Foodie To-Do List

For the overwhelming amount of good eating, small business, and creative community enterprising happening in the Bay Area, I always have a running list of the random places people have recommended and I need to experience before ever leaving the Bay. Somehow the list never gets any shorter-- as I check one off, I seem to have two to add. This list is mostly devoted to food, with a few random others thrown in.

• Mission Pie
• Pie Ranch Work Day and Barn Dance
• Masala restaurant
• Saul's kosher deli in Berkeley
• Mission Beach Cafe (Ryan Scott's new restaurant)
• Dosa
• Bottom of the Hill
• Oakland Art Murmur - CHECK
• Flora - downtown Oakland -CHECK
• People's Grocery Grub Party
• Kennedy's Irish Pub and Curry House in North Beach - CHECK
• The Trappist in downtown Oakland - CHECK
• Bakesale Betty's - CHECK
• Lois the Pie Queen
• Awaken Cafe - CHECK
• Trader Vic's
• Green Apple Books - CHECK
• Tourist Club
• Monterey Market
• Farmer Joe's - CHECK
• Piedmont Grocery - CHECK
• Rainbow Grocery
• The new Fox Theatre
• Marzano restaurant - CHECK

As far as lifestyle goes, good eating is of course only one element. But add the Mediterranean climate, the jeans-and-t-shirt work hard/play hard attitude, the stone's-throw-access to Redwoods and California coastline, and the weekend vicinity to Tahoe and Yosemite, and San Francisco will be a tough lifestyle to top-- I don't intend to ever be able to.