Hacker News Reader

Comment by wdewind | Hacker News Reader

> The number and quality of restaurants in NY is unrivaled.

NYC native and mostly SF-hater here. Hate to say it but SF has us beat for food. If you want to go have a 5 star meal you're going to pay about the same and get about the same food in both cities (NYC obviously has the edge here, but not hugely), but San Francisco has NYC (especially Manhattan) absolutely dominated at the everyday eating level (ie: burritos, sandwiches, cheaper restaurants). The general ingredient quality just blows NYC away - both meat and produce.

View on HN

I'm a native New Yorker but lived in the SF Bay Area for 9 years. I agree with this assessment. The quality for the price in generally better in the Bay Area, since a lot of the food is local and super fresh. That said, the diversity of cuisines in NYC in much, much broader than SF. For example, in SF you can find Salvadorian and Mexican food quite easily, but New York has food from all parts of Latin America. The same can be said about other regional cuisines; the selection provides a "finer granularity" of choices for that region.

That really boils down to a critical mass of the relevant ethnicity. If you don't have enough Thai people in a given area than you aren't going to have Thai markets, which is going to make it very difficult to get the proper ingredients to make a great jungle curry. The sheer number of non-trivial ethnic sub-populations in Queens alone, much less all of NYC, makes it an unfair contest.

I mean, none of these are truly fair comparisons. There's no question that there are many things Sf will be better at because of its size and there's other things New York can offer because of its size. But that's what this whole thread is about, comparing the two cities regardless of the root causes for their differences. For example, sf has better quality food in general, since the weather is more forgiving and farms and wineries are quite close. Still, there's no question that the food in sf is of higher quality on average.

I've lived in both places and this strikes me as correct.

The day-to-day food in SF is just excellent, In part, I suspect, because they incorporate fresh vegetables of a kind that are just not available in NY for 8 months out of the year.

Also critical: The food in the greater NYC metro area is abysmal. The quality falls off very rapidly once you exit the city. Whereas if you walk into some random restaurant in some random town in the Bay Area, you're likely to get at least decent food.

> The food in the greater NYC metro area is abysmal. The quality falls off very rapidly once you exit the city.

Oh man is that true :( Long Island is not known for it's cuisine...

Really? I am an SF dweller, grew up in NJ, and an occasional NYC visitor, and always thought the opposite. In SF you seem to have to sit down and eat (i.e. with waiter) to get anything decent, especially vegetables.

The only places you can get burritos are really the Mission and Redwood City. That is one of the main "everyday eating" foods that is made well. They are certainly good, but not something you want to eat super often. There aren't any vegetables to speak of in burritos or tacos.

SOMA, where most startups are, mostly has terrible food (at the everyday eating level), although it has gotten better in the last 5 years now that more people live there.

In NYC you can reliably get good pizza and bagels -- and the pizza is way cheaper than anything in SF. In SF the pizza is generally horrible.

If you compare cheaper restaurants (i.e. with waiter), then it's possible that SF has NY beat (?). But if you are just talking about walking into a place and getting food by yourself, then I think the pizza and bagels of NY has SF easily beat. SF is really many neighborhoods, and the Mission is definitely better in terms of food, but compared with SOMA it seems like there is no contest.

The floor in SF also seems to be really low... if you just walk into a random pizza or (surprisingly) Chinese place, you are pretty likely to be disappointed.

You're speaking of SOMA like you're familiar with the restaurants here. I'm guessing you're not. Perhaps you live here but are too busy coding to make it past the Creamery?

At the "everyday eating level", try Darwin, Little Skillet, Garaje, American Grilled Cheese, Source, Butler and Chef, La Briciola, Coco500, Zuppa, Holy Grill etc.

Want to go a little more upscale? Saisan. Alexanders. 25 Lusk. Prospect. Town Hall. Benu.

C'mon, don't make such broad generalizations unless you can back them up.

Wow, wasn't expecting this level of venom for a harmless comment.

I lived in SOMA from 2002 to 2004, and from 2008 to 2010, so I know what I'm talking about... you do realize all the places you mentioned opened in the "last 5 years" (or have waiters and are not "every day food"), which I explicitly mentioned in my comment?

I'm guessing you don't because you just moved here, and those are the only places in SF you go to.

Now I know why pg wants to moderate comments. HN is really two forums: one for programmers, and one for industry gossip/lifestyle. The threads for programmers are still top notch, but once you venture into the non-technical parts you get randomly bitten by trolls.

Wasn't intended as venomous, just maybe a little bit of a reality check. And offering an opinion (with real examples) to counter your opinion isn't trollism. Plus your comment never said that any restaurants opened in the past 5 years weren't eligible for consideration (?).

I was on SOMA from '04-'06, then again from '08-present. There were some good places back then too. Some failed. Some are still here but aren't as good as they once were. If you haven't been here in 4 years, why are you spending your time claiming you know the SOMA foodie scene? And then getting all angst-y when countered?

I think the situation is reversed when considering Asian food. SF easily ranks behind other west coast cities I know extensively (Honolulu, LA, Seattle) when it comes to Chinese and Japanese food.

The Asian food situation is much better in south bay, but that's an hour from the city and thus limited to weekend excursions.

To be honest, I ate better day to day when I lived in Portland, Oregon than when I lived in SF. Wouldn't know about NY - I've never been there. And I don't know about 'fine dining' options in either PDX or SF, having been in my early 20ies and not gone in for that sort of thing much.

These days, the best eating I do is when the in-laws have a big dinner, with stuff like hand-made tortellini!

Wouldn't shock me, my experience has been most of the food on the west coast is better. A lot of this has to do with how cheap it is to get quality produce compared to the east coast.

But do they have restaurants that serve "comidas Chinas y Latinas"?

" The general ingredient quality just blows NYC away - both meat and produce."

Well, west coast (meaning: access to Australia and some other selling markets), good climate, etc

SF's neighbor to-the-east, The San Joaquin Valley, is "the nation's salad bowl." Which also happens to be home to many cattle and sheep operations.

Access for foreign imports are important for the gourmet scene, but not necessary.

"Virtually all non-tropical crops are grown in the Central Valley, which is the primary source for a number of food products throughout the United States, including tomatoes, almonds, grapes, cotton, apricots, and asparagus." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Valley_(California)

Minor correction: The San Joaquin Valley in the south half of the Central Valley, and The Sacramento Valley is the north half. The dividing line is the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta

It's more that it's in California, which means easy, quick access to fresh produce all year round.

Yes, that's what I meant by "good climate", it wouldn't help being in the WC but in Seattle for example

But the way I wrote it kind of hid the point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com