Adrianna Tan
My favorite thing to do is to plan weekend trips with friends to neighboring cities outside SF with better immigrant food.
This weekend, a taco adventure to deep east Oakland and San Leandro; then Indian street BBQ kebabs in Fremont. (On different days)
Adrianna Tan
Oakland has much better Chinese and Mexican and Japanese and Korean foods than SF to me (variety and price and quality); Fremont has ‘new’ Chinese (including halal Chinese and more northern foods, also the best Afghan and Indian foods (without going to South Bay).
Without easy access to these neighboring cities I would be much more annoyed about the food in SF (which is fine, better than many places, but doesn’t satisfy my palate which has been trained on lots of street food in most of Asia). I also don’t particularly enjoy SF fine dining compared to other major global eat out cities.
Adrianna Tan
San Mateo has the most interesting Japanese foods and South Bay for Vietnamese and South Indian.
I do spend more of my time in east Oakland and Fremont because it’s easier for me to get to those places (and I have friends who pick me up at BART to drive me to places)!
Also, tacos are my primary food group and east Oakland has the most density of the ones I love
Adrianna Tan
I think there are a few reasons why the food in SF just isn’t as good anymore (to me):
Lack of housing and good transit between cities means you can’t hire many service staff who can’t afford to live in the city (so we don’t have late night food)
Gentrification from tech means the only way to make money in the food biz is to cater to the palates of a very specific type of person in SF
Given that there’s no room for most new immigrants in the city that they can afford, they cluster outside in other nearby cities and towns and
Well there’s no point making amazing Tanzanian food in SF instead of in West Oakland coz
There aren’t people who will organically like most other cuisines other than the major known ones.
Also, SF permitting is an utterly nightmarish experience I would not wish on my worst enemy (it was part of my job to try to fix it, but there is a ton of corruption that would make many of the corrupt politicians I’ve met in developing countries blush)
Adrianna Tan
@knapjack oh yes. Great Lao food too
Jack
Adrianna Tan
Maybe there are a handful of people in the city who are like, not true! I would love this stuff!
I just don’t think the data shows that. I’ve dabbled a little in the food industry here (helping friends out) and
I genuinely think SF is way more of a conservative dining city than it thinks. Outside of the ‘greatest hits’ and immigrant- originated food innovations
It’s frankly not a city where you can do really interesting stuff anymore. You just won’t make money.
Adrianna Tan
Imagine that for jollibee to open downtown, they’ve paid rent in that location for what, five years? And they’re still not open.
Good thing they have money, but which small business and immigrant restaurant can do that?
Jeff Smith
@skinnylatte with all the money wealth in SF they are still food poor
Adrianna Tan
@sumisu3 to be clear it’s better than lots of places in the U.S.! It just isn’t the food Mecca that its original reputation claims it is
Adrianna Tan
@WigglyWigtails @teajaygrey jollibee has a shit ton of money, this is nothing to them
Sunshine and Wind
@teajaygrey
In Australia we have supermarkets that will buy up land /pay rental for 10years so the competition can't move into an area.
But this is not the same as your story.
@skinnylatte
ティージェーグレェ
Adrianna Tan
@pencilears I believe it
✨pencilears✨
@skinnylatte classmate from art school ended up kitchen manager for the in-house catering for Amazon in Seattle.
He said it was torture, because the kind of employee who won't get up from their desk for lunch wants pb&j or chicken nuggets with no sauce
Adrianna Tan
@foxxtrot the places that still have a heart in SF are the places that the gentrifiers say are ‘scary’
Jeff Craig
@skinnylatte I've been visiting the Bay Area regularly for 15 years or so now, and it absolutely has gotten much worse in basically every way in that time. And faster than any other major metro I've visited in that same period.
Neighborhoods used to have a heart. They just don't anymore.
Adrianna Tan
@sumisu3 honestly it’s wild to me that the west coast foodie scene feels much more classist than on the big cities of the east coast.
Jeff Smith
@skinnylatte having grown up near Chicago I had always enjoined the working class, ethnic food scene. Definitely missed Mexican, Greek, Persian, Polish and other food when I lived in Japan though.
Jeff Smith
@skinnylatte when I moved to the Bay Area from Tokyo in 1995 people raved about SF food scene. There was some really good stuff but… not quite up to the hype even back then.
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