San Francisco Eats and Sights: Day One

Since we left home at 5AM we were able to reach San Francisco in the early afternoon. After a little nap, we were ready for dinner and a little bit of San Francisco exploring!

For dinner, I picked a restaurant called Farmhouse Kitchen Thai Cuisine. It was in the Mission District, not too far from the Airbnb we were staying at. We managed to park on the same block as the restaurant. You had to park 90 degrees to the curb! I’m used to the slanted 45 degree angles here in San Diego but I’m guessing this saves on space. San Francisco seems to be all about space saving considering all of the houses we saw were touching each other.

Menu, side one. 

And side two, which is mostly drinks with a few street food and vegetable items.

The “secret” menu item. 

Jake and I started with drinks while Dad just had water. I got a Passion Fruit Iced Tea [$4.50]. It was brewed and came with sprigs of mint. Quite refreshing and tropical tasting. Unsweetened, which is how I like it.

Jake ordered the Ginger Milk Tea [$5]. It is served hot with spicy ginger root, brown sugar, and calendula. Most folks (including me) know calendula as “marigolds”. That’s probably what’s floating on top of this drink! I really enjoyed the ginger milk tea. It was frothy, creamy, and had just the right amount of sweetness. The ginger gives it a kick. When getting closer to the end of this drink, it gets really spicy from the ginger! 

Okay. So. Yeah. A lady came by with this basket. She said a bunch of stuff I didn’t understand. The only thing I understood was “crickets”. We weren’t sure if these were complimentary (they probably were) but I asked to take a photo and we politely refused.

My dad later regretted not trying it. I…. was okay with not trying it. I wouldn’t want to get cricket legs stuck in my teeth, now would I? (ewww)

Our first dish to come out was the Chicken Wings [$11.50]. It doesn’t state on the menu HOW MANY wings you get so I was a little surprised that there were only FOUR wings for the price tag. That’s about $2.87 per wing! Geez! 

The chicken wings are buttermilk battered with panko bread crumbs and served with a side of chili plum sauce. The wings were juicy and crispy, though a bit on the small side. The chili plum sauce was quite flavorful and not that spicy (yay for me). 

I wanted us to have some vegetables so I ordered this “salad”. It was listed under the salads anyway. The Yum Moo Krob [$14.95] comes with crispy pork belly, mint, shallot, garlic, cilantro with “garden vegetables”. The garden vegetable was a chunk of cabbage that is hiding underneath all of that cilantro, by the way. 

We got the sauce at a level 3 out of 10. I wanted to go lower but Dad wanted to get a 3. The sauce is SO flavorful! There’s bits of mint, shallot, garlic, and cilantro within the base of the sauce. Even though it was just a level 3, it still packed some heat behind it! I spooned the sauce carefully over torn pieces of cabbage and pork belly so I didn’t get too much of it. I did really enjoy the flavor of it though – a bit pungent, super flavorful, with the heat lingering in the back. My mouth felt like it was a bit on fire after eating this but I didn’t feel like I would die, so that was good. Ha. 

I wanted to check out the Hat Yai Fried Chicken [$21.50] and we all shared this plate of food which came with fried chicken breast, roti bread, potato yellow curry, and blue rice. The chicken was in several pieces under the roti bread. The batter reminded me of a smooth tempura batter – quite thin and very crunchy. The chicken was tender and juicy inside. My favorite thing on this plate was the potato yellow curry which had a coconut flavor in the background. It was creamy and chock full of flavor from all of the spices in it! There were potato chunks and bits of fried shallots in it. It tasted great spooned on top of the blue rice. Yum!

The only dish we didn’t care for that day was this Pad Ka Pow dish with beef, Thai basil, fresh chili, and tons of peppers. The menu didn’t state the peppers – I don’t think I would have ordered if I had known it was almost all peppers. The beef was very chewy and a bit hard to eat. They tasted overcooked, maybe? The flavor was okay, but the beef just wasn’t doing it for us making this a meh dish. 

Farmhouse Kitchen Thai Cuisine
710 Florida Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

I wanted ice cream after dinner and we walked a few blocks into the Mission District to check out a local shop.

Humphry Slocombe! 

They had some really interesting flavors to try. My Dad ended up getting the Blueberry Boy Bait and Jake got the Blackberry Honey which tasted more like honey than blackberries.

Pints if you need ice cream to go.

I got a flavor that Minion told me about called Secret Breakfast. 

It’s bourbon flavored ice cream with chunks of cornflake cookies inside it. The cookies are soft and were almost oatmeal-like to me. The bourbon flavor is a bit on the strong side but I loved this sweet, creamy treat. 

Humphry Slocombe
2790A Harrison Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(in the Mission District – they have another location at the Ferry Building)

After ice cream, we roamed around the city to check out a few “famous” spots like the row of Painted Ladies houses in Alamo Square. It was SO WINDY up here on this hill! I didn’t get a great shot of the houses, either. I either didn’t go high enough on the hill or I’m too short or something. Oh well.

Most people mistake these houses for the Full House house because they have a picnic in the park right in front of the houses. The actual Tanner family home is a few blocks away. 

This is the Full House house. You’re not supposed to stop or park in front. We just did a drive-by and I snapped a photo of it. 

It was about dusk then (after 9PM!) and we drove over to Golden Gate Bridge. I was happy to catch this shot of the sun going down and the orange glow behind the iconic Golden Gate Bridge. 

More to come!