Tasting North Beach

Pete and I are nerds. If you don't know that already, you should know it. There aren't too many people who would continue to do nerdy touristy things in the are they've lived in for almost four years. But we do. And not just when we have people visiting from out of town, though that's always a great excuse.

This weekend we went on a very touristy tour in the city. The company calls themselves "Taste of the City" and they do walking, food-oriented tours of Chinatown and North Beach (ie, little Italy) in San Francisco. My parents found out about it and gave us the Chinatown tour a few years ago as our Christmas gift. We had so much fun that we asked for the North Beach tour this year for Christmas. I have to explain that I'm a complete sucker for anything involving sample-sized foods. I have been known to make up excuses to stop by Whole Foods or Trader Joe's just for the samples. I'm that person.

After many weeks of traveling, busyness, and then rain, we finally got around to booking our tour for this past Saturday, which was forcasted to be gorgeous weather in the city. And it was. Absolutely perfect weather. One of those days that makes me want to live in the city. Cloudless cerulean skies, abundant sunshine, a breeze just cool enough to keep the sun from getting hot.

We couldn't have asked for a better tour guide, either. Our tour guide for the Chinatown tour was a little too awkwardly quirky for us, though he still did a great job. This guy was exactly the kind of person you would want showing you little Italy. San Francisco born and raised, Italian American, old enough to remember things and have great stories (and know some of the people he was telling us about).

Our tour began at coffee shop on Columbus. You know it's a good coffee shop when you can see their huge coffee roaster from the front window.

Our guide explained the difference between a place like this, which roasts their beans in small batches to ensure they're roasted to the perfect doneness, and a place like Starbucks, which bulk roasts all their beans to burntness.

We continued to XOX Truffles, which has consistently received accolades as one of the top ten chocolatiers in the country. The owner is a French chef who has focused all his energies on refining the art of the truffle. All thirteen of us on the tour crowded into the tiny shop to hear how the truffles are made. And we each left with little goodie bags!

We stopped at several bakeries and pastry shops, sampling the world's best focaccia (and I've had a lot of focaccia in my day), huge coconut macaroons, baguettes, Italian cold cuts, and a St. Patrick's Day green cake.

Our tour did, actually, include a few non-food related stops. We went by a historic catholic cathedral (and of course I can't remember which saint it's named after).

We stepped inside just as a wedding was beginning, so we ducked into one of the back alcoves and watched and listened for a few minutes (just until the bride came down the aisle). The beautiful rendition of Ave Maria (with classical guitar accompaniment) definitely added to the aura of the church, which was gorgeous.

We also stopped by Cafe Trieste, which is apparently where Coppola penned the scripts for The Godfather I and II. Pavarotti also used to perform here. I'm not sure if the two happened simultaneously, but our guide implied that they did. I could see Pavarotti being a good soundtrack for film script-writing.

Our tour finished with a place I've been wanting to visit since the first time we visited North Beach--but was always hesitant to bring it up because I knew Pete wouldn't be quite as excited about: the Beat Museum. I mean, this is where it all started. Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Neal Cassady, et al. They held some of their famous (or infamous) poetry readings right on this corner.

For those of you who didn't live through the 60s, the Beats became the Beatniks (a name change apparently related to the launching of Sputnik, though I didn't quite catch the connection). The Beatniks then became the hipsters, who became the hippies. All right here in San Francisco.

Being the literature-obsessed person that I am, I can't resist ending with some of the most famous lines of the Beat Generation (from Allen Ginsberg's Howl).

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix;

Angel-headed hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly connection

to the starry dynamo in the machinery of night.