In article >,
sf > wrote:

> On Thu, 23 Oct 2008 12:50:53 -0700, Dan Abel > wrote:
>
> >In article >,
> > Omelet > wrote:

> >> Don't neglect Fisherman's wharf...
> >
> >It's very touristy. Some people like that, that's why there are so many
> >tourists there.
>
> Tourists have to go somewhere! I go to tourist places when I'm in a
> new area. Nobody is immune.
>
> Virtually every place Dimitri mentioned is tourist or Financial
> District worker driven (I thought "Sam Wo" was long gone). To erase
> the snottiness - I go to tourist places when I'm in a new area. IMO:
> Nobody is immune.

I didn't mean to be snotty, it was just a comment.

> Locals don't go there because those places charge tourist prices and
> we know others spots that won't deplete our wallets as much.

And some visitors want to know where these other places are, also.

> IMO, Sam
> Wo was a tourist rip off.

Let me count the ways that it isn't a tourist ripoff, based on my visits
30 years ago:

1. You walk in the front door and there's the kitchen. Most tourists
would do an about face and walk out. Failing to find the "real"
entrance, they will eat elsewhere.

2. If they were clued in about the entrance being by the kitchen,
where's the eating area? There is one table on the first floor, and
it's *always* occupied. There's stairs, but they look like typical
stairs down to the basement, except they go up. They are unpainted
wooden boards.

3. Ripoffs have high prices, bad food or both. Sam Wo's has very cheap
prices and good (although plain) food.


> I didn't even know it still existed.
> *Nobody* talks about it anymore. Apparently Herb Caen and the "upper
> crust" of the time liked to be insulted and told to get their own
> water. I was never intrigued by the idea of being insulted by a
> restaurant worker, so I never went there (and won't).

Edsel Fong is gone. He was old 30 years ago. I don't know if he
trained a successor in the art of insulting customers. Besides, it was
always true back then that if you didn't want the insults, you just went
up to the third floor. There was a regular waiter there.

> Parking
> No matter where you go in SF today - if the parking isn't free, it's
> truly EXPENSIVE. It's free - but read the street signs carefully. If
> you don't notice/see the signs, you'll pay mucho bucks because you
> parked on the wrong side of the street on street cleaning day.

Yeah, they really sock it to you.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California USA