Schleppin' for a tasty burger

A friend is out of town for a few weeks and gave me his car to take care of which is awesome. With my newfound mobility I've been schleppin' around like a storm, going to a bunch of different places I'd been meaning to go to for ages but never had the chance.

One such place is Joe's Cable Car Restaurant, a burger place waaaaaaaaayy down in Outer Mission. Or is it Excelsior? Or Bernal Heights? Oh jeez, I'm lost. :) Anyway we'll get to my variety of confusion about this area of the city in a moment. First things first: the food.

This place was great. I was expecting it to be darn glorious given the good review that food nut critic Guy Fieri gave it on his show "Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives". The place was fun, decorated very diner-ly with Christmas lights everywhere and lots of funny things to read at the table about the history of hamburgers and fries. It was a very cute place, and they clearly take a lot of pride in their business. That was super cool.

Yelp had only a 3/5 stars for it which surprised me, and a few people had said it was a bit pricey. I thought so too, but you can't argue with a tasty burger. Plus, everything is expensive in San Francisco. So it was a fun treat. I don't think you could afford to take a family of 8 here, but it sure was fun to sneak over there for a tasty solo burger. The burger was tasty, juicy, and they served it an a variety of sizes and cooking temperatures. Very organized place. I loved the burger, very nicely made, and you can really taste the quality - much different than your standard fare in a regular burger place.

I finished up and paid my bill ($26 with tip for a 6 oz burger, small onion rings and a Diet Coke -- yep I'm one of those people who now orders a ton of greasy tastiness and then a Diet Coke on the side), so yes, quite pricey for a burger. Definitely on par with the tastiness of the 4505 Meats burgers at the Ferry Building which are more like $8 instead of $16 - but are smaller and definitely have more fat. This burger was a lean one, which was nice given the potential for destroying your calorie count for the day at a Burger place.

Now for the drive back to a neighbourhood where I know where I am... so this was hilarious and weird. The GPS took me onto Bosworth which turned into O'Shaughnessy Boulevard. Where the heck am I, I kept thinking. SF started to look a lot like Los Angeles, with big staggering buildings and long winding roads with views of a big bright city in the distance. I had no idea where I was going, all I knew is that it was starting to look like Mulholland Drive (the street in LA, not the crazy movie). I finally realized I was somewhere behind Twin Peaks, and suddenly ended up at 7th Ave and Judah in the Inner Sunset?!!!! That was really unexpected. Went to some areas I'd never heard of before, like Cayuga Terrace and Miraloma Park and Diamond Heights, but man there sure are some nice spots there! I don't know a single person who lives in that area but I am sure people like it! It seemed quite residential there, but really very nice. Laguna Honda I had been through before when coming back from the airport once and was also surprised that I'd never been there before, and how awesome the houses looked. Very tucked away. It doesn't feel like San Francisco AT ALL there, at least not the San Francisco I know. That's one of the many awesome things about this city - each neighbourhood is so very distinct and sortof has it's own personal character. San Francisco is more a collection of many, many, many tiny cool distinct villages than a large metropolitan city. And that's why it's so awesome. :)

A great little adventure thanks to a good friend lending me his car for a few weeks, and a little taste for adventure after a fun and busy work day. Super glad I took the trip out there, it was really fun. It also would have been tough without the car - although not really! The Glen Park BART station stops like right there. I really have no sense of direction in that area of the city.

Excelsior!
--Mike :)

Arriving at Joe's

Tasty "California" Burger