Come visit us in San Francisco. We have a very large mixture of cultures and some great dive restaurants from the Hispanic Mission District to the Italian North Beach to Chinatown.

if you go to san francisco you HAVE to go to Muddy Waters. Hisham used to own it, i hope he still does, it's been a long time since i worked there. Best D* coffee i've ever had! They toast a nice bagel too and make hummus from scratch. There are some awesome noodle shops down on Clemente too

Yep, San Francisco is definitely a place for Anthony. I can see him riding the 1 California back from Chinatown next to a woman with a few live ducks in a brown paper bag! Or when they unlaod the pigs on Sunday mornings...

How about getting in on the action on a crab boat? Salmon fishing at 3AM?

Dim Sum at Tong Kang out in the Richmond.

ANY burrito joint in the Mission.

All the organic coffee places in the Haight with the "hippies." Too bad the Martini Nazi isn't running Zam Zam anymore. How about Cha Cha Cha?

And then there's all the yuppie restaurants in the Marina and downtown.

Swanky bars in SOMA.

Buena Vista for Irish Coffee--they claim to be the first to serve it in America.

The Ferry Building, especially Hog Island for oysters and all the specialty stores in it (I like the mushroom store).

And sushi, sushi, sushi.

Yep, this could be a two hour show. Of course, the way we are about smoking could be a real laugh when he tries to light up after a meal.

And we are never long without a protest or two. Sometimes we protest that there hasn't been anything to protest for a while.

What say ye??

And... add in the Napa Valley, too!

Tony visited San Francisco and Napa Valley in the A Cooks Tour days. He devotes a whole chapter to The French Laundry in the A Cooks Tour book. So, if you need your fix now, go check those out.

I never saw any episodes of Cook's Tour. I will definitely check that out. Thanks!

I will definitely look up the aforementioned reference.

Still, you really can't say that The French Laundry (or even most places in Napa and Sonoma) are an accurate representation of my beloved city. It is very doubtful that 5% of this city's residents will ever see TFL--even to pick up the laundry itself.

Indeed, the surrounding counties each offer many qualities that make the Bay Area a favorite place to live for many, and visit for many more. Can't argue with that. The opportunity to maximize your preferences and tastes may be unchallenged in such a small area anywhere else.

That being said, I would still love to see Tony walking around outside the R Bar after a few too many shots of Fernet getting propositioned by a transvestite "lady of the evening." The fact that this bar is within walking distance of many of the most higly reviewed restaurants SF offers (and is packed to capacity nightly) is one of the things that makes this one of the greatest and unique cities in the country.

OK. You might get that in NYC or Chicago, but we don't get snow here, a definite selling point. And they don't go through Fernet like we do either, something like 50% of the country's supply of it is consumed here, and I think at least 50% of that at the R Bar.

Yeah, I love it here.

And if Tony comes to town, I'll buy the first round.