Neptune Landing

Each week I will be posting information about the best restaurants for a middle-class budget. Feel free to chime in if I have it wrong. One or two of each type of ethnic food will be represented. Where is your favorite San Francisco place to dine? Sushi Time This little slice of Tokyo hidden under a flight of Castro stairs seats about twelve people tops. Our favorite is the Barbie Roll: 8 pieces of stuffed avacado, crab and salmon topped with rice and a slice of lemon. For Mexican fare I've pegged Taqueria El Buen Sabor (The Good Flavor Taqueria) as best in the Mission. It sits humbly on the corner of 18th and Valencia and their 7 dollar Vegetarian Supreme Burrito is divine. What's your favorite burrito place?

When considering population density of major U.S. cities, the port of San Francisco plays kid sister only to New York City (17,000 and 27,000 people per square mile, respectively). Thus any opportunity  to escape the hoi polloi is a goddess-send. Parks and green spaces can succeed on many levels beyond attendance. San Francisco, in fact, nabbed the number one spot in the nation for best park system by The Trust for Public Land , using metrics like acreage, services and investment, and access. I often judge on the Secret Garden principle: the less exposure, the more special. So it pains me to have to reveal San Francisco's wooded treasure but thankfully you my readers are small in number. Glen Canyon Park is wrinkled between the neighborhoods of Glen Park and Diamond Heights. Similar to Boston's Roslindale Village (Rozzi Square) and its adjacent Arnold Arboretum, Glen Park gives a strolling access to its green oasis. You don't often here about Glen Canyon Par...

Is it just the summer or is everyone on vacation here? In San Francisco you can never tell as the summers tend to run cool and everyone dresses (as one yelper put it) "like they're five years old." Even the local newscasters talk about "hanging out"at seminal SF events like this weekend's " Outsidelands ," a three-day rock concert at Golden Gate Park and " Bay to Breakers ," a road race in May that's become the straight community's pride parade (pronounced Beta Breakers like it's a witty app for cocktail parties). It's so weird but I guess not as weird as Boston anchors' flashing to the Red Sox or the Catholic Church. Still, the hedonism here is constant and I suspect the real reason for the high cost of living. Here's my theory: cost of living is slightly higher than Boston but I feel that people here want to go out and spend money all the time on all the fun stuff within a one mile radius. This is the true eng...

With my moon in Taurus, I continue to end up in the most comfortable digs. Case in point is this past week's house sitting for a lawyer in Bernal Heights. Much like earthy-crunchy Jamaica Plain, Bernal Heights is San Francisco's village for independent shops, dog-owners, gardening and a large lesbian population. Sitting just south of the Mission, it is a neighborhood marked by a nearly bald, golden hill and leggo-like density of pastel homes. Public Transportation here isn't stellar (although the trudging 24 bus will take you right to Market and Castro) but its isolation is part of its charm. Cortland Avenue, the much less busier version of Centre Street, has a small independent grocery store called Good Life and a few coffee shops like Progressive Grounds. One of my favorite bookstores in the city is called Red Hill Books named after the fact that Bernal Heights sheltered many working-class families and anti-war activists during the Vietnam War. The geology too of this S...