The Chowhound's Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area

by Chowhound

Book Overview

With more than 740,000 visitors a month, Chowhound.com has become a favorite source of information for those who want to take their dining experiences off the beaten path. So why should San Francisco eaters limit their choices to the same old locales found in most restaurant guides? As fun to read as it is comprehensive, The Chowhound's Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area is all about finding the perfect bite for every occasion, focusing on the undiscovered gems that will generate tomorrow's buzz. From the best Chinatown noodle shops and secret tamale ladies to sumptuous sushi meccas and sensational stock-up stops for a romantic Sonoma picnic, this is the richest treasure trove of San Francisco restaurants, cafes, take-out counters, delis, farmer's markets, and food carts ever compiled. On the web: http: //www.chowhound.com

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0143034413
• ISBN13: 9780143034414
• Release Date: April 2005
• Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
• Length: 434 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.2" x 8.3"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Fun Read

If you are a frequent visitor to the Chowhound website, you will enjoy this. While I agree that the layout seems somewhat haphazard, we enjoy going through it from front to back without looking things up anyway. Great to find those few dishes that places do well.

Priceless

I bought this just before taking a trip to San Francisco and, because of my experience with the chowhound website, decided to eat solely at places listed in the book. Every single one of the restaurants we chose to go to because of this book was a gem in its own way. My girlfriend is now another disciple of chowhound as a result. Now I'm reading the New York edition to find more great restaurants in my hometown. Keep in mind that this book is a starting point for your research, unless you really know your way around the San Francisco Bay area. Otherwise, be prepared to look up locations and directions on the web.

Food Is My Porn; The Chowhound Guide Is My Kama Sutra

Unbeknownst by my employers, I have been addictively surfing the Chowhound.com web site daily and repeatedly within a given day (workday or not) for years and am a satisfied, although un-sated subscriber of the weekly ChowNews. The Chowhound Guide is ChowNews on steroids. This is not a typical restaurant guide book, it is a series of narrative dining descriptions and listings (both short and long) of where a hungry `hound can find deliciousness of every kind. It is written not by professionals who are paid to eat, but by lusty, full of life food lovers who live to eat all that is delicious. I love that I can read this book just for the pleasure of it and plan to use it as bed-time reading material, like a chocolate left on the coverlet of a bed, it will end my day with a smile in my heart and dreams of meals to come. Lastly, the indexing of this book is fantastic, when my left brain kicks in I have a useful, portable chow-resource. I have already sent copies of the book as gifts to business colleagues, who all have to eat, and who have all benefited and appreciated the chow tips gleaned from Chowhound.,com that I have passed along to them in the past. Now they will have a copy of the chow treasure map for themselves

The greatest thing since un-sliced bread!

If you are a Bay Area chowhound (and if you are not, there's one inside you screaming to be let out) you'll want this book. It covers the area like a blanket, reporting on the best in eats of all persuasions, but especially focuses on places that fly under the radar of conventional guidebooks and Sunday paper dining columns. The Chowhound's Guide is organized in a tantalyzingly browseable pseudo-random manner using red herring keywords ("Ono Hawaiian Grill" comes between "Offal in Oakland" and "Organic Produce -- Delivered!") so after flipping through a few pages you'll know what you are craving even if you didn't have the foggiest before you opened the book. But not to fear, it's also well indexed by locale, cuisine and establishment. For the uninitiated (and go and initiate yourself by visiting the quirky message board website the wisdom emanates from), the book is not only for chowhounds, it's by chowhounds -- hundreds of them -- via a grass-roots Delphi process unlike any other you're likely to have encountered. The resulting buffet of choices spread out for the reader consequently reflects neither the tastes of a single pundit, nor the anonymous click-to-vote blandness of a popularity contest.

The guide isn't just very good, it's brilliant.

Whether you are a tourist who wants to eat like the locals or a Bay Area native, this book has the most compact yet comprehensive list of ideas for delicious dining in a unique, humorous and easy-to-read format. As a long time Bay Area resident, I found myself using it immediately Things I love about the book -It's lightweight, so I can carry it my purse -There are tips about places I frequent that I didn't know about -Great cross indexing. It's very easy to use. -It doesn't have the same tired general knowledge tips -Really amazing that not only is SF and immediate areas covered, but that the entire Bay Area is nicely represented. It also captures the essence of Chowhound of having fun while finding something wonderful to eat. I've traveled quite a bit and bought many guide books. This is one of the best and most useful books I own.