<p>Heading to SF for vacation and would love to hear favorite restaurant ideas. Half of the family is vegetarian. We also have a business dinner to go to so are looking for fun, hole in the wall family places and nicer fun adult places. Thanks - kids are all high school and college age. Any non touristy ideas welcome too!</p>
<p>[Magnolia](<a href=“http://www.magnoliapub.com/]Magnolia[/url]...but”>http://www.magnoliapub.com/)…but</a> it’s more for the atmosphere than the food (which is okay, but not amazing). It’s in the Haight, which might be a fun adventure for the family. There are menus on their website if you want to scan the options.</p>
<p>The last time I was in SF, I was there for one of our evening programs. When I finally found our location, I drove around the block, searching for a parking space. I luckily found a space, grabbed my laptop, LCD projector and materials, and started running down the street in my suit and heels. After a few steps, I looked around me and realized I was on Haight, just one block from the intersection with Ashbury. If you’re not familiar with the area, it’s probably the last place you’d wear a suit. It was the most “un-hip” I’ve felt in quite some time. :)</p>
<p>Enjoy your trip! SF is one of my favorite cities in the country. Luckily, none of my colleagues want to take the six hour flight out there, so I get to visit every year.</p>
<p>Rain Forest Cafe is fun</p>
<p>Lots of great choices in North Beach- family style italian</p>
<p>My 18 year old’s favorite in SF is Pasha’s. Persian food, belly dancing & dancing in the street. Lots of fun. Though not an inexpensive place. If someone in your group is celebrating something (birthday, graduation, almost anything), they’ll get to wear a fez and then be invited up to learn to belly dance and then you’re entire group will be invited up, a huge line forms of all celebrants in the restaurant and off you go to dance in the streets (actually just the sidewalk outside).</p>
<p>We’re going to SF on Tuesday and I’ll be watching this thread with interest!</p>
<p>Definitely recommend having dim sum in Chinatown. Duck (pun intended) into any place that looks good.</p>
<p>Marny Thai is awesome.</p>
<p>Sam Woh, on Washington near Grant, is a long-term sentimental favorite, because of the factors described below, because it was the first place I went with a “native” in Chinatown, and because it still has the best (although slightly greasy) chow fun ever. It IS a dive, though.</p>
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Sam Woh<code>s, a famous Chinatown dive, can attribute its renown to two things: late hours and the almost pleasurable adversity encountered during a visit there. The service is so rude that it verges on comic. As long as you don</code>t take it personally, you`ll have a great time. Travel upstairs and through the kitchen to get to the dining area. The menu offerings are plentiful and simple. Try vegetarian chow mein or wonton soup. This place focuses on Chinese cooking. Expect the average entr</p>
<p>Disagree about Chez Panisse Cafe (upstairs at CP)–we had lunch there last spring and found it oddly pretentious despite its determined simplicity, and–gasp–the food was unexciting. (Ok, maybe we are barbarians, but I don’t think so–there was an element of the emperor’s new clothes about the experience.) Honestly, places like the Main Street Grill in Montpelier, Vermont, run by students at the New England Culinary Institute, seem to me to provide equally good food of local provenance with somewhat less self-congratulation.</p>
<p>Back to SF, there is a really good Greek restaurant in the Finanacial District whose name escapes me but if you look in Zagat will find it–it was delicious and while fairly expensive, felt like a special place, with great fish and lovely, interesting desserts. There is also a nice small Italian restaurant fairly near the City Lights bookstore, called La Gondola or something like that–not in Zagat but findable via Open Table reservation site or general Web search–also very unfussy setting and very good food. Vegetarians should do fine with pasta dishes, and the chicken dishes are really good too for non-vegetarians. </p>
<p>I’d also recommend a walk through the Ferry Building stopping at various stalls for whatever appeals to you in the way of bread and cheese and so on, or splurge at the Slanted Door (reservations soemtimes hard tgo get?), for excellent Vietnamese food; we found it surprisingly welcoming though I had read in guidebooks that it was not.</p>
<p>When we were there for a college tour, we ate at a wonderful restaurant in North Beach, L’Osteria Del Forno. They don’t take reservations or credit cards, but it was well worth the wait. Intimate, friendly, and delicious; L’Osteria Del Forno was like eating at my Italian grandmother’s house with aunts, uncles, and cousins I hadn’t seen in awhile dropping by throughout the evening.</p>
<p>We, also, had great fun at a restaurant called Foreign Cinema. It is located in an area that looks pretty sketchy after dark, behind a facade that barely looks like it could be a restaurant. Inside the doors is a very trendy place with great decor, a terrific outdoor space with foreign movies projected against the wall of the courtyard, good food, and a sophisticated fun atmosphere.</p>
<p>These sound like fun suggestions. The Main St. Grill in Montpelier is really nice. When my husband ate at Chez Panisse a few years ago, he wasn’t impressed. He said his souffle was underdone–maybe that’s trendy or something, but he didn’t like it.</p>
<p>I live in San Francisco and I agree with unsoccer-mom that Foreign Cinema is fantastic! I have had business dinners in one section of the restaurant, but it would be great for families as well. Also I recommend La Corneta (mexican) located on Diamond St. near the Glen Park bart station. Greens restaurant is the ultimate in vegetarian food (located at Fort Mason) that even non-vegetarians love! Enjoy!</p>
<p>The Slanted Door has a more casual spot now, Out the Door, right at the Powell Street BART station, in the basement of the Westfield-San Francisco Center. It’s easy to get into, a little cheaper (I think) and delicious.</p>
<p>I also like The Slanted Door and Greens.
You didn’t mention Berkeley, but if you go there, I like Zachary’s for Pizza. Rick and Ann’s for breakfast, Saul’s on Shattuck if you like Jewish food, and The Cheeseboard if you just want to take some bread and cheese and run.</p>
<p>In SF, I like Little Joe’s and Westlake Joe’s (Westlake is next to SF).
For pizza, I would go to Tomaso’s in North Beach.
Arabic and Californian food, I would go to Saha’s.
Sear’s Fine Food for breakfast.</p>
<p>Now some hole in the walls…
Ristorante Marcello’s for Italian food on Taraval Street.
Pasquale’s on Irving Street for Pizza.
Sunrise Deli on Irving Street for falafals. (I just ate 2 falafals from Sunrise at 8 in the morning after reading this thread).
<a href=“San Francisco Menus - San Francisco, CA Restaurants Guide”>San Francisco Menus - San Francisco, CA Restaurants Guide;
I would eat at one of the restaurants near Ocean Beach. Seal Rock Inn, for breakfast, nothing fancy, is near the beach on Geary I believe. Nice spot for breakfast. There is also a restaurant across the street from the beach that has awesome views. The name escapes me, but if you drive on the Great Highway you will see it. Plus, there is the Cliff House. </p>
<p>I would also go to Pollyann’s for ice cream at 39th and Noriega.
<a href=“http://www.pollyann.com/history.asp[/url]”>http://www.pollyann.com/history.asp</a></p>
<p>If you go to Marin, I have more ideas. You should consider visiting Point Reyes, Muir Woods, and Mt Tam if you like the outdoors.</p>
<p>I vote for walking through Chinatown and checking the menus in the windows (and the crowd inside) and picking a restuarant</p>
<p>If you’d like a nicer place there are neighborhoods with lots of nice restaurents … I believe the Marina district is one.</p>
<p>You guys are terrific! I can’t wait to try as many as we can squeeze in! Anyone been to Aziza or Isa?</p>
<p>Since you mentioned you had vegetarians in your delegation, check out the Millennium Restaurant. It’s all vegan and a little bit on the pricier side, but so incredibly worth it.</p>
<p>movinmom, I would not hesitate to go to either place. I think I ate at Isa. I’m not really sure because I was taken there by my wife and a few friends and I didn’t pay attention to the name. I just remember the food was great. 
</p>
<p>I was also supposed to go to a birthday party at Aziza, but the party was planned poorly and we ended up at Saha (which I recommend). I want to try Aziza myself. Go for it.</p>
<p>Most of the places I recommended are family oriented and pretty casual. </p>
<p>I see you like a little more upscale and quality, fresh food. I would go to the Slanted Door and I would try the places you mentioned. There are so many great places to go in SF. </p>
<p>I just talked to my wife. She said we did eat at Isa’s and it was great. She said what is the point of taking me anywhere? :)</p>
<p>So yeah. My wife recommends Isa. ;)</p>
<p>I’m vegetarian, and Millennium has my vote for an expensive, elegant, fabulous meal.</p>