San Francisco Hotels

Chow
Just like it's sister restaurant Park Chow, this place offers affordable arugula and goat cheese pizzas, pastas, and grilled and roasted meats. There might be a wait for a table that's not by the bathroom or right in front of the door, but the prices are right and the friendly staff make it a pleasant place to dish the dirt with friends.

Creativity Explored
This is an extraordinary nonprofit celebrating art without limits, where 100 developmentally disabled artists create alongside other professional artists. Recent themed group shows have covered art inspired by jazz, superheroes and super-villains, and mail art. Don't miss the art openings, which are joyous events.

Yoshi's
Unquestionably the best jazz club in the Bay Area if not the West Coast, Yoshi's has talent from around the world passing through on a near-nightly basis. Often, touring artists will stop in for a stand of two or three nights. Having the best bar food (sushi, grilled Japanese snacks) around only sweetens the deal.

Alcatraz
Alcatraz: For almost 150 years, the name has given the innocent chills and the guilty cold sweats. Over the years it's been the nation's first military prison, then a forbidding maximum-security penitentiary, then disputed territory between Native American activists and the FBI. No wonder that first step you take off the ferry and onto 'The Rock' seems to cue ominous music: dunh-dunh-dunnnnh! Ferry prices can vary significantly: shop around.

Zuni Café
Gimmickry is for amateurs - Zuni has been turning basic menu items into gourmet staples since 1979. Reservations and fat wallets are necessary, but the see-and-be-seen seating is a kick and the food is beyond reproach: organic beef burgers on focaccia with matchstick fries, Caesar salad with house-cured anchovies, crispy roasted free-range chicken with horseradish mashed potatoes, and impeccable chocolate pudding.

Ramp
Only locals lunch here, in an industrial shipyard on the eastern waterfront. Sit on the docks at umbrella tables and purge your hangover with Bloodies. The food's OK, mostly sandwiches and salads, but the crowd is a cool cross section, and the not-yet gentrified area shows a side of SF few visitors see. Musicians play weekends and the place become a bar.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
With its vantage point on the cutting edge of the Pacific Rim, local technology savvy and prodigious collection of photography, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) was destined from the start (in 1935) to be an eclectic, unconventional museum. But when it moved into architect Mario Botta's light-filled brick box in 1995, suddenly it became clear just how far this museum was prepared to push the art world.

Harry's Bar
Botox, schmotox: cap off a visit to neighborhood day spas with Harry's raspberry-mango mojitos and frown lines are history. Opera season ticket-holders troll the mahogany bar, flogging their tickets to young men planning benefit soirees while wolfing down burgers and fries.

Aquarium Of The Bay
Watch sharks circle overhead, manta rays skate shyly by and seaweed sway all around, as conveyer belts guide you through glass tubes right into the Bay. Not for the claustrophobic, perhaps, but a thrilling fish-eye view of San Francisco that leaves kids and parents wide-eyed and humming Little Mermaid tunes.

Golden Gate Park
When San Franciscans refer to 'the park,' there's only one that gets the definite article: Golden Gate Park. Everything that San Franciscans hold dear is here: free spirits, free music, redwoods, Frisbee, protests, fine art, bonsai and buffalo.

Biscuits & Blues
The Mississippi Delta it ain't, but this is a definite bet for good live blues. With a steady lineup of blues and jazz talent, Biscuits & Blues has actually earned a reputation as one of the best blues clubs in the USA. And the name isn't just a gimmick - the joint serves up hot biscuits, catfish and chicken to get you fully experiencing the Southern love.