What's the food culture in San Francisco?

San Francisco's food identity is geographic, not thematic. Each neighborhood runs its own kitchen, and crossing town means crossing cuisines. The Mission between 16th and 24th Streets is the Mexican and Central American corridor, where the tortilla-vs-rice debate at La Taqueria (opened 1973, no rice in the burrito, $14.50 for a super) has outlasted three tech booms. Two blocks east, El Farolito on 24th and Shotwell does a carne asada burrito at 2am that smells like charred beef fat and warm flour before you even reach the counter. The Sunset and Outer Richmond districts stretch from 19th Avenue to Ocean Beach and hold the city's best Chinese, Burmese, and Vietnamese cooking. Locals call this stretch "the Avenues." You might wait 90 minutes at Burma Superstar on Clement Street for the tea-leaf salad, dressed in fermented laphet, fried garlic, peanuts, and sesame, tossed tableside. Worth it. Or skip the line and walk 4 blocks to Mandalay on California Street for the same dish at half the wait.

San Francisco's Chinatown, centered on Stockton and Grant between Bush and Broadway, is the oldest in North America, established around 1848. The food there has drifted toward tourist pricing on Grant Avenue, where $18 kung pao chicken feeds the cable-car crowd. Walk one block west to Stockton Street and the prices drop by a third. Good Mong Kok Bakery at 1039 Stockton sells a pork bao for $1.50 and a dan tat for $1.25, warm from the oven with a flaky lard crust. For sit-down dim sum, City View on Commercial Street still runs carts on weekends, which is increasingly rare. Expect $25-30 per person for har gow, siu mai, cheung fun, and at least one plate of chicken feet if you're willing. The har gow wrappers should be translucent and slightly sticky. If they're thick and doughy, the kitchen is cutting corners. Mind you, the best dim sum has likely left Chinatown for the Richmond. Ton Kiang on Geary Boulevard near 22nd Avenue does a superior turnip cake, crisp-edged and dense with Chinese sausage.

The Ferry Building Marketplace on the Embarcadero reopened in 2003 after a $90 million renovation and now holds about 50 vendors under one roof. Saturday mornings from 8am to 2pm, the outdoor farmers market fills the plaza with stone-fruit vendors from Frog Hollow Farm and bread from Acme. Inside, Hog Island Oyster Company shucks Sweetwater and Kumamoto oysters for $3-4 each, served on ice with mignonette and a view of the Bay Bridge through floor-to-ceiling windows. The wait hits 45 minutes by noon. Go at 11am on a Tuesday instead. Dungeness crab season runs from mid-November through June, and the best preparation in the city is still the whole cracked crab at Sotto Mare on Green Street in North Beach, about $40 for a plate piled high, served with sourdough from Boudin (baking since 1849) to soak up the garlic butter. Fisherman's Wharf sells the same crab at double the price in a sourdough bread bowl. The bread bowl is fine. The markup is not.

San Francisco is an expensive food city. A sit-down dinner for two in the Mission with wine runs $90-120. In Hayes Valley or Pacific Heights, that number reaches $200 before tip. The trade-off is that cheap, good food still exists in the Avenues and the Tenderloin, where $12-15 buys a full Vietnamese pho at Turtle Tower on Larkin Street (the Hanoi-style broth is clear, not murky, simmered with chicken rather than beef bones) or a lamb-over-rice plate at a halal cart on UN Plaza for $8. That said, the Tenderloin requires awareness after dark. Stick to well-lit blocks near the Civic Center BART station and you'll find some of the most honest cooking in the city at the lowest prices. One more thing. The fog rolls in around 4pm most summer afternoons and the temperature drops from 18°C to 12°C in under 30 minutes. Outdoor dining without a jacket between June and September is a mistake tourists make once. Locals bring layers and eat inside at Zuni Cafe on Market Street, where the brick-oven roast chicken for two ($72, 1-hour wait) has been on the menu since 1987.