Get Mexican and beers and eat in Dolores Park

Since prehistoric times, man has found comfort and clarity in eating outside. Only recently has he taken to eating microwaved frozen science projects while seated in overstuffed reclining chairs and facing flat panels frenetically churning with consumerist imagery. The delivery man and the drive-thru are the mallet and stake piercing the now-clogged heart of America's healthy, fresh-air digestion.

All of which bring us back to grabbing a burrito, a tall boy of Tecate and taking them to the gentle green slopes of Dolores Park. Find an unpeopled bit of grass and call up your friends to join you. Bring a book or a frisbee or that little one-hitter you bought from your sister's stoner girlfriend when you visited her at Smith while still in high school. Don't forget a jacket though, as this is San Francisco, Land Devoid of Warm Nights.

Your hunter-gather forebears would be appalled if you moved to Brooklyn without having spent an evening eating on the grass in the sunny Mission. Tsk tsk.


Dolores Park is bounded by 18th and 20th north and south, and by Dolores and Church on the east and west. It is usually quite crowded on a nice day or evening, but there's always room for one more. Additional optional accessories depend on the part of the park in which you choose to sit: fixie and ironic smirk (corner of Dolores and 18th), attention-starved dog and/or soccer ball (the dusty plateau behind the basketball courts), a young child (the playground directly in the center), a Speedo, tanning oil and mirrored Prada sun glasses (the upper corner at 20th and Church).

Watch the movie The Conversation

It's a little late to be delving into the history of the city, seeing as you're moving and all, but why not take a break from packing and go rent The Conversation?


Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, it stars a young-ish Gene Hackman as a paranoid surveillance expert hired for a job that quickly takes over his life. An even younger Harrison Ford makes an appearance as the creepy inside guy.

Released in 1974, it provides glimpses of '70s-era San Francisco. See how many landmarks you can spot!


The Conversation was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Screenplay. You can find it at your local video store--I recommend Lost Weekend. Check out this interesting article on the movie and its strange path to release. Here is the (spoiler!) trailer for the movie. (My dad says that the '70s comprised the best decade in American cinema.)

Get drinks at The Eagle

A coworker friend of mine once commented that every bar he'd ever seen called The Eagle turned out to be a gay bar. (That this comment was prompted by the address of the website for a Phoenix plaintiff's attorney that we were about to join in a conference call is another story.) Though lacking in hard, penetrative empirical evidence, a quick web search leads me to believe that he may have had his finger right on the g-spot of a trend in naming.

And guess what? San Francisco has its very own Eagle, perched conveniently in SOMA and waiting for you. With a pool table, really cool biker decor inside and a huge outdoor area sporting a 49er/Gold Rush theme reminiscent of Knott's Berry Farm, as well as an impressive collection of men's underwear tacked to the ceiling, you owe it to yourself to make it there before you leave.


The Eagle is located on 12th at Harrison. Thursday nights boast live music with a cheap cover and Sunday afternoons feature the $10 all-you-can-drink (of cheap beer, for three hours) Beer Bust, where you can find tons of these:


a few of these:


and hardly any of these:

Check out Saint Mary's Cathedral...

...also known as The Most Un-Catholic-looking Of Churches, Ever.



You've sped past it many times, either on Geary on your way out to the Richmond or when timing the lights on Gough after a weekend spent north of the city. On a couple of occasions while drunk at a random party at some apartment that is clearly more expensive than yours, you've stumbled out onto the north-facing balcony and, taking care to ignore the sound the arc of urine makes as it splatters on the windshield of the Audi parked four stories below, squinted at the skyline in confusion.

"What the hell is that white thing doing there? Whatever it is, it looks like a huge fucking washing machine agitator has alighted in Japantown. Should we be worried?"

No need to be worried, I assure you--unless, of course, you leave the city without taking a close-up look at this strange, strange San Francisco landmark. Be sure to report back on what's inside, as I've yet to visit (though I'm not the one who's leaving).


The Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Assumption is located on the corner of Geary and Gough. It was designed by Pier Luigi Nervi in 1971 and was evidently controversial from Day One.

Eat at Spices

I understand if you've given up on Chinese food, having scavenged leftovers from twice-weekly catered lunches since you first started at whatever boring office job you've got going these days. In your book, Mr. Henry Hunan and all his culinary cousins can go to hell--though far be it for you to refuse a free meal, so you'll just go on reheating your kung pao chicken and pork fried rice, silently vowing to never again actually pay for this shit.

Well, it's time to discover the cure for the common Chinese place: Spices.



With two in the Inner Richmond and one in Oakland, you've got a few choices. I recommend Spices II on 6th Avenue at Clement, though epileptics and those easily distracted may want to avoid this location because of the neon! Chinese music videos! disco ball! twirly laser lights! hot, girlish waitresses!

The food here is great and the portions are huge--one entree, two starters for two people is more than enough--and cheap. Make sure to try the spicy cucumber, salt and pepper chicken, pork shoulder (ignore the squeamishness-inducing jiggling mass of fat in which the good stuff comes enveloped--the waitress will cut through all that for you, no prob), or anything labeled "Explosive Chili Pepper".

Sure, your waitress may look indifferent as she snaps her gum when she's taking your order or absentmindedly twirling her hair just before delivering your plates--but she's hot--and you may realize hours later that "Spices" could probably refer to both the start and finish of the digestive process--but the food tastes great and you've most likely got leftovers--and the front of the place vaguely resembles a Chinese-language cell phone store--I've got nothing on this one--but it's worth it.

Besides, there probably is no place like this where you're moving.


Spices and Spices II, mere blocks from each other, are both in the Inner Richmond while Spices III is in Oakland's Chinatown. Be sure to check out their odd--what, no Oakland location?--website before you go.