Exactly. It is known to have a scene. It is a great place for people who like to go to restaurants. For people who like good food, not so much. I remember going to a tea tasting in SF's chinatown while at a conference there. My friend (a local) asked if we had such good tea in Vancouver. The shop owner who was serving us interrupted: "They do. My brother has a shop there. He sent me this tea."
Since you mentioned Vancouver, I searched for Burmese food on Yelp. Only 7 restaurants total come back total.
2 are "Burmese / Thai / Malaysian" Asian fusion places Three of 3 are a generic Asian chain called Noodlebox that has one item called "Burmese naan" 1 is a Thai restaurant with one "Burmese curry" dish 1 is a Vietnamese restaurant that mentions its near one of the Burmese / Thai / Malaysian fusion restaurants
So Yelp has 7 total Burmese restaurants in Vancouver, not one of them is actually Burmese, and almost all of them don't even have Burmese dishes (where is the tea leaf salad? Burmese naan doesn't count)
So you can act like San Francisco is just known for having a food scene, but when you don't even have access to many of the same world cuisines in other cities it is hard for me to take you seriously when you say its not a place for people who like "good food."
You know the majority of American produce is grown in California? Do the vegetables get better when they're shipped for a few days to the east coast?
Always love to grab myself one when I'm in the UK though.
Discovered the other day a restaurant that sells afternoon cream teas - perfect!
That said, that grill, and the traditional English fry-up are pretty unhealthy; I think I'm better off not living near one.
btw the british school of cuisine is one of the most famous in the world. not scene-wise though, but good food is for eating, not instagram.
sf is definitely not known for tasty food. it's known for showing off food. good for bored tourists. not good to live there. and no, sf doesn't habe good greek food or middle-eastern food. i've been to greece and the middle east quite a bit, and they have better food at has stations.
sf is all show and hype. that's not what locals want.
Yes, it is.
It's mostly orthogonal to the trendy food scene, and if you follow the latter hoping to find the former you’ll likely be disappointed, but SF is known for excellent examples of both a wide variety of authentic ethnic cuisines and a wide variety of excellent unique creative/fusion offerings apart from the trendy scene.
the south is known for great bbq. chicago is the meat capitol, with deep dish and greektown. maryland for crab and maine for lobster, nyc has authentic jew-food that rivals what i ate in israel and jordan.
what is the food sf is known for? because if i literally ask anyone i know, the answer will be 'fusion.' or 'pizza' with ranch and lettuce in it.
you're known for california rolls. the big mac of sushi.
known doesn't mean known just to you.
you may have some good restaurants here and there that people can uber to. the rest is fusion of hipster and lsd microdoses.
in a city i want to live in, i walk outside and pick from 5 good places. you take an uber across town to those. people are leaving now that work doesn't require them there. to a cities with better food.
Can't think of any place I've known so many people (and not just of any one national background) who live well outside the immediate area go to regularly specifically because of the quality of some particular cuisine (often, people of non-US origin going for their own national cuisine) that is there, though.
That doesn't really tell me anything about SF, but it does tell me a lot about the people you know.
> you're known for california rolls.
Me? I mean, I live in (approximately) Sacramento, not SF; of course, it's LA that is known for California rolls, anyway.
> known doesn't mean known just to you.
Yeah, I mean “known in media and culture”; not for a particular regional cuisine, but for the cosmopolitan variety of high-quality cuisine available.
> in a city i want to live in, i walk outside and pick from 5 good places.
Sounds like SF to me.
The good places and the popular, large, heavily marketed and online-reviewed places with glaring signage, though, only occasionally overlap.