Customer Reviews

The Chowhound's Guide to the San Francisco Bay Area

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Whether you are a tourist who wants to eat like the locals or a Bay Area native, this book has the most compact yet comprehensive list of ideas for delicious dining in a unique, humorous and easy-to-read format.

As a long time Bay Area resident, I found myself using it immediately

Things I love about the book

-It's lightweight, so I can carry it my purse
-There are tips about places I frequent that I didn't know about
-Great cross indexing. It's very easy to use.
-It doesn't have the same tired general knowledge tips
-Really amazing that not only is SF and immediate areas covered, but that the entire Bay Area is nicely represented.

It also captures the essence of Chowhound of having fun while finding something wonderful to eat.

I've traveled quite a bit and bought many guide books. This is one of the best and most useful books I own.

Jim Leff, Chowhound's creator, includes a long disclaimer in this book's introduction. "Don't trust this book", he says. He even describes all of the food tips themselves as "iffy". This is one point on which I agree with him and it leads me to wonder if this book has much use or value at all to the casual user. If it's iffy, why buy it?
The format of the book, a guide to eating good food in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a visual mess and difficult to navigate, just like the Chowhound.com website itself. I did discover some real gems of information like Melanie Wong's important message about duck juice but it was hard work finding them and more often than not I was just confused.
The book contains discrepancies, anomalies, inaccurate information and strange choices. But I think the major problems are the bad layout and the fact that the entries are extrememly dated. Everything moves so fast in the world of food.
Aside from the most loyal of Chowhounders and obsessed good-food-foragers, I think the more general public just won't 'get' the cluttered, muddled confused format. I don't think people will be prepared to make the investment (time or money) needed to find the good bits amongst the chaos when they can find out the same kind of info online easily where it will be much more current and freely available.

Oh boy, I've never been so misguided by a guide book in my life, and believe me, I own lots and lots of guide books. This thing is already outdated. A few restaurants have been out of business since the books publishing (not Chowhound's fault), key restaurants have been left out or miscategorized and the format of the book is like a Mr. Magoo tour of SF. What gives? I was really excited about this book. I love Chowhound.com but I can't with good conscience recommend this ten car pileup of a guide book. The only reason to buy it is to help out Chowhound...but honestly, just donate money to them. I can't believe that I'm saying this but I'd rather use a Zagat. Oh well.

Want to out-Zagat Zagat? Start a website for chowhounds and get them to eat at various places and send in a report to your website. When your website registers 500,000 hits go to a publisher and talk them into publishing your aggregation of reviews in one compact volume. Come up with variations on the theme, like farmers markets and lunch trucks, so you're not just stuck in the restaurant world. Of course it helps if you have a name and a column somewhere.
Create a "by-cuisine" index (besides the main alphabetical one) that sub-divides cuisine into Chinese (Beijing) Chinese (Dim Sum) Chinese (Cantonese) and see if anyone can top that!
The format and organization of this guide is as individual and eclectic as the editor and chief chowhound, Jim Leff. Although the book is laid out alphabetically the alphabet can refer to anything here-a town, a food, a lunch truck. Santa Rosa, Sausage, Sausalito, and Scones all follow each other alphabetically. Luckily there are several indexes to help the reader sort things out.
Be forewarned. Chez Panisse isn't in here and neither are some of the other well-known restaurants in S.F., Berkeley, and Napa where I ate during my last visit five years ago. But the next time I see my cousin in Berkeley, I'll remember that the best rugelach in the world (or at least in the bay area) can be found in a bakery there. I've got to bring him something, right?

If you are a Bay Area chowhound (and if you are not, there's one inside you screaming to be let out) you'll want this book. It covers the area like a blanket, reporting on the best in eats of all persuasions, but especially focuses on places that fly under the radar of conventional guidebooks and Sunday paper dining columns. The Chowhound's Guide is organized in a tantalyzingly browseable pseudo-random manner using red herring keywords ("Ono Hawaiian Grill" comes between "Offal in Oakland" and "Organic Produce -- Delivered!") so after flipping through a few pages you'll know what you are craving even if you didn't have the foggiest before you opened the book. But not to fear, it's also well indexed by locale, cuisine and establishment.

For the uninitiated (and go and initiate yourself by visiting the quirky message board website the wisdom emanates from), the book is not only for chowhounds, it's by chowhounds -- hundreds of them -- via a grass-roots Delphi process unlike any other you're likely to have encountered. The resulting buffet of choices spread out for the reader consequently reflects neither the tastes of a single pundit, nor the anonymous click-to-vote blandness of a popularity contest.

I bought the Chowhound SF Bay Area Guide and had it shipped to work. No more work for me on Friday! This book is fabulous. I was sold on the Chowhound web site after I learned of a terrific taco truck located on the way to a class I was taking. No, not A taco truck, SEVERAL taco trucks where I could pick up a to-go dinner.

This book is not like any other food guide. It's written by real folks who know what they're talking about. Chowhounds are a sophisticated group who are up on not only tres chic places with great wine lists, but neighborhood holes-in-the-wall with delicious and cheap Vietnamese sandwiches.

It also has info on markets and places to get unusual ingredients. It's easy to use and is the best food guide book I've ever owned.

I bought this just before taking a trip to San Francisco and, because of my experience with the chowhound website, decided to eat solely at places listed in the book. Every single one of the restaurants we chose to go to because of this book was a gem in its own way. My girlfriend is now another disciple of chowhound as a result. Now I'm reading the New York edition to find more great restaurants in my hometown. Keep in mind that this book is a starting point for your research, unless you really know your way around the San Francisco Bay area. Otherwise, be prepared to look up locations and directions on the web.

I really wanted to love this book from Chowhound. Unfortunately, I found, like many others, that it:

1 - is very poorly organized

2 - seems to be written for the express use of chowhound.com regulars (typical users won't understand the arcane structure).

3 - is a fine resource for people dining alone, but not particularly helpful as a guide for those people looking for a true city dining guide. It focuses on very narrow niches, but doesn't provide guidance on the dishes that are NOT the pinnacle dishes at a restaurant.

Chowhound, the website, is a great resource. Keep hitting the "print" button on your computer to store the tips that are relevant and interesting for you -- there is no reason to purchase a book with outdated information, poor organization, and a general disdain for anyone NOT planning their trip to San Francisco around food.

This is book written for people who have a passion for food by people who also have a real passion for food. These posters on Chowhound have dug up all the best places where you can get a great meal at a great price. This a work of love most of the hounds have no training as writers but only have a love for eating great food.

I show off my book which I order from Amazon and three of my chowbuddies are ordering it. In fact one Lady like it so much that she tried to put in in her bag so she could read it in later. I had to demand it back.

If you are interested in what the Bay Area has to offer in the way of great food, than this is a must have for you collection.

Unbeknownst by my employers, I have been addictively surfing the Chowhound.com web site daily and repeatedly within a given day (workday or not) for years and am a satisfied, although un-sated subscriber of the weekly ChowNews. The Chowhound Guide is ChowNews on steroids. This is not a typical restaurant guide book, it is a series of narrative dining descriptions and listings (both short and long) of where a hungry `hound can find deliciousness of every kind. It is written not by professionals who are paid to eat, but by lusty, full of life food lovers who live to eat all that is delicious.

I love that I can read this book just for the pleasure of it and plan to use it as bed-time reading material, like a chocolate left on the coverlet of a bed, it will end my day with a smile in my heart and dreams of meals to come. Lastly, the indexing of this book is fantastic, when my left brain kicks in I have a useful, portable chow-resource. I have already sent copies of the book as gifts to business colleagues, who all have to eat, and who have all benefited and appreciated the chow tips gleaned from Chowhound.,com that I have passed along to them in the past. Now they will have a copy of the chow treasure map for themselves