Fireworks, Drums, Dragons

It's the time of year for San Francisco's biggest celebration: the annual Chinese New Year parade this Saturday February 23, starting at 5:15 p.m. from Second and Market streets (up Geary, then Powell and Post) to Kearny and Jackson in the heart of Chinatown.

Expect almost 100 floats, marching bands, drum groups, fireworks, lions and, of course, the long colorful golden dragon to cap it all off in a San Francisco tradition that dates from the Gold Rush days.

Grant Avenue will be abuzz with a street fair 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday, sidewalks along Stockton Street even busier than usual with holiday shoppers and cavernous dim sum restaurants packed -- all in celebration of the Year of the Snake.

My San Francisco Chinatown travel app -- a guide to the neighborhood's historic sites, shops, restaurants and old alleyways -- has been updated for the occasion with more photos and entrees than before. Maps, contact information and links to websites are included.

It's available for iPhones and iPads in iTunes and also in the Android store. (However, the updated Chinatown app won't be ready until March 2 for Android).

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

Gung Hay Fat Choy from San Francisco's Chinatown

San Francisco's Chinatown is really alive this time of year, bustling with energy and awash in bright red colors. Maybe because of the spectacular weather we've been having (sun, sun and more sun) and perhaps it's because we're ushering in the Year of the Dragon, but Chinatown seems more vibrant than ever.
The climax of all the festivities will be, of course, the annual Chinese New Year's parade, this year scheduled for Saturday evening, Feb. 11.
I recently updated by Chinatown travel app for iPhones, iPads and iPods, adding a few new restaurants. Two are especially wonderful if you like spicy food: The Potsticker on charming Waverly Place and Z&Y in the middle of one of the best blocks for eating in Chinatown, Jackson Street between Grant and Kearny.
You may have walked by The Potsticker over the years and dismissed it as a tourist spot. But last year it was taken over by new management (with staff from Z&Y). Head for the house specials such as filet of sole and any of the "Hot and Numbing Spice Pots," which you can ask to be prepared less fiery. The delectable and not-hot smoked tea duck is excellent.

Z&Y's fiery "explosive" chicken

The Potsticker's smoked tea duck

Z&Y restaurant also specializes in hot Szechuan fare. Try the kung pao bean curd with soft homemade tofu sprinkled with peanuts and onions. The signature dish is Chicken with Explosive Chile Pepper, an eye-catching plate that has diners digging through mounds of chile peppers to get to crisp juicy morsels of chicken (which are, amazingly, not very spicy). I loved the Tan Tan noodles, silky homemade noddles tossed with minced pork and vegetables. But there's so much more on the menu to explore.
For my updated Chinatown app, click here and look at iTunes for the download.
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
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SF Eats: It Sure Did and Still Does

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Anyone who has lived in San Francisco -- or eaten in San Francisco -- for a decade or more may feel pangs of nostalgia at the San Francisco Public Library's main branch at Civic Center these days. The exhibition, San Francisco Eats, on display through March 20, traces the history of the city through its food-obsessed culture.
Long before the term "foodie" was coined, people were crazy about eating in San Francisco and this exhibit shows why.
Who couldn't resist Fisherman's Wharf when it was lined with crab shacks and fishermen eating elbow to elbow with the locals? Or more elegant places to dine, such as the Fior d'Italia, Trader Vic's and the Cliff House?

The displays of old menus, historic photos and cookbooks are nicely shown in two areas, the Skylight gallery on the library's top floor and the Jewett gallery on the bottom floor.
The Jewett exhibit focuses on ethnic neighborhoods -- the Mission, North Beach and Chinatown -- and the impact of immigration on San Francisco dining.
The top floor gallery has a large collection of old restaurant menus, which are charming for their delightful graphics and interesting for their content. It looks as if calf brains (a nickel for a plate) and frog legs were standard menu items back in the late 1800s and that it was common for a fish restaurant to have a section on "casseroles" -- which seemed to consist of fish baked in a cheesy au gratin style.
An old Fish Grotto menu lists dishes such as Baked Barracuda and the meager cheese selection (only five choices, two of them are Swiss and Monterey cheese) made me pause and appreciate living in the 21st century.
There's a lot of attention paid to San Francisco restaurants that have passed the 100-year mark (the Fior, Tadich, Sam's, among them). The earliest menu is from a restaurant called The Ward House from 1849 and one of the non-menu items on display is a roasted peanut wagon that the Houtalas', the Greek immigrant family that first managed the Cliff House, operated along Ocean Beach in 1906.

The library has scheduled San Francisco Bites, food-oriented movie screenings and panel discussions in conjunction with the exhibit. The next presentation is on Tuesday, Jan. 18 at 6 p.m. when a panel of local food bloggers will talk about the city's neighborhoods, the foraging phenomenon and today's changing food culture, followed by a Q&A session. The main library is at 100 Larkin Street at the corner of Grove. The phone is 415-557-4277.

Updated San Francisco Travel Apps Released

In time for San Francisco Chinatown's annual big event -- New Year's -- my Chinatown travel guide app for iPads, iPhones and iPod Touches has been updated and released by Sutro Media with more photos and information on places to see, where to eat and shop in this most historic of the city's neighborhoods.

This year's festivities -- celebrating the Year of the Rabbit -- kick off on Saturday, Jan. 29 at 10:30 a.m. with a procession of lion dancers, bands and local dignitaries starting at St. Mary's Square and following the original parade route -- down Grant Avenue -- first established in the 1860s.

Of course, the big deal comes a few weeks later -- this year on the evening of Feb. 19 -- when the Chinese New Year's parade, sponsored by Southwest Airlines, makes its way from downtown to Chinatown, a brightly-colored 250-foot-long Golden Dragon capping it all.  It's the largest celebration of Asian culture outside of Asia, and hundreds of thousands watch the spectacle (even in chilly, rainy weather).

My second San Francisco travel guide app, North Beach and Fisherman's Wharf  was also just updated and rereleased with more entries and photos, including the newish bar and restaurant, Comstock Saloon, which combines a taste of the city's old Barbary Coast (it's named after Henry Comstock and the famous Comstock Lode) and today's trendy "mixologist"  cocktail culture in one swell place (my favorite spots are the booths along the wood-paneled bar's walls). Check out the apps by clicking on the links above or searching on iTunes (under Travel and San Francisco). Enjoy them on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.

Five Top Chinatown Dim Sum Spots

Who can resist dim sum: juicy little dumplings, plates of spicy spare ribs, slices of tender eggplant stuffed with shrimp and sweet egg custard tarts? Many Chinatown restaurants double as dim sum parlors at lunch and have a great, casual atmosphere: there's lots of conversation at large round tables as food carts circulate, servers stopping to uncover each dim sum delicacy as if presenting a gift.
If it's your first time here's what happens: When the cart rolls around to your table and the dishes are uncovered point to what you'd like: typically, you start a tab and the servers mark off how many dishes you've ordered, at what price level. It's part of the fun: you don't order from a menu and choose what you like by what looks good.
San Francisco's Chinatown is going to be bustling in the next week during the New Year's celebrations. It's a terrific time to visit.

Here are some picks for ever-favorite dim sum spots (unfortunately, they don't have web sites):

*City View, 662 Commercial, between Kearny and Montgomery. This is one of the most elegant of the Chinatown restaurants and serving some of the finest dim sum around. It's the place to take less adventurous first-time dim sum diners, or those who know dim sum (there's a lot of variety here) and want fancier surroundings than many of the traditional Chinatown dim sum parlors. Try the glazed walnut prawns, scallop dumplings, pork siu mai and potstickers.

*Pearl City, 641 Jackson, between Kearny and Grant. For many San Franciscans, this is the go-to spot for dim sum. It's inexpensive, rustic and the excellent dim sum comes in large portions.

*Dol Ho, 808 Pacific, between Stockton and Powell. Don't be scared away by the drab exterior and no-frills interior. Dol Ho is authentic, with fresh dim sum that the locals recognize as the real thing. Don't miss the spare ribs.

*Gold Mountain, 644 Broadway, near Stockton. This is one of those cavernous dim sum restaurants that draw in local Chinese families by the dozens. Because of volume of dim sum served, the dim sum is fresh and there's a large variety. Try the pork buns and chive dumplings.

*Lichee Garden, 1416 Powell, between Broadway and Vallejo. This traditional Cantonese restaurant is better known for its wonderful lunch and dinner fare but also offers top dim sum at lunchtime. Good service is a notch above the rest of the dim sum establishments.

Amy Sherman of Cooking with Amy informed me Lichee no longer serves dim sum. Drats, it was so good.

Here's another favorite then: Kay Cheung at 615 Jackson near Kearny. This is one of those hole-in-the-wall Chinatown eateries that are easy to miss. Like Pearl City, which is close by, this has authentic dim sum, nothing fancy but inexpensive and good.

Do you have a favorite Chinatown restaurant for dim sum or other Chinese food? Comment, please!

And, check out my Chinatown travel app for more, including interactive maps, descriptions and photos that you can download onto your iPhone or iPod Touch.

In Chinatown: It's Happy New Year

If you're headed to San Francisco's Chinatown for the big New Year's Parade Saturday Feb. 27 get there early and make a day of it. Have a dim sum lunch and stroll off the tourist-packed streets and onto the alleys that the locals use to get around. Forty-three such alleys criss-cross Chinatown. They date back to the late 1800s when all kinds of nefarious activities took place along these narrow passageways. Look along the bottom edges of the buildings on Pagoda and Ross alleys and you'll see narrow openings boarded over or covered by steels bars. Underground opium dens, gambling parlors or brothels may have operated there. It's said some were linked to a network of tunnels where people fled to avoid police raids.
On Pagoda, my favorite of the alleys, Hang Ah Tea Room, one of the oldest of San Francisco's dim sum restaurants, continues to do a brisk business even though the decor is stuck in the 1970s. There's something charming and exotic about walking along Pagoda where you can hear the frenetic clicking of mah jong tiles behind closed doors and stepping inside this narrow little restaurant.
Hollywood also finds the alleys picturesque: scenes from the Will Smith movie "The Pursuit of Happyness" were shot along Pagoda and Ross alleys. On Ross, next to the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, where you can watch women making the cookies by hand, there's a hole-in-the-wall barber shop. Barber Jun Yu, who briefly appeared in the movie, often takes a break outside, serenading passersby on the erhu, a two-string Chinese violin.
You can often get an insider's peak at the alleys on City Guides' free tours that start from Portsmouth Square several days a week and cover many of the alleys on foot. Some of the guides are born-and-raised in Chinatown. For more places to visit and restaurants to try, check out my Chinatown travel app for iPhones/iPod Touches, which has interactive maps and more detailed information (all for .99 cents!).

San Francisco's Chinatown -- by App

San Francisco's Chinatown, a travel guide app for IPhone and IPod Touches, is available now on iTunes. I included more than 50 places in this historic neighborhood of San Francisco, which has been the heart of the city's large Chinese community since the Gold Rush. The app contains descriptions of small, tucked-away dim sum parlors, elegant seafood restaurants, the narrow alleyways that locals have used for generations to quickly wind their way through the neighborhood and avoid the tourist traffic, historic sites, unique and not-so-unique shops, quiet temples and hidden museums. The app also features interactive maps that you can use as you're exploring Chinatown and more than 150 photographs so that you can plot your day trip or weekend getaway before you leave home. The app's for sale for .99 cents, much less than a cup of coffee, through iTunes. Look for my North Beach/Fisherman's Wharf app in a few weeks.