Day 4 – 5-30
The only parts of San Francisco left to explore were the South -West area. I started the day off going back to Mission, I had been here the night before but I wanted to check out the area in daylight. Mission during the day is pretty unimpressive, in fact it seems sort of rundown. The streets are dirty, it looks like you are in a poor part of LA, and the subway stations have groups of street preachers harassing people about the Endtimes (it’s kind of like Downtown Crossing in Boston).
I was hungry for lunch and heard about a taco stand called La Taqueria (original) that was considered one of the better places to get Mexican food. After grabbing food I ended up meeting a couple that were originally from Seattle but moved down to San Francisco a few years ago. We talked about the state of the economy, and especially how California and San Francisco were dealing with the current economic times. I realized early on that I would not want to move to San Francisco, but I did not know how bad the situation actually was. Apparently there really are no jobs in the city at all – once a high-tech haven almost all sectors of the IT industry have dried up. There are countless software engineers and programmers trying to find jobs. On top of that San Francisco has one of the most over-inflated real estate markets, so while you are trying to find a job you are quickly bleeding away any savings that you might have had. Beyond rent, California has a 9% sales tax that makes almost everything even less affordable.
The last section of San Francisco that I still did not see yet was Castro – the gay district. San Francisco has long been recognized as the gay capital of the US (some would say the world) so no trip would be complete without seeing what all the fuss was about. Mission is basically East of Castro, so you can walk from one neighborhood to the next. While walking towards Castro you start noticing that the area surrounding you changes, the streets start looking cleaner, you start seeing more coffee shops and stores, the houses look nicer and pretty soon there are rainbow flags hanging off all the street lamps. It made me think about Tremont St in Boston; one end of the street is economically deperessed and rough, the other end has high property values and fancy restaurants (guess which one is the “gay area”). Castro is definitely over the top, I had fun taking pictures of store signs that were overtly sexual, there was even a brunch spot I checked out that was louder than a nightclub – at 11:00 AM it had carryover from people at the clubs the nigh before. Actually this was one of the more interesting places I went to, Lime Brunch, basically it had two patrons (1) gay guys (2) their insanely hot girl friends: and everyone was still dancing and drinking mimosa’s.
That evening I decided to head back to Mission for some more food and another go at the bar scene. A few of the bartenders I met the night before recommended I check out Range, a Michelin winner that was located on Valencia St. This would be my first Michelin dining experience so I was pretty excited to check it out. I grabbed a seat at the bar, which offered the full restaurant menu. The bar area is small and comfy and the interior had a industrial/steam-punk quality which I likes – plenty of exposed pipes and bricks. Range changes it’s menu daily depending on the produce that it sources. I ended up getting the asparagus/poached egg app and the duck confit/lamb sausage entree – both were excellent. I also made friends with the couple sitting next to me. He was a documentary film producer and She was a former bartender at AT&T park – they met because of a mutual interest in scuba diving. We ended up talking about the restaurant scene in San Francisco, the shit that passes for TV on most networks and diving int he South Pacific. This was followed by 3 rounds of complementary shots (Amaro, Mezcal and Tequila) , shared by the 3 of us and the bartender. After dinner I parted ways with my new friends and checked out Luna Park and Amnesia (for the second night in a row).
