While I really like Anthony Bourdain’s show No Reservations he has taken it upon himself to berate San Francisco as a bunch of vegan, tree humping, organically deranaged locavores. Well true, some of us are, but they’re usually transplants from somewhere else there’s very few people born and raised in San Francisco that remember or have been to some of the places Bourdain visited. He made a stop at House of Prime Rib, Tadich Grill, Red’s Java House and the Aum Zam Zam. These are all old school San Francisco places with lots of history. He added in a few newer cutting edge places as well as a quick trip to Oakland to sample some taco truck fare, though what he was calling a taco was actually a pupusa.
I was please he brought up the irony of the owner of the Pirate Cat Cafe offering up vegan food, but also serving a maple bacon latte and calling that vegan because he had rendered 10 lbs of bacon to get 4oz of bacon fat that he adds to the coffee apparently to some vegans I guess bacon fat is a vegetable. There were many more places that would have better choices for him to try such as Than Long out at the foot of Judah Street that is owned by same people who own Crustacean, yet they serve the same food at half the price. The biggest problem is that San Francisco which is frequently referred to as the food capital of the country and sometimes the world led me to a curious thought. If we’re so great with food why are all the name brand big time chefs like Mario Batalli, Bobby Flay, Emeril Lagasse, etc. not opening up a restaurant here? Wolfgang Puck did have Postrio for a while back in the 80’s, but I haven’t heard that name mentioned in years. We do have Gary Danko, Pat Kuleto and Roy Yamaguchi, but you rarely see these guys on the Food Network or Travel Channel. Are we just that good that we’re scaring them off? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that Tony got one thing wrong in his show. San Francisco is not the town of Alice Waters, that’s Berkeley. While she’s done a great influence to dining in the Bay Area she has gotten some people to go a little too far. The first time I ate at Chez Panisse was in the early 90’s and I didn’t have an idea who she was, but that was the day of the Oakland fire and her restaurant was busy making up sandwich boxes for the firefighters helping to put out the fire and I got to sit there right in the middle of it watching them work.
Tony, if you do another show on San Francisco, come talk to me. Please! I can show you were to get great food in the city at some better places than you chose, though I can’t discount the House of Prime Rib or Tadich Grill.