Category Archives: Dining

Where to eat in San Francisco

Downtown Los Angeles

Architecture, Dining, Photographs

From the Bonaventure.

No one could accuse John Portman of making boring buildings, and his many hotels across the world are a testament to the belief that the destination should be the highlight of a journey. He has left a massive footprint with his innovative designs which span the globe. An American original. I have always loved his Bonaventure Hotel (1977) in downtown Los Angeles and would visit frequently to enjoy the architecture when a resident (1987-93) of what is my favorite American city.

So when my 13 year old son Winston and I visited Los Angeles last week, one goal was to show him the best of the best across this amazing city. These were snapped from our room on the 30th floor. The views were simply thrilling, downtown America at its best.

The vast lobby with its many pools is a surprisingly quiet and restful place. Noise does not resonate here. It simply wafts away up the vast atrium. Check-in and check-out were exceptionally smooth and professional, American hospitality management at its best. These people clearly love what they do.


Winston stays dry.


John Portman’s distinctive architecture.

There’s an outstanding, if expensive, steak house on the 35th floor named the Prime Rib, where Winston and I enjoyed the finest steaks we can recall. Walk down one level to the 34th floor and you will find yourself in the rotating bar – quite something – and the vibrations from the motor can just be felt in the Prime Rib if you touch the table with your fingertips! These places typify the sense of wonder which pervades this venue.


The Prime Rib boasts tremendous food and views.

You can read more about John Portman here. Portman also designed San Francisco’s Hyatt.

First two snaps on the Panny GX7 with the kit zoom, the third on the iPhone 6. I used a small and very light Oben carbon fiber tripod for the night shots – a fine and unobtrusive travel companion which will fit in the smallest of bags, weighing some 2.5lbs with ball head. An ideal match for the small Panasonic camera body.

The Biltmore, Santa Barbara

Dining

For your Napoleonic complex.

This legendary corner – a very large corner – of Santa Barbara is a haven to those of short stature. For a ridiculously overpriced night at this joint, which boasts a 4pm check-in time making the already silly-expensive daily rate even higher, your inner Napoleon will be seriously catered to.

Meaning that if you are so massively insecure as to demand total sycophancy for your Rolex bewristed persona, this is the place for your short stature because obsequoisness is very much the order of the day. In fact the level of suck-upedness here would put a bilge pump to shame. After about twenty minutes of “Mr. Pindelski this, and Mr. Pindelski that” I found myself longing for those days of yore at the local Best Western. $39 a night, clean sheets and no nonsense. That and wishing my last name was Smith.

In fact, it’s impossible to walk more than 10 yards in this open prison without being accosted and greeted like the profit center you are. I would imagine the inmates at Rikers get more privacy.

And make no mistake, this place really is run by cost accountants. Everywhere you go your name is requested, nay, demanded, by one of the slim young things charged with being your best friend (most are named Carlos or Maria), and it’s not because they want to be your chum. It’s because they are after your billing data. Ice cream at the pool for your son? “Mr. Pindelski this, Mr. Pindelski that”. A glass of water? Yup, you guessed it. And be sure to record the exact choice, or else. Think I’m kidding? They immediately scrutinized/audited/verified that my son did indeed get the Klondike bar, not the Haagen Dazs. And blammo, right on the bill at 3x the market price at the local 711.

Then, when you get over the $40 parking fee and the $20 for the internet connection (for $1000 a night plus tax no way that will be free here) you begin to really miss the Best Western. In its next life this place should be named The Billmore.

My son and I dine at the Bella Vista restaurant in the resort and after they hum and haw over seating us outside – odd given that on this Monday night there’s no one there – we are served a meal of such surpassing blandness that I confess I cannot recall what we ate. OK, my son’s chocolate soufflé was fine while I focused on not throwing up faced with yet more bilge pump action from the waiter/bus boy/etc.

So if you are 5′ tall or less, need your ego polished, have to display your wealth and are generally on the insecure side of the cost accounting ledger, this place is you. Just bring your platinum Amex and suck it in.


The Billmore – the general desertedness testifies to the price.

Value for money: 2/10. Food: 4/10. General yuckyness: 10/10.

iPhone 6 snap.

A stroll along the Embarcadero

Dining, Photographs

A lovely day out.

Go back a century and San Francisco’s Embarcadero had no sidewalks. Just the road, bordered to the east by dozens of wharves hiding the nasty realities of commerce from passers by.


The Embarcadero a century ago.

But the city’s leaders got wise to the benefits of crafting great promenades (doubtless they had seen Paris) and we got the Embarcadero in its modern guise, replete with vast sidewalks for biking, skating, walking the dog, and increasingly renovated wharves which now house chic restaurants and elegant offices rather than whale blubber butcheries.

This past Sunday offered an opportunity to enjoy these privileges, so I parked my ancient (fat and ugly – no theft of fear) Lexus in my Top Secret Free Parking Spot and proceeded afoot. Not wanting any more than a minimum of encumbrance, I pinched my son’s Panny LX100, that sweet little jewel with the fine Leica zoom lens, and had at it.

Red’s Java House, just south of the Bay Bridge, has been serving burgers and fries for 60 years and no they are not about to mess with success. Just don’t expect good food here, though the views from the rear patio are great.

A few yards north and the Bay Bridge crosses the Embarcadero. It’s being fixed with (faulty) Chinese steel – what is it with America? Like we have forgotten how to make structural steel?

A few yards further north you will find our ‘heroes’ polishing their nice fire engines; there are no fires so that’s all they have to do until retiring on an inflation weighted pension at age 50:

A couple of hundred yards further north and you will find that the charming, naïve, whimsical rocket which used to grace this little plaza just south of the Ferry Building has been replaced by an execrable excrescence, complete with pretentious plaque loaded with mindless blather:

The Ferry Building itself has sprouted a sign testifying to the one hundredth anniversary of its rebuilding after the 1906 great fire and quake:

Just north of the building a lone (and no less lovely for that) Ducati hangs out on what was a surprisingly uncrowded day:

Many of the old wharf buildings now house upper end, white tablecloth restaurants. Mercifully the prices keep most of the mid-West out – from whale blubber to human blubber in three generations:

They mostly pose outside in their ridiculous garb when not riding their no less asinine Harleys:

The Waterfront is especially recommended:

Humor is everywhere to be found:

Head a block west and you will find great charm in the side streets which border the ever so steep ascent to Telegraph Hill, which overlooks North Beach:

One of the enduring sources of appeal of San Francisco is that the few modern skyscrapers it contains are in the business center with all about it largely preserved. Nonetheless, now and then an inspired design comes along harking back to the days of brick and one such is the Levi Strauss building on Battery Street:

But turn the corner and you can see the real thing, complete with Edward Hopper shadows:

Al fresco dining is always fun and every ethnicity is on offer:

Today I opt for something a tad more comfortable and end up at Il Fornaio on the self same Battery Street, again mysteriously deserted:


iPhone 6 snap.

A chicken salad and a glass of Pellegrino complete the picture:


iPhone 6 snap.

Fresh, beautifully prepared, well priced at $22 and highly recommended for the excellent service.

On the way back I spot an unusual open trolley waiting for passengers on the Embarcadero:

And the gorgeous Audiffred Building is a magnet for my trigger finger:

Amazingly the building survived both the quake and ensuing fire:

All snapped on the Panasonic LX100 except where noted.

The Fish Market

Dining

Fine fish restaurant.

Foster City is largely a community of modern office blocks and unexciting housing but the lake it houses is also home to The Fish Market restaurant which serves fresh catch daily, the menu changing with the catch.

There’s a large patio in back which only serves to heighten the dining experience and the parking lot is always full for a good reason.

Cormorants and pelicans are regularly to be seen, the cormorants languidly sunning their outstretched wings to dry in the sun.

All iPhone 6 snaps, the last by my son who knows to check whether the iPhone has been accidentally changed to square images. His brush top haircut is just visible in the second frame.

An extract of today’s menu.

On reflection

Dining, Photographs

Two are better than one.

My son at dinner at Ecco, the best restaurant in Burlingame:

Winston enjoyed the petrale sole and a giant piece of cheesecake, I settled for the white veal. Every dish here is exquisite, and the chef’s many Fodors awards testify to his 27 years of expertise in this one location.

iPhone6.