California. San Francisco.

2016 May. San Francisco

San Francisco was the last stop of my 3-week road trip. I have been to SF many times, so not very inspired to take a lot of touristy pictures, despite revisiting many touristy places to relive my memories.

Slow drive along congested Lombard Street – the crookedest street in the world

Finding a nice and affordable hotel in San Franciso is a challenge. Basically there is no cheap accommodation, period. I settled on Mystic Hotel through Agoda as its location near Union Square and Chinatown looked good (next to Grand Hyatt, can’t go too wrong I thought) and seemed like the best value, after comparing on several hotel booking sites. I was happy with the pleasant room and sumptious breakfast, very boutique hotel feel, definitely worth considering if you are not sure where to stay in SF.

Found this Latin Amercian Restaurant La Fusion near Mystic Hotel and the food was delicious! We ordered the signature dishes recommended on Yelp and they all turned out to be really good, I missed Peruvian cuisine.

Ceviche Mixto – fresh fish, shrimp, octopus, mussels, pickled red onions, rocotto pepper, corn & lime juice

Rotisserie chicken – served with warm bread salad and choice of one side dish

Sweet potato fries with 3 dipping sauces

Seafood Pot Pie – stuffed puff pastry with prawns, fish, mushrooms, potatoes in a creamy chipotle-guajillo sauce

After dinner stroll. Transamerica Building.

Highly recommend this Chinese restaurant called R&G Lounge (嶺南小館), located at 631 Kearny St, near Chinatown. You cannot imagine my joy when I finally had an authentic and delicious Chinese meal after several misses on lousy or weird-tasting American interpretation of Chinese/Asian food the past weeks. Found this restaurant on Yelp. The salt and pepper Dungeness crab is seriously delicious. Huge, meaty, and juicy. Expensive by local standard, but considered cheap at a fraction of Singapore’s price. Super shiok! Turned out this was also one of the favourite restaurants well known with many friends who used to live in San Francisco.

Live Crab with Salt & Pepper (Signature Dish)

Last day. Golden Gate Bridge at 6am sunrise, zero tourists and free parking till 8am. My farewell to SF for this trip. The rest of the day was dedicated to last minute shopping spree at Livermore Premium Outlet, before heading to SFO for my return flight via Hong Kong.