The long-awaited “No Reservations” episode with Anthony Bourdain roaming the streets of San Francisco aired last night on Travel Channel. I think we came off pretty good. The city looked a little grungy, but, well, it is. My favorite moments the episode:
1. Tony zooming up and down hills, with the radio tuned to Live 105 but the audio coming from Pirate Cat Radio. What? Special effects tricks on a TV show? Next you’ll tell me all those screeching tire sounds were dubbed!
2. “Hackeysack and scabies, anyone?” The quote of the night. (Even more than the “Good head comes along once in a great while” line about fish heads.) Nice that he didn’t try to romanticize the Haight. You could almost smell the scent of pot and B.O. through the TV. And I loved all the street kids flipping off the cameras. Charming.
3. That’s It Market in the Mission. This place is going to explode in popularity now. That gargantuan (as big as Giada Di Laurentis’ head!) Cubano torta was groesquely awesome. Word is, their regular tortas and quesadillas are amazing.
4. Martinis, martinis, martinis! I don’t think of SF as a martini town, but maybe I’m missing out. But next time Tony’s in town, he has to hit Tommy’s on Geary for some margaritas.
5. Meat, meat, meat! OK, I think the point of the meat overload was to dispel the vegan, granola image that people might have of the city. But even though there was a lot of it, it all looked pretty tasty. (Well, I don’t know about the offal. . . . but House of Prime Rib must be seen to be believed.)
6. International Boulevard in Oakland? Wow, that earns some street cred. Of course, it was daylight. I have no problem with showing off Oakland a bit, and those tacos looked drool-worthy.
7.We learned the limit of what Tony will eat: monkey brains. So no dinners with Indy at Pankot Palace in his future.
All in all, I’ve only been to three of the 11 spots hit on the show. I need to get out more. Click here for a map of the places Bourdain visited, including a few that didn’t make the show (too bad the Toronado missed the cut).
