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Welcome, Home part 2
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August 07, 2005
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« Welcome, Home | Main | SHF #11, Coffee: Molasses-coffee cookie recipe »
I had about a week left before I had to fly back down to Orange County and we had to move all of our stuff up. We were already making plans to move into storage, since things didn't seem to be going our way. I'd found no less than five apartments that I really liked, but we'd been beaten to the punch on four of them, and although we were first in line with the fifth one, the guy refused to rent or reserve the place for us until he'd met Rebecca. He wouldn't even take our application or check our credit if she wasn't there. It was very frustrating, as it was a great place in Hayes Valley. Remodeled kitchen, great hardwoods (these were important criteria for me). The main room was long and large and had big windows on three sides! If you've ever lived in San Francisco you know this is a big deal.
I was mostly trying for North Beach, but since there were so few openings there, I filled my time with Hayes Valley and Mission openings as I had the time. We were pretty down on Nob Hill by this time. There was one spot on a pretty weird place on Nob Hill, though, that I decided to go to because it was on my way to North Beach from my hotel. Turned out to be on top of the Stockton Tunnel, about as far as you can go northeast on Nob Hill before you're in Chinatown. The apartment itself is actually below ground level (from the perspective of the top of the tunnel, anyhow). The walls were a rich red brick, which was kind of cool, and the floors were blond hardwoods. It was a 2 bedroom, but priced like a 1 bedroom. This is probably because it was pretty small for a 2 bedroom -- but it would be just fine for the two of us.
Here's the thing, though -- I only had a chance to see it for fifteen minutes, because I had to make my next appointment. I really liked it, though, and took an application, filled it out later that day, and faxed it that evening. Monday morning I got two phone calls saying that my application had been approved. The Stockton place was one of them, and the beautiful, tiny apartment on Grant in North Beach was the other. Rebecca and I opted to take the Stockton place even though it wasn't in the neighborhood we'd wanted.
Over the following week, as I continued working, and flew down to Orange County, I was very nervous. What if Rebecca didn't like the place? Worse yet, I'd based my decision on a fifteen minute viewing that even I didn't remember very well at that point. What if I didn't like the place?
Of course, I needn't have worried. It's turned out to be a great apartment so far. Here's a rundown of what we like and don't like about it:
THE GOOD:
The neighborhood
One of the things we like about San Francisco is how distinct different parts of the city are. There are many reasons for this: elevation, microclimates, racial/cultural makeup of the residents, zoning. The great thing about this apartment is that it's right at the center of several very different neighborhoods. Technically, it's on Nob Hill, but it's right at the edge of Chinatown. Towards the east it overlooks downtown, and to the south is Union Square.
I've tried to give a feel for how different these neighborhoods are through pictures, for those of you that don't know San Francisco. (Click on them to see larger versions.) The first picture is taken right at the end of our block overlooking downtown. You can see a bit of the Bay Bridge down at the end. The picture above is what you see if you turn ninety degrees to the left and walk twenty or thirty feet. This is the edge of Chinatown. From this view, if you turn around, you'll see the third picture, which gives you a bit of the stately feel of Nob Hill. Finally, if you turn around again, go down the stairs into Chinatown, head to the end of our block and turn right, and if it happens to be evening, you'll get a vew of the northern end of Downtown that looks like the last picture.
We're very central to some great neighborhoods, even beyond the ones that we border. We're a literally a ten minute walk from North Beach, Market St., Embarcadero, the Theatre District. Everything those neighborhoods have to offer is accessible to us without even taking a bus or a taxi.
Getting Around
Speaking of busses, the transit situation is pretty excellent. The 30 and the 45 both run up and down Stockton. The 30 in particular is a strong line and runs every 6 minutes during peak times; the 45 runs every 9 minutes. This means that there's a bus going by every 4 or 5 minutes at worst. My main concern is getting to the train station, and this turns out to be not much of a hassle, as both of these busses go directly to the train station. The trip takes about 12 minutes. There's also an owl (late bus) that runs that route if we are out late (although we often take cabs if it's late).
How good public transportation is in your area is, in my book, mostly a function of (a) what neighborhoods you can get to without a transfer, and (b) how fast you can get to Market St., where you can basically get everywhere worth going without a transfer. For us, the 30 goes to Union Square, Market, SOMA, and the train to the south, and Fisherman's Wharf (if for some weird reason we wanted to go there), Ft. Mason, and the Marina to the north. The 45 has the same route to the south, but to the north it hits Russian Hill and Union St./Pacific Heights. Both busses wind up at the eastern edge of the Presidio.
In the other direction, we have the 1 running along California, and the 2/3/4 complex running along Post. These hit southern Pacific Heights, Western Addition, Laurel Heights, and the Richmond, as well as the southern edge of the Presidio. The 38 does basically the same, and runs more often, but it's a little bit farther of a walk rather than being right out the door like the California. You can also use these busses to get to Golden Gate Park, but you'll have to walk four of five blocks.
All in all, not a bad situation. There are some areas that we can't get to without a transfer, though, that we do visit a lot. Hayes Valley, the Mission, and Upper Market are the primary culprits. But ultimately it's not that bad; we can always make the 10 minute walk down to Market and go from there.
Eating out
Chinatown is obviously a strong area for eating out. There's dim sum all over, bakeries with their dried pork rolls and beef curry buns, and the meat vendors with roast chickens, ducks, cuttlefish, and barbequed pork. And, of course, there are a great many traditional chinese restaurants. I don't even know how many; 20, maybe? 30? I don't know how varied they are, but perhaps we'll learn to distinguish different styles of Chinese cooking and develop strong preferences. At the very least, we'll learn to order beyond our traditional Chinese take-out favorites. I expect to discover a whole new world of Chinese food.
There's also a lot of great food in North Beach. It's long been said that the best Italian restaurants in the City aren't in North Beach, and this may or may not be true, but there are a number of quality offerings nonetheless, such as Tommasso's. But there's a lot more on offer than just Italian food. Intriguing Thai (Citizen Thai), Basque (Iluna), Brazil-Ital (Mangarosa), Pacific Rim (the house), and even French (Cafe Jacqueline). And of course there's plenty of great non-fancy, weekday food as well.
Finally, Union Square/Theatre District is no slouch when it comes to restaurants, and there are too many here to mention. We've already had some good meals there which I will detail at a later time. There's a decent amount of food a little ways into Nob Hill, too, but I doubt we'll much need to avail ourselves of it. There's just too much to eat elsewhere.
Eating In
Rebecca and I used to hop on a bus every other Saturday and head up to Chinatown to shop for the week. Fresh vegetables are cheap and plentiful...even if you don't know what they are. Fresh ducks and chickens are all around -- in fact, there are at least four whole stores devoted to fresh poultry. Seafood is incredibly varied. Stockton St. is basically devoted to Chinese markets. We can just pop downstairs, walk up a block or two, shop, and walk back home.
Although there are many things you can get in Chinatown that you can't get anywhere else, there are also plenty of things you can't get in Chinatown and need to look farther afield for. Fortunately, the buses that run up and down Stockton can put us right at the door of a Safeway and a Whole Foods. They also pass directly in front of K&L, which is a great wine shop that I used to live directly above. This is important, as wine is one of those things that you can't get in Chinatown. (Though we can also walk to Coit Liquor in ten minutes if necessary, and it has already been necessary.) Ironically, if we take the 1, which runs along California, we can get dropped off right at the door of another Whole Foods. So getting good grocery isn't going to be a problem.
THE OKAY
The light
Enshrined as we are below ground level and between tall buildings, our apartment doesn't get as much natural light as I'd like, and what we do get isn't direct -- it's reflected off of other buildings. My imagination, however, had transformed it into a complete cave, and when we finally moved in, I was surprised to find it quite livable. Still, more natural light is always nice, and the lack of it is forcing us to find creative ways to administer artificial lighting so that the place -- particularly the room we use as a dining room -- feels less cave-like.
THE BAD
The kitchen
Here's the one thing that we really don't like about the place. And it's a pretty important thing. The kitchen is terrible. The fridge sucks -- it's small and lacks a lot of features that we've gotten used to since we bought a nice fridge while we were in Irvine. The kitchen itself is completely open to the living area, which is nice in concept, but in this instance it means that there's virtually no counterspace. There's little storage space to speak of, especially considering just how much cooking-related crap I own. There's no garbage disposal. There's no dishwasher. The oven is one of those little half-size jobs with only one rack in it. And on top of it all, it's electric.
This is basically a worst-case scenario. We've confronted it aggressively, though, and are making progress. We bought a large kitchen island and put it up to block off the kitchen from the living area, giving us some counterspace (and at the same time ensuring that whoever is cooking can see both the television and any guests who happen to be there, rather than facing the other direction). We bought a "grid system" which allows you to hang things on the wall such as spice racks and shelving. We've appropriated space in bookcases and closets for wine glasses and rarely-used kitchen items. We're making do. It'll never be a dream kitchen to work in, but it'll do, for now.
The summer
This is more of a question right now, or a suspicion. The fact is that our building is made out of brick, and our internal walls are brick as well. This is very neat, but what happens when it gets hot? In San Francisco, this is not normally a concern -- the temperature is fairly moderate most of the time. But there's always a couple of weeks every year where the temperature is just through the roof. No one (including ourselves) has air conditioning because, well, why buy an air conditioner for ten days out of the year? But those ten days you just want to kill yourself or someone else. They're annoying and difficult enough that you remember them the rest of the year. So I'm wondering if our building will act like a brick oven and hold in the heat, cooking us to a crisp like a Chinatown duck. We'll know soon enough.
So there it is. We have a new place, it's great, we love it. Now that we're getting settled, if you're planning to make a trip to town, let us know; we'd love to show you our favorite bits! I swear I'll be better about updating the weblog now, so you can start checking it again.
August 7, 2005 in san francisco | Permalink
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Comments
awesome.. reminds me of my home. Street Lamps and electric wires running across streets, hills in background, house made of BRICKs, and most importantly - People Walking in the Streets ..
Posted by: सुशिल - sushil at Aug 11, 2005 5:48:48 PM
Well, if it makes you feel any better, my kitchen totally rocks. It's huge, has a built in island, a rack for cooking implements, built in artificially intelligent robotic cook programmed to automatically create over 30,000 recipes...
Ok, I may be exaggerating on that last one. In any event, I'm beginning to cook for the first time in my life, mostly because I'm near very few restaurants and have little choice. I made tomato sauce the other day from scratch. It was a revelation, because it was so freakin' easy. So mabye some day I'll actually be able to converse intelligently about food with you.
Posted by: msluyter at Aug 26, 2005 9:06:47 PM
Welcome to Nob Hill! My Other Half, Darren and I are also Nob Hill-ers, a couple of blocks over from your location. I'm guessing you live close by to that ugly yellow-ish condo building (right in middle of that block atop tunnel) with the black iron gates that we used to rent a parking space in. We have a tiny kitchen too, but I gotta say, Nob Hill is a great area to live in. You're practically in the convenience of Chinatown without Chinatown's congestion in your face. North Beach is just an easy 4-5 blocks, as is Union Square and the financial district. I love Nob Hill just for that convenience!! Welcome to the Hill!
Posted by: jt at Sep 30, 2005 4:24:17 PM
You stated that you made oxtail marmalade with brisket and it was awful. But that does indicate that you have the recipe. If you will share it with me I will promise to only make it with oxtail.
Posted by: R LaBaume at Oct 6, 2005 12:21:18 PM
