Houses in our neighbourhood
Wow, they are laaaaa-zy in California. We got out around 9ish, late by our standards. So we wandered into the Hayes Valley area and found a good cafe/bakery for breakfast. Something that’s going to be coming to the UK in a big way soon (well, actually I’ve already seen it in a few artisan coffee shops) is cold brew coffee – you wait and see. I digress. After breakfast it was past 10 so we wandered out for some shopping in very chic Hayes Valley… only to find all the shops didn’t open until 11. What?! Jeez. Okay, so we gave up on Hayes Valley and decided to meander to Mission; a half-hour walk that would get us up to 11. And to be fair, there were some shops open. Some. Because every other shop still said “Open at 12”. Twelve? As in, midday? Are you sure you really want to bother opening at all?!
So we walked all the way through Mission, with another cafe stop along the way, and then started shopping on our way back. That, at least, worked.
Dandelion chocolate
Mission was interesting, because it’s a district we visited when we were in San Francisco 12+ years ago. I remember it as very hispanic, lots of cheap taquerias, lots of grocery shops and cheap clothes. It was kinda interesting for ten minutes and then repetitive. Since then it has clearly gentrified, or at least hipster-ified (if that’s a word) and there are designer jewellers and nifty gift shops, edgy clothes, expensive clothes, bean-to-cup artisan cafe emporiums and (my favourite) a bean-to-gob chocolate manufactory called Dandelion that starts with the cocoa beans and follows the whole process through to some very, very tasty chocolate in your hand or cup. Obviously not while-you-wait, but the whole workshop is visible behind the counter.
There’s still plenty of hispanic influence in the area, and if our guidebook is right then there’s also a degree of local unhappiness about the change (reminiscent of Brixton locals grousing about cereal cafes), but it certainly makes for a more interesting afternoon wandering. There was a shop dedicated to pirates, frankly a bit cheesy, and another much cooler shop full of outlandish natural curiosities, skulls, fossils, taxidermy, plants and various whimsical constructions based on them.
Erm… seen in Mission
We got home pooped, and with a few purchases too. Our evening meal was back in Mission; our only splash-out Michelin-starred plan for the holiday, a modern Mexican place called Californios. So we took an Uber ride over there (get us, eh? AirBnB and then Uber, both in the city that spawned them) and found the place despite its incredibly discrete signage; a single symbol that looks like a pie with one quarter cut out but which could be a “C”. Hm. So… basically, it started strong and then wimped out; the nibbles and starters were the dishes with all the punchy, quirky, novel Mexican flavours. It was still a good evening, and a good day.
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