This time I planned on getting there early enough to get a seat! Swan Oyster Depot opens promptly at 10:30am. We arrived at 9:50am on a Thursday. We were the first people there! So we walked up the street and got a cup of coffee and walked back to the Swan to officially get in line. It was about 10:10am and we were still the first people in line… but not for long.

People began to appear and suddenly the line was about 20 people deep. Apparently this was a “slow morning”.

Here’s a guy setting up the windows. The sun was beating down so he had white paper covering all of the fish until the sun wasn’t so direct.

This shot was taken right after they put all the stools down… 5 minutes before this shot all of the stools were piled up in sets of two against the wall. This is it though, this is the entire restaurant. One main counter with stools. It doesn’t seat many people, hence why there is always a line to get in. It’s awesome, old school, authentic and everything you’d hope a seafood diner would be.

Yay, they finally opened and we took our seats about halfway down the bar, directly in front of the menu on the wall. I ordered what I had the last time I was there – the combination seafood cocktail and a bowl of clam chowder.

There was a huge bowl of oyster crackers every 3 feet or so… we were lucky enough to sit right in front of one! When you sit down you also get a big hunk of bread and butter, but I forgot to take a photo of that…

My view from the bar…

Ahhh the combination seafood cocktail! It’s served in a little sundae dish and it looks small but boy does it pack a big punch. The bottom is filled with lump crab meat, it’s topped with a jumbo shrimp and an oyster. And you get a big dish of cocktail sauce to dip everything into. It’s pretty mild and ice cold which is yum.

The first time I had this clam chowder I remember it being the absolute best clam chowder I’ve ever had. This past time I beg to differ but only because it was slightly luke warm… but I’m going to blame it on the fact that it was 10:30am and we were the first people in line. It was still very good and I ate almost the entire bread chunk they gave us.

What makes this soup so tasty is the fact that the broth is super flavorful and isn’t not super chunky… it’s definitely creamy but on the thinner side which makes dipping bread into it completely OCD and oyster crackers absorb the broth faster.  It’s really, really good.

So, long story short, place is great. Despite all the hype surrounding this place, I still think it’s worth going (if you have time). The seafood is super fresh, nice and cold, and the ambiance brings me right back to the diners of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  You really don’t find many down home places like this in San Francisco. I love everything about it, except the super long line.

Swan Oyster Depot
1517 Polk St
San Francisco, CA 94109

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I had Shrimp Tempura Maki, Hamachi and Yellowtail Sashimi and Chicken Donburi with egg.

The shrimp tempura maki was pretty good.  The only issue I had with it was that the shrimp tempura wasn’t freshly cooked — either they pre-cooked the pieces to use in the maki or they didn’t fry it long enough because the tempura had no crunch… (but the finely sliced pieces of cucumber did).  It was interesting to me to have cucumber in the shrimp tempura maki – most places either do a simple shrimp tempura with nothing else or sometimes with avocado, but I’ve never really seen the basic shrimp tempura maki with both avo and cucumber.. Anyhow I was very impressed with how fine the pieces of cucumber were sliced.

Above is the sashimi.  It was super fresh, nice and chilled and just melted in your mouth.

I really liked the chicken donburi at Sanraku.  Not only were there very fresh ingredients (onion, pepper, green beans) but the chicken was also nice breast meat and was juicy and tender.  I’ve had bad chicken donburi at places that use gross rubbery dark meat and I have to say that Sanraku really does a good job with this dish.

For those of you who have never had this dish, there is rice underneath these sauteed veggies and meat (and egg).  On top of the rice is a sweet donburi sauce and it is traditionally covered on top with a fried egg (in my case it was scrambled and wasn’t included with the dish).  Anyhow, it was really good, and I definitely suggest getting it with a nice fried egg on top – totally rules.

Thank you Sanraku for a great lunch!

Sanraku
101 4th St
Inside Metreon
(between Howard St & Minna St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 369-6166
www.sanraku.com

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I ordered the Charbroiled Prawn with steamed rice because I thought that it would warm me up withouth making me feel like a total load.

Take a second and try to count how many pieces of food there are on this plate.  1 Scoop of rice, 1 dish of fish sauce, 4 pieces of broccoli, 7 shrimp.  I’m sorry, but that is not enough food… not for $8.50 and not for a starving Kir… I gobbled up the shrimp and the broccoli pretty fast, and I was still really hungry so I ate the white rice which you know is soooo not filling in a “filling” way… *sigh*.  Will try something else there next time.

Oh yeah, the shrimp was good.  It was just sauteed with some pepper and garlic, pretty simple… the broccoli was lightly steamed.  The fish sauce was good and the rice was good too… cooked perfectly, not too soft, not too grainy and it had that nice popcorny smell.

I’m giving today’s lunch 2 stars because I think it wasn’t enough food, and it wasn’t oh so spectacular.  It was good but it wasn’t good enough for $11… but I will go back to try the garlic noodles – they smelled divine.

Perilla
510 Mission St
(between 1st St & Ecker Pl)
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 777-1893
www.perillasf.com

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So what is the Vietnamese Crepe you say? It kind of looks like an omlet – it is a sort of crispy pan fried rice flour folded-over shell stuffed with chicken, shrimp and bean sprouts (mung beans). They also make it with turmeric and cornstarch so it has a nice golden color and a yummy corn-esque flavor. The crepe itself is for the most part, is pretty thin… it should be both chewy on the inside and crisp on the outside, if that makes any sense.

Today I went at lunchtime which was a completely different experience than going at dinner which I usually do. This was the first time in 5 years that I’ve gone to this place when my 2 favorite waiter dudes weren’t working – it was a woman and another guy (they were both very nice, don’t get me wrong). And they had an easy listening radio station playing too. I never noticed music before in there, so maybe it’s just a lunchtime thing… it was nice though, and it was also nice how it wasn’t so crowded and there were other “singles” eating alone too.

There must be a different cook during the day than night (duh), because there was only one difference in the crepe today than how it’s usually made at night. There were small scallion slices cooked into the crepe, they aren’t usually there at night. …No, seriously, I could talk about the Vietnamese crepe all day. Anyway, onto the pics!

[above] Fish Sauce!!

[above] Post-fish sauce

I <3 Vietnamese Crepe = DISCO FRIES!!

Sunflower Authentic Vietnamese Restaurant
3111 16th St
& 506 Valencia
(at Valencia St)
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 626-5022
www.sunflower-restaurant.com

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