depot, which we visited on that 2004 trip. It's far from the tourist parts of town but probably still draws many out-of-towners such as ourselves.  There is a Swan's web site  (which says it's open to 5:30), but a sign in the restaurant warns that it does not have a web site.  When we arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday, July 23, a quick check on Google Maps on my phone showed that Swan was a half-hour walk from our hotel and was open to 5:30. We made the walk and arrived at 3pm expecting a late lunch only to find the place closing. It stopped serving at 2:30. All the seating at Swan is at one counter, so hungry diners line up on the sidewalk and wait for people to leave. We got there around 12:30 on Thursday, July 25, and waited about an hour. We shared a dozen oysters on half-shell, smoked trout and smoked salmon. I thought it was all excellent, but Jane preferred the smaller and saltier oysters we had at Hog Island. 

      We veered away from oysters one night for a dinner at Fang, an innovative Chinese place in the Financial District, between Union Square and the Ferry Building. We shared steamed buns with duck (delicious), crispy short ribs with bok choy, and sizzling fried rice with clams.

     Also on the food front, here are shout outs to Lori's Diner and Sears Fine Foods, both steps from the Beacon's front door. When we couldn't get that lunch at Swan, we backtracked and had a very late and  light lunch (BLT and a salad) at Lori's.  We had breakfast four mornings at Sears, which even when crowded seems to find tables for everyone and still give prompt service. Jane said her eggs there were perfectly perfect. I could say the same of the pancakes. 

      Whatever you've heard about San Francisco falling into decline, we saw no evidence of it. If anyone can make the rest of America like San Francisco, I'd say go for it. 

     Here are some photos:

This is the view from our 20th-floor south-facing room at the Beacon Grand Hotel.
On the right is the more famous St. Francis Hotel, now a Westin property. The
plaza is Union Square, which is the center of the city's retail district. Besides
the gigantic Macy's, there are Saks and Neiman Marcus stores, plus
a raft of stand-alone designer stores.

Maiden Lane is two blocks of high-end retail
starting on the east side of Union Square.

There's a cable car stop right in front of the Beacon Grand.

A few blocks south of the Beacon is the roundtable that
marks the southern end of the popular cable car line
that goes north to Fishermans Wharf. Tickets are $8 per
ride, no discounts for children or old people.

If you're going to San Francisco, the advice used to be, be sure to wear some flowers in your
hair. During our visit, plastic flowers adorned many buildings and even this cable car

A sign lets your know when you've
reached Fishermans Wharf.

A few weeks before our visit, there were news
reports of thousands of sea lions showing up
at Fishermans Wharf. When we went to see
them, we learned that almost all had left for the 
Channel Islands (to the south off Santa Barbara).
These few, however, seemed to be enough
to satisfy some of our fellow tourists.

The lobby of the San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art.

Yayoi Kusama's "Aspiring to Pumpkin Love, the Love in
My Heart" (2023) at SF MoMA. The people are lined up
waiting to enter another of Kusama's installations.

Bruce Nauman's 1983 work, "Life
Death / Knows, Doesn't Know." The
various messages flash at different
times.

A special exhibition called The Art of Noise celebrated
album covers and concert posters from the 1950s to
the 1980s. This Grateful Dead poster is from 1966.

The East Coast isn't forgotten. This New York
poster for a James Brown concert is also 1966.
A show for the entire family! Bring your
dancing toddlers! 

West Coast rap gets a little respect with
this circa 1984 poster.

The wall of sound becomes visible at SF MoMA.

The San Francisco skyline as seen from gardens near the Presidio's Visitor Center. The Presidio
 was a huge military base that has been turned into a national park.

The Tunnel Tops is 14 acres of spaces and trails
built atop tunnels carrying U.S. 101 traffic 
to and from the Golden Gate Bridge, which
can be seen from here. 

It's a little hard to see in this photo, but there's a great playground made up entirely
 of cypress logs at Tunnel Tops. The pool in the distance is Crissy Marsh,
and beyond it is San Francisco Bay.

The Golden Gate Bridge as seen from East Beach at the Presidio. It was in the low
60s (about 17C) and very windy during our late July visit. Hardly beach weather.

Alcatraz as seen from an arriving ferry. The highest building is the cellblock.

Inside the cellblock. 

A park ranger presentation, an audio guide and signs help educate visitors
about the role of prisons past and present in the United States. I've been
to Robbin Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and I think
it was probably a more humane place than Alcatraz.

Isolation was supposedly rarely used at Alcatraz, but there are still several isolation cells. You
can use your fingers to enlarge to photo and make the type more legible.

All the cells we saw were single-inmate cells. 

 

Three of the hundreds of inmates who passed through Alcatraz.  Stroud's life there
was the basis of the movie "Birdman of Alcatraz."

The Golden Gate Bridge, a symbol of opportunity, and a
bird, a metaphor for freedom, as seen from Alcatraz.

A 1959 Edsel at Lori's Diner, across the intersection of Powell and Sutter streets from our hotel. 

Sears is across Powell Street from 
the Beacon Grand, our hotel
on this trip. Really good spot
for breakfast and probably
other meals as well.

Even with a hastily made reservation, we ended up
waiting at the bar for a table at Scoma's, a seafood
place steps from Fishermans Wharf. Just behind
the people seated at the bar are a few tables 
with nice water views. We eventually got 
one of those tables. 

Fang offers its own interpretations of Chinese
cuisine in a multi-level space in the 
Financial District.

Swan Oyster Depot is about a
half-hour walk west of Union 
Square, in a neighborhood with
Moroccan, Thai, Himalayan and
many other types of ethnic food.

It doesn't take a lot of people to make Swan seem crowded. 

Just because something is in Swan's menu doesn't mean it's available. There
was no smoked white fish on the day we were there.

The landmark Ferry Building looms 
over the Embarcadero at the eastern
end of Market Street. A walk north
along the Embarcadero takes you
past the pier for the Alcatraz ferry
and eventually to Fishermans Wharf.

This is from the first of our two visits to Hog Island Oyster Company
at the Ferry Building. Prospective diners wait outside between the 
building and the piers, whether for an outside table or one
indoors. On our first visit, most people wanted to eat outside,
so we got seated quickly when we agreed to eat inside at the bar.
Our second visit was on a much cooler day and few people
wanted to sit outside, but we got there a little before
5pm and got a table inside after a short wait.