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Hotel & Restaurant Round-Up
Hotels
Hotel Triton
The Archbishop's Mansion
Hotel Boheme
Restaurants
The
Stinking RoseCurly's Coffee Shop
Kowloon Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant
 | Hotel Triton---Bill
Kimpton's Palace of 'Tude 342 Grant Avenue SF CA 94108 Tel 415 394 0500 or 1 800 433 6611 Fax: 415 394 0555 "Hotel Triton is co-ol," say San Franciscans. Triton is nothing if not an attitude hotel, sort of chic (if cramped) and funky, with a Toontoon lobby you won’t believe. Here’s the sneaky bit: Triton's exterior is just an old flophouse style, seven-story structure -- really boring architecturally, so your biz contacts in suits won't guess how weird and imaginative your hotel looks when you step inside maverick owner Bill Kimpton's hip little palace of 'tude. The lobby's wild, pretty, all turquoise and gold, with an enchanting wraparound Hellenic mural of best-loved characters of Greek mythology, joined (at this time of writing) by a Weiland sea mammal mural. Below it all are the Triton's trademark looping chairs that eschew a horizontal line and opt instead for the vertical, ending in curling horns..... Here at the Triton all the neon colors stay on the lobby walls; no fanny-packers in neon sweat clothes with bold logos were staying when we visited. No, here the Independent film-maker types in Banana Republic khakis and Raybans slouch coolly on yellow signature Kong-back chairs, reading Le Monde and the Sunday Times of London from the World Press Bar, an excellent, well-stocked foreign newsstand and coffee bar next door. If you are one to suffer from out-of-town panic attacks if you cannot find a Times or a decent cup of joe, Triton is the most convenient hotel your reporter visited in San Francisco, located right at Bush and Grant streets, down by the milestone Dragon's Gate, the entrance to Chinatown, right on the corner. Your reporter was sequestered in a room on the Triton's famous eco floor. Here the air is specially purified. Here you get expensive, undyed beige pure cotton sheets, pillow cases, towels and bedspreads, and it's true, they're softer and nicer than any linens this reporter has ever rubbed up to, and that includes those indigo satin numbers so popular in the Sixties and those decadent filthy expensive Charismas from Bloomingdales. This reporter has never been tempted or stooped to consider that lowest of hotel crimes, Grand Theft Towel-O, but is grateful to report that these extraordinary linens, are on sale in many stores, and may be for sale through the hotel. Ask at the desk. But glitches and hitches on the eco floor give the Triton a fascinating atmosphere. No wasteful little bottles of complimentary shampoo here, not even a bar of soap! All the goop stays in a large dispenser in the shower, and very nice-smelling it is too, even if you are forced to lurch back and forth into the shower and carry a handful of glok back to the sink to wash your hands. (The next day, a small bar of nice see-thru seagreen soap appeared.) No towel rails by the sink to park a towel, but there are mirrors under the sink, I guess, so any passing dustballs might stop and preen. There's a note explaining that to be eco, they won't change the sheets on your bed unless you ask. Hey, I can get that at home! Is the Triton really cool? Perhaps. Cold? Definitely. Some staff members haven't quite grasped that outmoded service-with-a-smile concept No one offered to help with bags on arrival, and nobody knew how to get an outside line without dialing 9 to use the modem for a local call, a disastrous gaffe for battered media snails with ancient laptops. This was awhile back, and to be fair, the hotel now reports to have dataports in all the rooms, so you probably won’t have that problem anymore if you stay there.The rooms are small, not quite comfy, and despite the often riveting design surprises, they still have that lonesome Death of a Salesman, sad sack, down-at-heel vibration in them, left over from the last incarnation of the building. Short of hiring a happy exorcist, I don’t know what the hotel can do about that. It doesn’t feel warm or floppsy-wopsy to stay at the Triton. But frosty is fine with Travelers USA Notebook as long as you can get your mitts on a serious newspaper, and jump in a taxi whenever you want one, and if the lobby chairs want to look like cockatiels, what the hey. For more Triton info, click here.
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| The Archbishop's
Mansion---Victoria's Superb Secret 1000 Fulton Street SF CA 94117 Tel. 415 563 7872 Entering the Archbishop’s Mansion, you will notice the sound of opera playing softly through speakers. Later, at five, eerie, ghostly hands tinkle the keys of a player piano, inviting you to free wine and cheeses by the fireplace. Don’t be afraid. Later, if your nerves are still shot, you will be able to ask the desk to arrange for a licensed shiatsu massage therapist to pay a visit and rejeuve your meridians. Built in 1906 as a residence for a Bay Area archbishop, the Mansion went through a number of decorating incarnations; in the late 80’s Chip Conley grabbed it. It took two years to refurb-rehab-remod: now the mansion is a swagged, sturdy, stunning, gorgeous hideaway, from its voluptuous, old-fashioned, Merchant/Ivory honeymoon suites to the ubiquitous rubber duckys in the baths, the archbishop might agree, God is in the details. and what details they are. The joint drips with classic, tasteful romance: fireplaces with new permalogs daily, lots of dim little lights you can make bright or low, bold strong dark woods, rich thick fabrics, flowery wallpapers that borders on but never steps on cutesy. Honeymoon heaven. People book the whole mansion for wedding parties, and the place is so romantic, one wonders how many guests have been tempted to creep softly along the gently creaking floorboards in the capacious halls amongst the bedchambers in search of a bit of tasteful Victorian midnight frolic.
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| Hotel Boheme---Frisco hilly evening sitdown vision 444 Columbus Avenue, SF, CA 94133 Tel. 415 433 9111 A B&B on Columbus Avenue puts you smack dab in the center of Little Italy or the Beat Generation or whatever is happening. Best not to be too encumbered with luggage because Boheme is a flight up. the rooms are comfy cozy. comfortable bed and bracing stirring shower. In case you forgot where you were and what la vie boheme is all about, corridors are lied with vintage '50s era photos of poetry readings and jam sessions and talking talking talking talking way into the night. |
Restaurants
| The Stinking Rose---Garlic Holy of Holies 325 Columbus Avenue San Francisco, CA. 94133 Tel. 415-781-7673 Fax. 415-403-0665 Among what New York Times food critic Ruth Reichl calls theme park restaurants (Hard Rock Cafe, Planet Hollywood, Fashion Cafe, Jekyll and Hyde), it's so nice to go to a restaurant where the theme is food. The Stinking Rose has been on Columbus Avenue in the North Beach area for six years and the place feels (and smells) like a neighborhood fixture. Its name refers, of course, to garlic, and The Stinking Rose is a garlic restaurant. This is not a subtle place. The flavors are strong, direct, and honest. And full of garlic--- smoky, sweet, passionate. The Penne #30, with garlic and a cracked red pepper that you couldn't see but you definitely could feel is sensational. The gnocchi was a little soft, but it came with hearty marinara. And yes--- you'll have to make a decision. Should you be a blatant tourist and have the garlic ice cream? Yes. As Phil the waiter explained. By the time you reach the meal's end, you're kind of used to the garlic. Moreover, it's basically a vanilla ice cream with a caramelised chocolate syrup, and very nice it is too. Stinking Rose is obvious, rewarding fun and a noble, successful experiment, the only garlic restaurant so far’s we know. Food’s good. The Rose stays open late, and locals (we learned later) go there a lot. |
| Curly's Coffee Shop Turn right out of the Boheme on Columbus Avenue and walk up to Green Street and you'll see it, jammed with locals. Grab your two sunnysides here and avoid the rip-off six-buck omelettes on Columbus.  But do get your coffee
opposite Hotel Boheme, at Cafe Puccini, where Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the poet owner of the
famed City Lights Bookshop, likes his java.
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| Kowloon Vegetarian Chinese Restaurant 909 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA. 94108 Tel. 415-362-9888 Open 9:00 am to 10:00 pm Dumplings and tea form an delicious, heart-healthy breakfast in a peaceful, simple room filled with marvellous, mysterious fresh dim sum...The racks swell with the puzzling packets of savoury delights in unending varieties. Traveller's USA Notebook filled up on nut and vegetable castles that look like rooks in a chess set and feel like mashed potatoesgoing down, and a steaming platter of hot and crispy lemon (mock) chicken, made from soy, not meat. The dumplings with water chestnuts are especially stunning, fetching you back again and again to lope up and down the hill of Grant Avenue, yearning for more, to this humble spot where happy/sad, timeless Chinese songs suffuse your soul with wistful suchness.
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| North Beach, one of the basic shrines in the Beat generation chronicles, is still going
strong., okay the Hungry i where the Kingston Trio and Odetta and Lenny Bruice, turned
everyside down is now a topless bar and they're calling the neighborhood little Italy
instead of the home of oh wow. But it's a vibrant, strong place to hang around. City
Light's Bookstore, the book shop founded by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is still going
strong. "It's so good," said a neighborhood resident, "to see Ferlinghetti
going to the Cafe Puccini every morning for his dose of caffeine."
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| Best Shiatsu Massage in San Francisco, probably the World:AUTHENTIC ACUPRESSURE CLINIC
1324 Grant Avenue, S.F. CA 94133 Tel. 415 391-7880 Open Daily 10am to 10pm. You call up to see about a shiatsu massage. "No sexy! No sexy! No fun!" says a kindly Chinese voice, the voice of Authentic Acupressure Clinic, just behind Hotel Boheme. This is the real thing, a headache removing, muscle rejeuving, cheerful healing acupressure by a master massage therapist who trained for years in Japan with the masters of massage. |
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