Hello San Fransisco

A brief change in Houston - where re-checking our bags and another raft of security measures confirmed that yes, this was it, we were definitely back to the West Proper (Peruvian border controls clearly not trusted to safeguard US security  sufficiently) - and we landed into a slightly overcast Californian morning.

California baby! My first ever West coast adventure. And the final leg of our journey. Putting aside all End of Days thoughts in favour of the month ahead - a week in San Francisco followed by a two-week road-trip through wine country and up along the redwood coast until Seattle beckoned and our final stop in Vancouver - we prepared to melt back into home comforts.

And then some. We'd had an incredible three months heading up through South America and, despite our rudimentary Spanish, never felt alienated by the language barrier. Nor, indeed, had I ever felt hindered in the lands of steak, jamon y queso, pique macho and guinea pig by my vegetarianism. Quite the opposite, I'd only struggled occasionally and more often than not we were excited to find quite decent vegetarian fare along our winding route. But. By the time we'd spent day one getting settled, meandering up through the City's North Beach to take in the exhilarating panoramas from quasi-socialist mecca Coit Tower (for anyone who, like me, has long harboured a San Fran crush from afar) and catching up on proper Earl Grey and strong coffees in Beat-famed Caffé Trieste, we were knocked even further off our feets by Akiko's on Bush Street.

It is almost impossible to underestimate how great this meal was, nor how ecstatic we were to find ourselves gorging on deep white miso flavours, delicate agedashi tofu and sesame wakami. From having felt I'd got on fine foodwise in South America, I suddenly remembered what I'd been missing and right then, perhaps, over Japanese beer and maki rolls in the packed Tuesday-night dining room, we realised with a searing clarity there was a good chance this week was going to get expensive...

And so it began:

Day 1: Japanese dinner at Akiko's. Heaven for a vegetarian and so too for a man freshly emerged from three months of red meat dining to rediscover the joys of a seaweed salad. Lord we give thanks for umami. 

Day 2: Californian Mexican lunch at Pancho Villa Taqueria in the Mission. Recommended by our pal April, a former Mission resident, this was another wake-up to some of my core, neglected, foodie loves - the citrus, avocado, chilli nexus. Re-adjusting to US portions led to a terrific over-order (of course nachos come with everything anyway...) Which we then ripped through in no time. Bliss.

Dinner at vegan pan-Asian Golden Era on O'Farrell. Crazy cheap. Crazy awesome. Spicy noodle soup is one of my twice-a-week fixes at home and bar a couple of notable exceptions - an unexpectedly brilliant Japanese cafe in Thamel, Kathmandu sticks out - I'd been without for six months. All over it.

Day 3: Proper old-school Italian at Franchino's in North Beach. Fantastic gnocchi with pesto and some good Italian reds. Pricey compared to the Asian and Mexican places we'd been frequenting but in keeping with the Little Italy norm around this way. Warm, busy and family-run, with friendly chat from the slightly half-cut paterfamiliar watching the world go by from his regular spot outside the front door.

Day 4: Tasty Vietnamese over in Oakland, spicy soup yet again... And a slightly disappointing tipsy dinner at Chilango's in Castro. After living it up a little wine-'tasting' stylee at super duper Pause, we were pretty starving by the time we hiked down to Church Street and this may have been our downfall, with a less than inspiring set meal where the regular menu might have yielded better results.

Day 5: Burger time! T had been lusting after a proper dirty burger, diner style but reaching Saturday tired and in expectation of an early night, we went bourgeois instead at the SF mini-chain Roam Artisan Burgers on Fillmore in pursuit of a proper veggie offering. Which I more than found, matching the organic veg burger with Dijon mustard, Gruyere and avocado. Not for the first or last time during this month, the sheer breadth and fine execution of US eateries caught us bewailing the paltry-by-comparison UK offerings...

Day 6: A shopping and pub crawl along the Haight took in a flawless hot-dog lunch (with two vegan options to boot) at Rosamunde's Sausage Grill before a few beers at Toronado next door. Getting the hang of the massive range of US microbrews was already proving a mammoth (and risky, given the high alcohol content) task. 

But one we continued to hammer away at in the name of... research, at Magnolia further along Haight Street, before Starbelly for a decent though overpriced pizza dinner.

Day 7: Splendid over-ordering dim sum lunch at in Chinatown and yet more fab sushi for dinner at Otori on Oak Street. Before more turbo-charged, 8-12% microbrews at the Amsterdam Cafe.

Day 8: And on to our final evening with a stand-out Greek meal at Kokkari. This was the one 'fine dining' treat we'd promised ourselves. The odd evening out where we put on the one outfit which can possibly pass as, well passable, I stick on a bit of mascara and we both walk in hamming up 'Gosh, terribly' English accents and hoping no one looks at our shoes. This place was immense. Super friendly, not uncomfortably formal and T had what he still maintains was his Best Lamb Ever.

So the eating and drinking was fairly tremendous then. Of Mendoza proportions. Money got spent. Though not too intensely, San Fransisco eateries and bars being  such good value for the most part. Like any foodie city, there is something for any budget and taste. For me, the return to a full veggie menu months after India was pretty epic - and we were both quite ready for the broader return to more a more familiar culture. We'd never felt out on a limb in South America, despite the language obstacles, but still felt an inevitable balm from being able to make small talk with strangers, buy proper tea and more generally relax into a more accessible world, with all its creature comforts.

Back in the Uco Valley, near Mendoza on a wine visit, we'd picked the brains of an English-Canadian couple who'd spent lots of time in San Fransisco. I'd mused on how it felt a bit risky, expectation-wise, being one of the cities I had a bit of a crush on and always assumed I would like. He'd shook his head briskly, batting any possibility of under-delivery away with one wry blink; 'It doesn't disappoint.'

And it doesn't. From the British/European perspective the very best of the US is here. It is beautiful and walkable, the hilly landscape interesting and varied; the Bay Area filled with notable cities, towns and national parks. Restaurants, nightlife, culture, nature on the doorstep and great street-life - as well as being a liberal hotbed to boot. 

Perhaps the problem with a week anywhere is that it's long enough to get a glimpse of what it would be like to live somewhere, but not long enough to get through everything you might wish to do. A list that tends to grow each day. We spent a few days exploring the Mission and Haight, buying cheap second-hand clothes, enjoying the beer, visiting Mission Delores and finding great coffee. We spent a day out walking in Muir Woods with one friend, meeting the coastal redwoods for the first but by no means the last time, and another day over in Oakland with another at the fantastic Museum of California checking out its illuminating Gallery of California History. We went to the huge, superlative Asian Art Museum of San Fransisco in time to catch the eerie Terracotta Warriors we'd seen back in London a year or two before.

We hired bikes from the Marina and cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge, on a day so foggy - as many of them are - the epic red suspension literally disappeared from our view when standing right next to it. Seriously, where did they put the bridge?We rode across, wind battering through the largest Pacific estuary in the Americas and whipping ominously around us, to Sausalito - a picturesque if cutesy little town stuffed with art galleries and expensive seafood restaurants - before returning by ferry alongside Alcatraz.

We tramped the streets and hills (literally, only starting to play around with the bus system properly by day 5), exploring Chinatown, North Beach and Golden Gate Park. We even found time to flirt with our all-too-impending return to routine and dip our toes into the horrors of consumer culture with a 3-trip nightmare to Best Buy to purchase a cheap new laptop for our final month of travel (who remembered retail was such an exhausting, traumatic process??)

By our last day or two, I was itching to be on the move again - one week having been our maximum anywhere since last September - and yet regretted all the places and neighbourhoods we'd yet to see. I think we'll be back. I hope we'll be back. The promise of wine country a little further north was too hard to resist, and the excitement at picking up our wildly oversized Chevrolet from a few blocks east on Bush Street and dusting off the camping gear too live.

But still I craned my neck round wistfully as we sped out, T nervously grappling with the automatic transmission, over the bridge towards Napa. You know, because... San Francisco. You would, wouldn't you?