Saving the best itinerary for last on this San Francisco trip, we made our way over to the Ferry Building Thursday morning.
The Ferry Building is located along the Embarcadero, north of the Financial District, with views of the Bay Bridge in the distance.
Aside from being a ferry terminal, the building is home to possibly one of the best food halls ever. Inside the marketplace, you'll find artisan merchants selling ceramics, cheese, baked goods, coffee, etc.
They also have a farmer's market, open three days a week (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays). Saturdays is definitely the time to visit, as the farmer's market takes up a large stretch around the building. On Thursdays specifically, the day we went, the farmer's market mostly consists of street food vendors and food trucks.
The first food stop we hit up was Roli Roti. This had been a long time coming. I've heard and read about Roli Roti for years and years and years and finally I was going to try it out for myself!
They opened quite early at 10:00 but surprisingly, we weren't the first ones in line. There was a regular who they were on a first name basis with and a few other tourists like ourselves, eager to film the spinning rotisserie.
We got their famous porchetta sandwich ($10.50). Their crispy porchetta consists of heritage breed, free-range, naturally raised pork, seasoned and rolled the traditional Italian way. They build the sandwich on Acme Bakery bread, and layer on a good amount of pork, housemade onion marmalade, and fresh arugula. Believe the hype, people. This was a glorious sandwich. My parents likened the porchetta to Chinese roast pork, since they also add in some cracklings for a bit of crunch. A must try!
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California totes. Save the environment, one plastic bag at a time!
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Right: This must be where all the rich people in SF shop. A whopping $155 a pound for imported Miyazaki Japanese A5 wagyu beef.
Quick coffee break at Blue Bottle, an Oakland-based coffee company with locations across the US and even in Japan. We got the New Orleans cold brew iced coffee ($4.00). The coffee is pre-blended with milk, cane sugar, and organic chicory. They even sell these in cute milk cartons. I'm not a big coffee drinker but this wasn't as sweet as I was expecting it to be. I prefer black coffee anyways so that was a plus.
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I got their s'mores ($4.00), toasted to order! Homemade graham cracker, marshmallow, dark chocolate from Papua New Guinea beans, and a pinch of sea salt. I left it to sit until after lunch which was probably a mistake. Didn't have that satisfying gooeyness (is that a word?) that you come to expect from a s'more.
Well, after sharing that porchetta sandwich a mere hour earlier, it was time for some real lunch.
Hog Island Oyster Co. is a full-service oyster bar and restaurant, named after the Tomales Bay oyster farm where they source their seafood from.
Everybody starts off with a small baguette loaf from Acme Bakery.
First up, pink scallop crudo ($15.00) with radish, micro cilantro, and calabrian chili vinaigrette. Really pretty presentation with the scallop served in-shell but I found the vinaigrette to be quite overpowering.
Grilled oysters. $15.00 for four. We got the chili butter, with cayenne, chili flake, sriracha, dijon mustard, butter, lemon juice, garlic and anchovies. On the right, oyster Rockefeller with spinach, Pernod, and heavy cream. These were okay for the most part. I'm not the biggest oyster fan though.
We also ordered a bowl of mussels ($16.00, add Old Bay fries +$3.00), steamed with white onion, garlic, mustard, ginger, and white wine. Aside from one or two closed shells, the mussels were plump and fresh. You also can't visit Hog Island Oyster Co. without getting their chowder ($14.00). Manila clams, aromatic vegetables, bacon, potatoes, and cream. Best clam chowder. I'm indifferent to the thick, gloopy and starchy type of chowder, but this was more of a broth with leeks and fresh clams. A refreshing change of pace.
Since seafood doesn't really fill you up, you have to supplement with some Humphry Slocombe ice cream. Artisan ice cream is huge in SF, and Humphry Slocombe is one of the big players. They've scooped up some pretty unusual flavours over the past years -- bacon, peanut butter curry, or salt and pepper ice cream anyone?
I got a scoop of one of their best sellers, the Harvey Milk + honey graham. Raw blackberry honey with housemade graham cracker cookies. Creamy and rich. I really liked the crunchy bits of graham cracker in there.
A few hours at the Ferry Building later, my parents wanted to go back to Chinatown to pick up some last minute souvenirs. After that trip was done, my dad went to visit his uncle who lives in town while my mom and I stuck around Union Square to do some last-minute shopping.
A shame that we didn't have a chance to ride the cable car while in San Francisco but at $7.00 a trip for each person, it was more economical to just take an Uber to the places we visited.
For dinner, my mom and I chose Sanraku, a Japanese chain restaurant. The location we visited was located inside the Metreon Mall, just across the street from our hotel.
Our first dish was soft shell crab tempura ($13.00), one of my mom's favourites. We were confused at first when the waitress dropped off the plate because the soft shell crab was buried underneath a pile of stir-fried peppers. It was quite good though, with a bit of spice from togarashi powder.
Our family also loves grilled squid so poppo yaki ($10.00) was also ordered. Whole grilled squid with a light basting of chili ginger soy sauce and Japanese mayonaisse for dipping.
We also got the sashimi appetizer ($16.00), 7 pieces of salmon, tuna, and yellowtail. Clean cuts, quite fresh.
If that wasn't enough food, we also tackled two rolls, the Giants roll ($15.00) with seared spicy salmon, shrimp tempura, cucumber, tobiko, spicy mayo, and eel sauce, and the Golden Gate roll ($13.00) with seared salmon, scallion, tobiko, crab stick, avocado and miso sauce. I appreciated the bite-sized nature of the rolls. They were well-constructed and the ingredients as a whole were tasty.
We chose Sanraku out of convenience but it definitely surprised us.
And that was our last day -- done! We had an early night in, as we had our alarms set for 3:00 the next morning. Yes, 3:00 AM. We had a layover in Vancouver but our flight to Edmonton ended up being delayed due to snow in Richmond (like when does that ever happen?!). We spent two hours just waiting in line on the tarmac before waiting another half hour to "de-ice" the plane. So happy to know that Edmonton now has daily non-stop flights to San Francisco! Take advantage people!
SF, I'll be back!
- CT
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