Beyond Woody (part 2 of 3)


To continue last week’s adventure, my old college buddy Gino was out to visit for three weeks this summer. He brought our mutual friend Woody with him, who stayed for a week and flew home. After we put Woody on the plane, Gino and I continued our California Madness Tour for another two weeks.
I’ve been to San Francisco a hundred times. Except for shopping, I usually go over mostly when I have company visiting. Thus, I repeat for them the same highlights tour – Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach, The Wharf. Gino has done that tour a dozen times himself.
After we dropped Woody at the airport on his final morning, we drove back into the city. I said, “Let’s see some new parts of town,” and Gino said, “Cool, cool.” So, we started with Polk Street. I’ve been on Polk many times, but not with company. I didn’t want to freak anybody out.
We walked its length, up one side and down the other, poking our heads in the Polk shops. Not being in the mood for tattoos or sex toys, we focused mostly on restaurants. We read menus and settled on breakfast crepes. All the restaurants on Polk had a healthy number of customers, but none had an overflow. And then we saw it, near the California intersection where the cable cars run – a restaurant with a line of patient people coming out the door and down the sidewalk.
“Hey, check out the hot spot,” said Gino. “Too bad we ate already.” We looked in the window and saw the place had no tables. It was a long narrow room with a counter down the middle. The cooks were on one side, and a row of iron stools lined the other, with just enough room to squeeze by and belly up. A row of happy customers were scarfing down big plates of seafood. This happy place was called Swan Oyster Depot. Gino loves seafood.
“Geez, oh, man,” he said. “We should have eaten here.”
“Note it and we’ll come back,” I said, “We will eat here before you leave.”
Then we drove over and walked Union Street, west of Van Ness, up one side and down the other. “Union Street,” I explained, “is like Polk Street with money. It’s upscale freaky.” Again we poked our heads in odd shops and stopped for drinks at the Betelnut, which is billed as a loud and friendly Asian beer house.
From here on we drove. We drove along Chestnut Street, near Marina Park, which has a short collection of interesting restaurants. We drove the length of Geary past the Irish Pubs. We drove the Mission out to 25th Street, and up Dolores with is palm tree median.
It dawned on me how often I’ve eaten in the same half-dozen restaurants, and how much city eating there is left to do. Then we came home.
I knocked off an email to Mary Ladd, a former student who now works as a food editor for the Chronicle. I asked her for the lowdown on Swan Oyster Depot and Betelnut. She replied with a double rave. At Betlenut she said everything is good; it’s so popular reservations must be made weeks in advance, and to try the peanut dishes.
She really gushed over Swan. She said it’s a boisterous place owned by five Sicilian brothers who do the cooking and are members of the Polar Bear Club. It is frequented by celebs like Nicholas Cage and Sean Penn. It has great chowder and a wide variety of oysters.
So, that was a lock. Gino, Susan, and I would eat there on Gino’s final day in California. To describe it now would be to get ahead of myself. I will do so later, but I will say we had a nice surprise when we got there.
Back to the day after Woody. The three of us had dinner at the Dead Fish in Crockett. Next to us sat four dolled up blondes with no male escorts, out for drinks and giggles. Gino bought them a round, and soon we were at the same table. We all got pretty silly, and we invited them to follow us to Teeters. They not only agreed, they took Gino with them in their car.
“Oh, boy,” said Susan as we drove alone. “Gino’s got to be loving this. He’s just been abducted by a car load of California women.” We invaded Teeters and stayed beyond midnight, shooting pool and trying to score. Promises were made, we parted ways, and never saw them again. So it goes.